- Coming up next, a celebration of philanthropy in Greater Detroit.

We're gonna examine the impact of charitable giving in our community in a series of round tables with some of Detroit's top philanthropic leaders.

Plus, a tribute to the people and organizations committed to making life better for others.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy this special program, National Philanthropy Day 2022, presented by the Association of Fundraising Professionals' Greater Detroit chapter.

(bright music) - [Announcer] Support for National Philanthropy Day 2022 is provided by the Kresge Foundation and by these sponsors: Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, Barton Malow Foundation, Beaumont Health, Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, DTE Foundation, Plante Moran, Henry Ford Health, Leader Dogs for the Blind, Non-Profit Personnel Network, the Remington Group, Trinity Health Michigan, Walker-Miller Energy Services, Wayne State University, Autism Alliance of Michigan, College Possible, Cranbrook Educational Community, Delta Dental, Detroit Public Television, Detroit Regional Dollars for Scholars, Detroit Zoological Society, Focus: HOPE, Forgotten Harvest, Hammond & Associates, Hudson-Webber Foundation, Judson Center, Macomb Community College Foundation, Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation, Michigan Humane, Michigan State University, Oakland University, Schoolcraft College Foundation, Vista Maria, and Melissa Weisse.

The Association of Fundraising Professionals' Greater Detroit chapter presents National Philanthropy Day 2022.

(bright music continues) - Good evening.

I'm Stephen Henderson and I am really pleased to be your host for tonight's celebration of philanthropy.

For the past 31 years, the Greater Detroit chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals has recognized National Philanthropy Day by honoring philanthropists, volunteers, and fundraisers.

The group's annual awards gala returned to an in-person gathering this month after a two-year hiatus because of the pandemic.

Plus, AFP Detroit also hosted a series of round tables on the impact of philanthropy and how it's changing with the times.

Detroit Public Television is really proud to partner with AFP for the third year to create the vision for this National Philanthropy Day special.

Over the next 90 minutes, we are gonna bring you portions of these really important round table conversations with the city's top humanitarian leaders.

Plus, we're gonna introduce you to this year's AFP National Philanthropy Day Award recipients.

The breakfast round table was held at the Durfee Innovation Society, which was founded by the nonprofit organization Life Remodeled.

AFP Greater Detroit chapter president, Melissa Weisse, opened the event, followed by remarks from Life Remodeled CEO, Chris Lambert, and AFP National Philanthropy Day co-chair, Steve Ragan.

- Our goal has been to come out of the pandemic and expand the conversation about the many humanitarian voices and philanthropic activity in our community.

Hence, the birth of this event.

And I want to thank our vice president of National Philanthropy Day, Paula Rodriguez.

Paula, if you're here, thank you.

I know you're here somewhere.

(audience applauds) And I want to thank our co-chairs of National Philanthropy Day, Eileen Savage from Cranbrook Educational Community (audience applauds) and Steve Ragan from College Possible.

(audience applauds) - Welcome to the Durfee Innovation Society, home to 39 of Detroit's best and brightest nonprofits who are collaborating to be better together and making lasting impact in the surrounding community.

Some of you today may not know who Life Remodeled is, so I would answer that question, if you were wondering, like this, in that we would say there's a lot of talk but not enough walk when it comes to revitalizing Detroit neighborhoods and we are absolutely convinced that Detroiters have all the talent they need, but many don't have access to all the opportunities they deserve.

And so what Life Remodeled does is we repurpose vacant school buildings into one-stop hubs of opportunity for entire families to thrive.

We fill these buildings with the best and brightest nonprofits who are moving the needle on jobs, youth programs, and health, wellness, and community resources.

And those three categories all came from this community and the students next door when we asked what kinds of increased opportunities do you want?

- In 1986, Ronald Reagan proclaimed November 15th as National Philanthropy Day to recognize donors and volunteers across the country that helped in all of our communities.

Six years later, Detroit started organizing its own celebration and it quickly grew to be one of the largest in the United States.

We had a lot of pride in that event.

Every year our National Philanthropy Day dinner sold out and we honored our community's great leaders, volunteers, and donors.

Two years ago, we realized that we couldn't put on the same sold-out dinner and it gave us a chance to address some tough questions.

We loved the event we were putting on, but we'd always struggled with how we could bring more diverse voices and organizations to the National Philanthropy Day table and how we could also have a deeper discussion about philanthropy.

So we reached out to a number of partners, the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, the Ralph Wilson, Jr. Foundation, the Kresge Foundation, and Detroit Public Television, as well as some of our longtime supporters of National Philanthropy Day, Wayne State University, Beaumont, Plante Moran, and the Non-Profit Personnel Network.

And they helped us come up with an idea to turn National Philanthropy Day into a TV program where we could have a deeper discussion and do more storytelling about the work of the people we were honoring.

This year, we were excited to bring back the dinner, but we also recognized that not all of our non-profits were healthy financially and maybe they couldn't participate in the dinner in the same way they had.

So we wanted to do something that was more open to our membership and the community and we also wanted to still continue that deeper discussion about philanthropy.

And so every, I can't thank everyone enough, the panel and the moderators that have come together, and the sponsors, to make this possible so that National Philanthropy Day is more meaningful and reaches more people.

- The first round table explored the changing role of philanthropy in Greater Detroit.

The panel was moderated by Shawn Wilson of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan, and it featured Wendy Batiste-Johnson from the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, Laura Grannemann with Rocket Community Fund, Dawn Lyman of the Barton Malow Foundation, Angelique Power from the Skillman Foundation, and Terry Rhadigan with General Motors.

- I wanna kick things off because you guys are doing amazing, amazing work in the field.

So I wanna give you a moment to brag on what you're doing.

So we can just start with Laura, work our way down.

But, you know, give us a little, you know, insight into what you're focused on and then brag a little bit about something that you've recently done that you feel is really driving impact.

- So I lead the Gilbert Family Foundation and the Rocket Community Fund.

The Rocket Community Fund is really deeply invested in housing stability here in Detroit and also across the country.

And then we work very collaboratively with the Gilbert Family Foundation to execute a $500 million commitment that we made to the city of Detroit, the people of the city of Detroit, over the course of the next 10 years.

So we're very collaborative together, working towards one bigger-picture vision.

Collectively, we work on stabilizing housing first, and so we look at specifically a group of people who are at risk of displacement in the city of Detroit, either by tax foreclosure or from eviction.

And then we actually stay connected to those families over the course of the next year, two years, three years, and make some follow-on investments based on the data that we see coming out of that group of people.

So I'll give you a great example.

We made an initial investment, a $15 million investment, into paying off the back taxes of low-income homeowners in order to make sure that they could stay in their homes.

This $15 million investment, which we executed back in 2021, has now supported the back taxes of over 8,000 low-income homeowners to this point.

We then were able to stay connected with those families and ask them about some of the other barriers to economic opportunity and success in their home and in their lives.

And the most important thing that those families told us was that they were also struggling with home repair.

And so just about a year later, we made a second large-scale investment, a $20 million investment, into something called the Detroit Home Repair Fund in collaboration with ProMedica and DTE, and believe it or not, just over the course of one week, we received 250,000 phone calls to our Detroit Home Repair Fund hotline.

- Wow.

- So these things are really all tied together and ensuring safe and stable housing as a foundation is one critical component and then staying connected to those families to make sure that they're really holistically supported and able to unlock economic opportunity, I think, is, you know, the two critical steps of this process.

- Fantastic.

Thank you.

Wendy.

- Hi, thank you for having me.

I'm here on behalf of the Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan where we service seven counties in the region and we serve as a liaison, quite frankly, for you, for all of you.

And we service nonprofits and we respond to community needs.

And one of the stories I'd love to share is our response to COVID.

We raised $12 million and granted 10 million of the 12 during the COVID pandemic.

We created funds for health, for arts, and for other community initiatives because we are here to service the community and listen to the needs of the community.

We also, the board approved $100,000 to be given to the Youth Advisory Council, also known as YAC, so that our youth can have a voice during this time and they can then review grants that could be given in communities in the southeast region that impact them and impact the communities.

So I'm very proud to be here to speak about the great work that has been done for so long and that we are committed to continually do.

- Thank you.

Dawn.

- Yes.

Good morning, everyone.

So happy to be here, and thank you for having me.

I am the senior foundation manager for the Barton Malow Foundation.

We're a big construction company.

We're building the Hudson Tower downtown for Bedrock, doing lots of work for everyone mentioned here, DTE, General Motors.

Busy, busy time for us, which is wonderful.

Our foundation is relatively small on this stage.

We give around $500,000 a year, but we try to be as impactful as we possibly can.

Our main focus of giving is workforce development.

Our industry struggles to get people.

It's been a long struggle and it's predicted to be a long time, both in the trades as well as professionally.

So we're trying to take our little budget and do everything we can with it.

And one thing that we are really excited about this year is partnering with two new organizations.

They were the major beneficiaries for our Golf Classic that we had in August and we were able to give both of them $25,000 and it was Women Who Weld and Women in Skilled Trades, both organizations that support our industry.

Excited about that.

I'm really pleased to see organizations out there trying to bring women into this realm and to just diversify our workforce and grow it.

So I'm super excited to be here and learn and share.

- Thank you, Dawn.

Angelique.

- This question makes me uncomfortable (audience laughs) because, you know, we aren't really doing that much besides we have proximity to capital and we're moving it to so many of you.

And I think that COVID actually showed us that institutional philanthropy, that's just one form of philanthropy, that in a heartbeat, nonprofits were setting up mutual aid societies and doing cash assistance and, in some ways, teaching us in institutional philanthropy new forms of being philanthropic.

That said, I'm a good student so I wanna, like, answer the question.

(audience laughs) Skillman Foundation has a 60-plus-year history of being dedicated to Detroit children and youth.

And I've been here for a little over a year and one of the things that I've noticed is that there are these warriors all over this state and inside of different institutions and everyone is working on behalf of Detroit, on behalf of Michigan.

And so I did a listening tour for the first year and met with so many young people.

Wendy mentioned the YACs.

Because of 30 years ago, partnerships with the Southeast Community Foundation as well as Kellogg and the Council of Michigan Foundations, there are youth councils all over the place.

Our youth council, Jeremiah Steen won an award and he's part of our youth council, they've guided us in understanding how we rise to this moment.

They made their own set of grants, $300,000.

They created their own rubrics.

They used rank choice voting to make their decisions.

And we took notes.

Now, how do you do that?

What are you thinking about this?

And we also just did a scan of youth organizers across the state of Michigan.

Young people are brilliant and visionary and activists and so we are interested in figuring out how we tap into them and let them lead us to a better place.

- Thank you.

Terry.

- I represent the men and women of General Motors.

We're headquartered here in the city of Detroit, have been for 111 straight years.

We're very proud of that.

Here with my colleague, our chief philanthropy officer, Lori Wingerter, who's in the audience.

And we focus on, our focus area is really our STEM education vehicle and road safety, community development, and last year, we added a another pillar and that is climate equity to make certain that as we are on our path to an all-electric future that no one gets left behind.

And of course, we have a heavy focus on our hometown and we also have a Justice and Inclusion Fund.

So that's our focus areas.

That's what we do on a global scale.

And something I'm proud of, it's so great to be back at Durfee.

I love this place.

It was about a year ago, just a little over a year ago, that Mary Barra, our chair and CEO, and Mayor Duggan were in the room right across the hall here that used to be the pool and we held a press conference there and announced $50 million for Detroit organizations.

And super proud of that day and proud to say that we are on pace to exceed that $50 million goal just one year into it.

So the other thing I'm proud of that we recently did, also here at Durfee, is we came and delivered laptops, brand-new laptops, to two organizations here on the campus through our partnership with humanIT.

That was just last month.

So again, delighted to be here and look forward to the discussion.

- Thank you.

You know, Chris Lambert mentioned that there's a lot of talk, but not always the folks walking the talk when it comes to neighborhood revitalization.

Many of you are investing in that.

I know Laura and Terry, you know, specifically, you guys have made some big bets on neighborhood investment recently.

So Laura, can you speak to what's the end game?

How do you know that you're successful with your investments in neighborhoods?

- Well, I think that the end game is a city that works for everyone regardless of background, income, race, et cetera.

And for us, we feel that there's an opportunity here in the city of Detroit to build a different type of city that doesn't fall into some of the traps of cities across the United States around gentrification or displacement.

There's really an opportunity today, right here, right now, to encourage and catalyze wealth building opportunities through home ownership, through entrepreneurship and business ownership, to allow all Detroiters to really grow wealth as the city continues to expand.

And so, you know, again, we start, our focus is on preventing displacement, either displacement due to property tax foreclosure or to eviction, but that's not where we end.

We then stay connected to those families and we learn from them.

And I think just as Angelique was talking about, right, that people in the neighborhoods are the most adept at being able to say what they need and where they're struggling or where they're succeeding.

And so empowering that, giving voice to that, and then listening to that and resourcing it through some of our systemic investments in arts and culture and public space and in entrepreneurship and economic opportunity.

- Thank you.

Terry, just to build off that, so how can, you know, funders connect the work, right, from the neighborhoods to Downtown, Midtown?

So, you know, sometimes the work seems disconnected.

You know, we're investing over here and then we're investing over here.

But how can funders actually connect the work so that it doesn't stop what's been happening in Downtown, Midtown, 'cause that's important, but at the same time, you're investing in the neighborhoods, what's the connection there?

- You know, just a few years ago, we had what I think was a very innovative idea, collaborating with the Detroit Regional Chamber and created a program called NeighborHUB.

And NeighborHUB is an application process for folks to go in and request grants of up to $30,000.

They know what is needed best in their neighborhood.

So it's folks come in, they apply through the chamber, it's funded by General Motors, and we have had four years now of unfettered success as it relates to programs, initiatives, everything from, you know, rebuilding the organ at the Senate Theater to amazing activities that are happening in Midtown.

We've given away through that process, I think, $1.3 million in just a few years.

So that's a way for smaller organizations that might not fit exactly within our focus areas to still make an application to GM indirectly through the chamber.

And we're actually in the midst of the current process.

So you can go into, through the chamber, go into the NeighborHUB portal and you can apply there.

- Thank you.

I wanna switch a little bit to equity.

So I'm gonna ask a number of questions around equity and I really wanna start with the youth voice, you know, at the center.

So of course, Angelique, I'm gonna start with you on this one.

You know, so what does authentic youth voice look like?

That's kind of the first part of the question.

And then the second part is, what's the pipeline, what's the progression model?

So, you know, I was actually, I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

I was that youth advocate.

I was that youth voice person.

But when I look back, so many of my peers did not progress in the industry, in the field, long term.

So, you know, how do we create a pipeline so that that talent, the young man that you mentioned, that that talent, that they continue on to become leaders on this stage and leaders in the room?

What is Skillman doing to feed that pipeline and create that pipeline of talent?

- Thank you, Shawn.

You know, there are so many ways to nourish young people and, you know, so much of it has to do with school and what happens during the school day, and a lot of it has to do with after school and out of school and having lots of opportunities and spaces in different neighborhoods where you can go and you can participate.

So I think the progression is actually pouring into young people from birth through, you know, career, and there are so many different ways to do that.

And then there are also these gaps between how we tend to pour into young people in early childhood and then there's sort of a gap that happens with K through 12, then there's lots of out of school time and after school time that, frankly, is underfunded and is such a key ingredient to supplementing what happens during the school day.

And then there's a gap and then there's college and career and entrepreneurship and all of those things.

So a part of what we think about at Skillman is, like, how do we actually map out the progression and then notice where there are gaps where people are falling out?

The other thing I'll say is that Generation Z, which is born in '97 through 2012, so age 10 to 25, we don't really have to design youth voice for them.

They are authentic advocates for themselves.

They're a really interesting generation and there's so many of them.

Detroit is a young city.

The median age here is 34.

And for Generation Z, they are 48% folks of color, one in five identify as LGBTQIA+, one in three know someone who's gender non-binary, and they are the integrity generation.

They will stand up to corporations.

This week, Adidas dropped Kanye for antisemitic comments.

That isn't because Adidas, like, grew a moral compass.

(audience laughs) No shade to Adidas.

But it's because young people said, "No.

That's not the type of organization, company, institution, government office that we want."

And so I think that it's our obligation to nourish and nurture and recognize youth voice and youth power and, in some cases, get out of the way.

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

(audience applauds) So Wendy, let me ask you this, you know, the interesting thing about the marketplace, right, especially youth serving marketplace, if you will, is that there's often a chasm or a rift between large nonprofits and small nonprofits.

There's almost this competition, right, between the two orgs, which I think gets in the way of collective impact.

So what can funders do to help bridge that divide between large organizations and small organizations so that it's equitable funding for all?

- Great question.

I think that we need to encourage collaboration.

That's one thing that I absolutely admire and appreciate about the Community Foundation, is that we are a vehicle for collaboration and, you know, we are stronger together.

And so I think that we need to encourage it, we need to speak more to our peers about the needs in the community because you'd be oftentimes surprised that what you're doing someone else has already done and perhaps you can learn from someone else.

And I want to touch back, not to ignore your question, but I wanna get back to Angelique and what she shared about the youth.

I just think it's just so powerful and impactful to uplift the youth voice.

And I have to call out, again, the Youth Advisory Council and their response after the Oxford shooting.

It was immediate and they wanted to be involved and they wanted to be involved in creating funding for programs that supported high schools, not only Oxford, but high schools throughout the entire region.

And that is the youth driving this initiative.

And it's just, it's a testament to what's to come, right?

Us making space for the next generation, which also opens the door to collaboration, right?

And so I am encouraged by that and I think that we in philanthropy should be encouraged by that.

- Absolutely.

Thank you.

So Dawn, can you drill on that question a little bit more?

The small nonprofits, the large nonprofits.

You know, what are some things funders can do to, you know, to help bridge that divide so that we can have stronger collective impact in the city?

- Sure, I think collaboration, like you said, is key.

There are so many organizations with similar missions running so hard, working so hard to make a difference alongside other organizations running so hard, working so hard to make a difference.

And together, we can be so much stronger, and our roles as funders are to help connect the dots, right?

We talk about, you know, the initial meeting or the initial requests for funds.

Often we have to say no, right?

We all have limited budgets.

But I'll always take an initial meeting with a nonprofit so that I can learn about who's doing what and eventually maybe we'll be able to partner directly with them or support them with donations or volunteers.

But usually, at some point, we can help them connect dots.

So I think that's part of our job and mission is to help all of you to know each other and to partner and collaborate.

- Throughout the program tonight, we are gonna recognize the 2022 AFP National Philanthropy Day Award recipients.

These are the people and organizations that are making a huge difference in the lives of southeast Michigan residents in a variety of ways.

Here's our first group of honorees.

(upbeat music) - When I first met Carla Walker-Miller, she had recently become a supplier to DTE Energy and asked if I could mentor and coach her.

Of course I said yes to Carla and it wasn't long before Carla was my teacher and coach.

She helped opened my eyes to the systemic challenges that smaller minority-owned, women-owned businesses face.

- I'm so impressed with how she has handled her family, her time, her community service.

She doesn't mince words, she's very gracious, and because of that, people really listen when she speaks.

- She has constantly reminded us that while these challenges exist for people with disabilities, the challenges for people of color on top of having a disability are even greater and it's really driven a lot of our work and our strategic framework over the next 10 years.

- I think there's so few impact organizations in the Detroit area that haven't been touched by her influence, and I think that's just amazing.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) - The Dresner Foundation's been an incredible partner.

They first started funding us in 2018 and they've been a great partner ever since then.

The Dresner Foundation has specifically helped us employ additional individuals from shelters across the city of Detroit.

During COVID, they were one of the first foundations to step up and unrestrict their gift and they really just understand the full breadth of the work that we do.

They've supported both our programmatic initiatives as well as sponsoring the sleeping bag coats that we make and distribute globally.

- They are a really important part of this community, a really important part of the philanthropy space, and just for us personally, a big part of why we're able to do the work that we do.

- You know, you might not hear their name as frequently as some other foundations, but they are doing really important work for the communities that they serve and they really understand the needs and allow the people that work within these organizations to do the work that they need to do to achieve their missions.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) - They are instrumental in golf outing every year in the School of Engineering and Computer Science where we, over seven years, we generated over $1.5 million to support student scholarship.

If any student, low-income family, regardless of their gender or where they come from, if they qualify for the Pell Grant, they can come to Oakland University School of Engineering and Computer Science free tuition and room and board, and this is because of that golf outing.

DTE is not just a utilities company for gas and electricity.

I really think they do a lot for the city of Detroit.

They do a lot for the local communities.

And without DTE, I cannot afford scholarship for our student or the student guarantee for the Pell Grant recipient to go free tuition and room and board at Oakland.

(upbeat music continues) - National Philanthropy Day recognizes the great contributions of philanthropy to the enrichment of our world.

Our next round table examined the unique ways charitable giving impacts Detroit nonprofits.

Focus: HOPE's Portia Roberson moderated the discussion with panelists Carmen Argersinger from Delta Dental, Lynette Dowler of the DTE Foundation, Peter Remington of the Remington Group, and Tawnya Rose with Fifth Third Bank.

- One of the things we've been talking about is how this is still a little bit of a celebration of philanthropy.

So let's start off with some good news.

What are some of the recent examples of the impact your work is having with nonprofit communities in Detroit?

What are some of the things that you feel like you're doing well and what partners do you wanna shout out?

And I'll start at the end down there.

- Golly, it's really hard to pick any specific organizations in the city.

We work with so many, including Focus: HOPE, which we cherish our relationship with you.

- [Portia] No pressure, no pressure.

(laughs) - La Sed, Detroit Means Business.

You know, I think one of the pride points for the DTE Foundation, I was just sharing this with some of my colleagues here, is we just made a grant to all 45 domestic violence shelters in the state of Michigan.

And... (audience applauds) Thank you.

We've invested over $2 million with supporting domestic violence survivors and just really proud of that work.

And oftentimes the individuals that are in that situation and the organizations that support them, they just don't get a ton of support.

So really proud of that work and happy to help all 45 of those shelters.

- Thank you.

Tawnya.

- So what I'm super excited about is Fifth Third made a $32 billion commitment initially just prior to COVID, and when COVID hit, we were able to increase that commitment to $40.6 billion to really fill in a lot of the gaps that we didn't really think were there and they got uncovered by COVID.

And it was really exciting that Fifth Third was able to step up and spread that around the community.

But in addition, we got our fair share in Detroit.

And in part of that, we participated in the Strategic Neighborhood Fund where we adopted a neighborhood called G7 and we really were able to work with all of those community partners, like LifeBUILDERS, Wayne Metro, Accounting Aid Society, and really wrap our arms around that particular community, and we're still doing that, and I'm super excited with the progress that we're making over in G7.

- Thank you.

- At Delta Dental, we're particularly excited right now about our new partnership with Michigan Humane and their Healthy Communities initiative.

That program started during the pandemic when they recognized that there was the opportunity to impact the health of humans in the community, the pet owners, while they were caring for their pets.

We worked with them to help bring in services for people, dental screenings and other health services.

And during that time, they realized that really there was the opportunity to impact the overall health of a community through the lens of pet ownership.

And we're really excited about how that has grown and excited to see how it continues.

- I'm in a little bit of an awkward, excuse me, a little bit of an awkward situation because it's like picking your prettiest child.

(Portia laughs) We have a lot of clients that do incredible things throughout the community.

And I'm even more awkward because my longest standing client is the moderator, Focus: HOPE, (Portia laughs) which obviously does incredible work.

But let me talk about one specifically, especially because we're here at Durfee.

This weekend is an open house for the Detroit Promise.

They have been a client.

Governor Snyder, Dennis Muchmore, I, Steve Hamp, started it 12 years ago with an education program and then morphed it into Detroit Promise.

One of the things that is so exciting about this weekend is that we're having this open house here at Durfee.

We have now put 6,000 kids through the Detroit Promise program, which is technical training, two-year or four-year.

And so it is one of our many children that we service within the group.

But I would just say this, one of the things that's important when we look at our clients is our clients have to have a very strong mission and one that we believe in.

So I think it, I always wake up every morning in great gratitude for what we do.

- Thank you.

All of you all hit on this a little bit about some of the changes that happened during the pandemic.

And Peter, I know you've seen many, many transitions at Focus: HOPE over the years.

But what are some of the lessons that you all learned as grant makers during the pandemic that will probably carry on, that you think will be necessary in the future?

- Because of my, I'll put it mildly, longevity in the business, (Portia laughs) five decades, I've watched this town go through a little bit of everything.

I started in the business in '72, five years after the riots, and watched what was happening in Detroit.

And I've watched it go through recessions, auto strikes, the Great Recession of '08 and '09, and then the pandemic.

And guess what's always consistent about Detroit is they're there to give.

So what happened in a pandemic, the CEO of DTE made calls and raised an incredible amount of money and got thousands and thousands of iPads for students within Detroit, and so many of the funders participated in.

This town comes together when there's a problem and we're about to go into, according to CNBC and everybody else, we're gonna go into a recession.

We're in very volatile political times.

But you know what?

Philanthropy will always be strong in this city.

- That's exactly what I was gonna say, Peter.

Like, the learning coming out of COVID, really three, one is the power of philanthropy working together.

The example of the 50,000 laptops for DPSCD, standing up Detroit Means Business, providing, you know, masks and hand sanitizer all across our city.

There's just so many examples of how the collaboration of philanthropy is secret sauce in our city in a huge, huge, huge way.

The second thing that I would say is we've shifted to a much more flexible grant-making process, I believe, and we've shifted to more general operations grants because only you as nonprofits know how you need to invest your money and where your pain points are.

So we've shifted to more gen ops grants to help the organizations.

(audience applauds) - I think we all appreciate that.

(laughs) - Yeah, and then the last thing, and I'm not gonna say this is the most important thing, but I think it's the thing that we cannot let go of in our philanthropy was really focused on social justice.

And the thing that I was really worried, I don't want us to, like, jump in and then step back.

Like, we were very purposeful in really dissecting our process to make sure that we have social justice built into our, and DEI built into our process from start to finish so that there won't be episodic investments, but there will be consistent and purposeful investments in that space.

- I think that's huge because so many of us saw, in the nonprofit space, promises being made about what we were gonna do going forward after the murder of George Floyd and there's been some concern and some questions about whether those promises have been met.

And so I'd like to have you answer whether you think those promises have been met or what are the next actions that need to take place in order to keep giving to those organizations that do that kind of work and that are in that space?

- Yeah, I can only speak for our organization is we keep pushing.

We keep pushing to assure the promises are met.

And sometimes it's just as much, it's just enough to ask organizations how you're doing, what are you doing?

And I think that some of the work, you know, like Hudson-Webber is helping lead a really significant initiative around social justice.

We can't do, like, one shot here and one shot there.

Like, let's work on it holistically, and I think that'll make the difference from a longstanding perspective.

- And some of the things that we've done that is quite unique, we have selected members from our nonprofit agencies to go to Harvard University to study a little bit, and not just to Harvard, but to Case Western.

There's several different organizations that we have selected key members to participate in a two-year program and we're investing in those organizations so they can bring back the knowledge that they've learned right to our community.

And we had six different nonprofits in the city of Detroit.

So we always make sure that we get our fair share in Detroit and I'm super excited to see what they're gonna bring back to our community and really make an impact and a difference.

The digital divide through COVID was absolutely earth-shattering for everyone.

Technical assistance was something else that we knew that small businesses needed.

You know, if people were able to get the PPP, that's one thing, but then there was a huge gap of small business owners that weren't able to get the ppp.

And at Fifth Third, we realize that they're the backbone of our community and what makes us really go around and so we really wrapped our arms around that and made sure that we gave out different grants to our different microlenders to make sure we got funding to folks that really need it.

And not just during COVID, but even with the pending recession, we're already starting to develop programs to continue making sure that they're ready for that.

- I think one of the things that we saw during the pandemic was increased and better communications with our nonprofit organizations.

I mean, let's be honest, in the beginning, none of us knew what we were doing and so we were reaching out to all of our nonprofits to say, "Okay, what are you doing and how can we help you?"

And what we heard from that I think shaped definitely our approach during the pandemic, but I think also moving forward, and that was that they needed a little bit of grace.

They needed a little bit of understanding on what staff size looks like and what they're capable of doing in terms of both the application process and the reporting on the back end.

And so that allowed us to look at what are we asking for, especially in the reporting.

Certainly, we need to know, what are you doing?

You know, is it working?

Are our dollars being used in the best way?

But what are we doing with all of the questions that we're asking?

Do we need all of that information?

And could we maybe make the reporting and the application processes a little bit more streamlined?

Especially during the pandemic when we knew that many of you lost staff and you had one person wearing five hats.

So I think that, you know, that was a big change and I think we've taken that knowledge and tried to carry that forward even as we're coming out of the pandemic, staff is increasing.

But, you know, do we need to go back to those larger reporting forms and application processes?

Maybe not.

- You've highlighted on a really important issue that I know probably many of us have faced is that is how we work going forward, right?

Because we got so used to working remotely, bringing back staff, how many days are appropriate, whether anyone wants to come back five days a week and whether anyone will come back five days a week.

And so I'm wondering from a grant-making perspective, are you considering the idea that many of the nonprofits need to be supported in the IT and HR space?

Because we're gonna continue to need to build up those resources so we can operate in a very different way than we did three years ago.

So if you could give some thoughts on that.

- That's a huge question.

I think we're still settling out.

I think we're still settling out in the space of what does it look like with return to work.

And one of the things that I advocate regularly and my staff probably gets tired of hearing about it is our job not to be to sit in the office and look at each other.

Our job is to be out with all of you.

And so in a sense, COVID has really, I think, been a springboard for making sure that our teams settle in in your shops visiting with you and talking with our teams as opposed to being in our shop working with one another every single day.

So I think it's gonna continue to be a hybrid.

I would also say with respect to, with respect to needs of organizations, nonprofits, that need places to work, it seems as if there are so many co-locating flexible locations, but we haven't created a nice web to know where all of them are and I think that's something that we need to really think about, is how do we get some kind of a process so that we can see where all the co-locating opportunities are so that just makes it easier for the nonprofits to move in and work in that space?

- Peter, you wanna address that a little bit, just grant making in terms of when you're talking to funders about the need for them to fund nonprofits in the IT/HR space.

- Sure, you know, I think that it really comes down to, is it affecting impact?

Many of our clients are in service delivery, so therefore, the virtual versus the in-person only is important if the impact of those services are affected.

And I think that the funders are really very good at understanding, you know, that didactic, that as long as the service is being delivered, the idea of virtual or in-person is less important, at least that's what I thought.

- Interesting.

We know that at Focus: HOPE, oftentimes people wanna come down and visit our nonprofit.

They wanted to see it.

Prior to the pandemic, we did a lot of tours.

We had people come in.

Particularly with our funders, our funders would call and say, "We wanna come down and see your operations and see what goes on down there."

We haven't been able to really do that in the last three years.

And so how have you been working to build relationships with places and with non-profits that you may be making grants to where you haven't been able to see their operations, touch and feel their operations?

I'll start with you.

- So for me, we've done a lot of phone calls, a lot of Zoom calls, a lot of WebEx.

So I've been very familiar with all of those platforms because we had no choice but to get used to that.

And I think in this space, we've become more flexible.

So I think we're gonna continue to do a combination of both.

Whatever works for our clients or our community partners.

We're always working to keep them at the center.

And at the end of the day, whatever works, we're willing to do it.

- [Portia] Thank you.

- If I can build on what Tawnya said, I think exactly right, whatever works.

You know, we've tried to be very conscious of what is the capacity of the nonprofits that we're working with.

And I have had some really fun Zoom calls with people doing a virtual tour of facilities and taking their laptop around, showing us what it, you know, what they're doing.

But, you know, we've also spoken to some of them and said, "Please do not waste your precious time putting together a 20-slide PowerPoint to show me what your organization is doing."

If that exists, please, by all means send it and we can go through that.

But, you know, we're here to help you.

We're not here to create unnecessary work.

And I think that in this room, we have a tremendous number of really great storytellers and oftentimes if we can't get into your facility, your storytelling abilities paint that picture for us.

- I know, again, at Focus: HOPE, we rely so much on volunteers, right?

They come down, they help us with our food boxes, they deliver for us.

I mean, we're in a space that was built on volunteerism.

But all of that changed during the pandemic.

People could, again, not come down to Focus: HOPE or many other places to do that volunteer work and corporate volunteerism was huge for us.

And so I answered many questions over the course of the pandemic from Crain's and other places about what was the hit that we were taking with corporate volunteerism.

What are you all seeing?

Are you seeing people start to return to wanting to do that?

Because it wasn't us just that benefited, the corporations benefited in the sense that many of their staff and colleagues wanted to do this work and looked forward to their day of service.

And so what are you seeing in terms of people coming back and wanting to get more involved in that?

Are you starting to see people come back?

- Yeah, volunteerism is run out of my organization, so I get to see the metrics every single week.

Our aspiration is to have 5,000 of our employees out volunteering every year.

We're at 3,640 year to date We're coming onto the holiday season, so we'll be doing a ton of volunteering over the holiday season.

So what we're seeing at DTE is our employees wanna get out there, they are getting out there, and our nonprofits are hungry for their support.

I would also say a really big shift for us in volunteerism is we're not doing as much in person.

There are a lot of organizations that need things put together for them that we can gather up all the products and package them up in our shops and send them to them or write letters to seniors or check in with seniors in a remote sort of way, as well as troubled youth.

We write letters to troubled youth to encourage them and inspire them.

So I think, I know that our vision around volunteerism used to be, like, probably 95% hands-on in the shop.

It's probably shifted to 70% hands-on in the shop and 30% kit builds and reaching out either electronically, with mail, or phone calls to individuals that could use a voice checking in on them.

- Great.

And I know Delta Dental has come down a number of times to Focus: HOPE as well, so I'll have you speak on that a little bit too.

Are you seeing more people wanting to come back down and volunteer or are you still doing some things remote?

- We definitely are seeing a return to in-person volunteering.

Volunteering is really at the heart of our company culture, and for a year, we had people calling saying, "Is it time?

Can we go back?

Can we do it?

Is it still virtual?

Can we do anything in person yet?"

And so we were really excited to be able to start offering those in-person events.

And we are looking at our highest level of volunteering in 2022 in company history, which I think is fantastic.

Most of that has been in person.

We've had great responses to things like the Life Remodeled Six Day Project.

But we do also have some folks that do the virtual volunteering.

We've had some great responses to people doing things with Junior Achievement where they've gone into classrooms virtually and talked to the kids about their careers and the pathway to get there.

So we've tried to offer a wide variety of those volunteer events, but we have had a tremendous response to that.

- And of course, Fifth Third, I can't not shout you guys out as well.

- And so for us, that is directly in my wheelhouse with corporate programming.

And so during the pandemic, we were considered essential workers.

So we worked through that entire experience and we did a lot of virtual activities at that time.

A lot of it was providing technical assistance to small business owners or working with our community partners on loan committees and different things like that.

So we had a lot of activity going on and volunteering in a virtual sense and doing workshops online.

But now we've definitely switched back to in person.

We had our Empower Mobile for the first time.

We call it short for our eBus, where we bring financial literacy to the underbanked and talk about affordable housing or small business and we just take the bus to different LMI or low-to-moderate-income communities.

And it was super exciting to get out and have our employees be engaged with the community, as well as we participated in the Life Remodeled event.

So we're definitely seeing a large uptick in in-person activities and volunteerism, but we still have the window open for virtual volunteerism as well.

- [Portia] Great.

- At the beginning of this program, we recognized the major sponsors that made this year's AFP National Philanthropy Day events possible.

We wanna take a moment now to recognize the additional companies, people, and organizations that contributed to this celebration of philanthropy.

(bright music) Now let's continue our tribute to this year's AFP National Philanthropy Day honorees and the impact they have made in the community.

Here is our next group of award recipients.

(upbeat music) - Today we're gonna be talking about one of our wonderful volunteers and fund raisers and a past board chair, John Carter.

- I met John Carter through working here at Forgotten Harvest.

He has been a longtime board member.

He's one of the best persons you'll ever meet.

- Mr. Carter has always said, "Yes, how can I help?"

- John is one of those people who, while it probably is as tough as for him as it is for everybody else, he's never shown any hesitation of putting his ego to the side and putting his neck on the line to ask somebody to come a step closer to a cause that he believes in.

It's been a true gift and honor to not even, to not only, like, work next to John, but actually to witness a man of his stature sitting at a business table and making decisions.

- Forgotten Harvest is indebted to Mr. Carter and his family for their service.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) - Well, I first met Dave, remarkably, over two decades ago.

I was a medical staff leader here at St. Joe's and he had just joined the development staff as director of major gifts.

Was just struck by who he was and his ability to relate to people.

- The one project that immediately comes to mind is our most recent couple years where we entered into the pandemic and everything shut down.

You know, Dave and the team looked at it and said, "How can we as fund raisers help in this situation?"

Well, we had donors out there who wanted to help get us protective equipment.

We had colleagues who had lost their jobs and needed assistance.

So immediately, Dave and the team mobilized all their fundraising efforts to raise funds for those two initiatives, and very successfully.

- He led the number one department in the country.

- [Rob] People trust Dave.

He follows through on his word and he cares about the needs of the donor as much as he cares about the needs of the organization.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) - Jeremiah is a product of the plethora of Detroit youth who want to actively see change and who are actively working towards that on a day in, day out.

- Jeremiah Steen is a key collaborator and thought partner of mine.

Every room, Zoom room or in real life room, Jeremiah enters, he makes the conversation more thoughtful, he brings fresh, innovative ideas, and he constantly lifts the moral compass of any project that he works on.

- He's just always there and I can count on him at every beck and call to, you know, help out and just be the leader that he is.

It just comes naturally to him and he's not doing it for glitz and glamour.

- Jeremiah has a pure heart for this work.

You know, I can tell this is work he's been doing for a long time.

(upbeat music continues) - Our last round table tonight was inspired by AFP Detroit's IDEA Committee.

Now, IDEA stands for inclusion, diversity, equity, and access, and the chapter has long promoted these values in the nonprofit community and the fundraising profession.

Carla Young from the Cranbrook Educational Community led the discussion with panelists Tanya Griffith of Oakland University, Dustin McClellan from the Pontiac Community Foundation, Melissa Pena with the Detroit Institute of Arts, and Regina Sharma from the Detroit Justice Center.

- So I'd like to start having our panelists share with you their stories from an educational institution, an art museum, a community foundation, and legal services and advocacy organization, and to speak a little bit about the journey in IDEA in your organization and your own work that you're doing in those organizations.

How have those principles been a part of your journey?

- My journey, in short, starts with graduating from a high school in the city of Detroit.

I was born from teenage parents and I was literally the first one to graduate from high school in my family.

And now I have a daughter who's completed her first year of PhD as a statistician.

So I saw firsthand inequities, and while I was in high school, education became so important to me.

Abject poverty was something I didn't want.

I couldn't dance, I couldn't act, couldn't sing, any of the things, I wasn't athletic, but I was smart and I knew getting an education would get me out of poverty.

So I've transitioned into a higher education institution because someone believed in me.

Someone said, "You should go to college."

College was not on my radar.

Graduating high school was.

But because someone saw something in me and encouraged me to go to college, I did that.

So I have to give back to address the inequities and to address the disparities in education, and that's what we're doing at Oakland University through various mechanisms.

We're investing our, partnering with organizations and companies and corporations to invest dollars into creating equitable spaces for students of color and students from diverse backgrounds, from the LGBTQIA community, from the indigenous population.

We really need to create a sense of belonging.

So we're gonna talk a little bit about what those investments look like and what those partnerships look like from the standpoint of donor relations, donor retention, and corporate engagement.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

- I am a career fundraising professional.

I have had the distinct pleasure to have a career that has really been informed by helping to improve the quality of life for all Detroiters in our community.

Early in my career working in youth and economic development to about a decade working in higher education and healthcare, and now most recently, about a year and a half ago, it's been such an incredible pleasure to help found the development department for the Detroit Justice Center.

And the Detroit Justice Center is a racial justice-focused community law firm.

We are guided by the belief that we cannot address and help create a more just Detroit without addressing issues of mass incarceration.

And we do that through a three-pronged approach we call defense, offense, and dreaming.

The defensive prong of our work is addressing fees, fines, warrants, all of the things that are really keeping Detroiters shut out of the economy.

And then we go on offense with our economic equity practice and that is where we are shoring up all of the incredible freedom dreams that Detroiters have been coming up with for decades.

Things like worker-owned cooperatives and community land trust.

And then the dreaming part of our work is helping to fulfill all of these dreams we have for our community as freedom dreamers.

We know that it is not enough to just talk about what we are tearing down in terms of mass incarceration, but also to focus on what we are building up and helping to pilot solutions that are replicable across the country.

Things like restorative justice and divest invest work.

And so one of the reasons that I'm here with you today is really to talk about what we have done at DJC.

We are Black-led, we are women-led, we are queer-led.

Our staff reflect the diversity of our community.

And so some might assume that by nature of the diversity of our makeup that these issues don't impact us in the same way.

But the reality is, we know in all of our organizations that white supremacy finds a way to show up.

We know that in all of our organizations that bias exists, that prejudice exists.

And so really looking forward to talking with you more about how we've addressed some of those challenges internally in our culture, but also in how we show up for the community.

- I've worked in the HR space for about 20 years now, and throughout my career, I've always had a passion for making sure that, as employers, we can create the best employee experience for our team regardless of their background and really making sure that we are allowing them to contribute with all of their talents and their diverse backgrounds to the mission of the organization.

I've worked in nonprofits my entire career.

Really unique at the Detroit Institute of Arts, when I started there four years ago, the team had already started on their IDEA journey, but one of the things that I noticed early on was that we needed more structure in that to be able to move that forward for our team, and also look at how that would impact the visitor experience for the visitors who come to the Detroit Institute of Arts.

And so early on, I don't know if I was voluntold or if I asked for the responsibility, but wanted to really put some structure around that work and we put together an IDEA steering committee to help guide that work.

We chartered that committee so that they would understand what their roles and responsibilities were.

And we also hired an inclusion, diversity, equity, and access director, and we talked about that a lot on where that would live and so that position sits within the talent and culture team and partners very closely across the organization.

But the structure is really helping us to be able to solidify the work and ingrain it in our culture and really make sure that we are doing things that are sustainable and I'm really excited about sharing some of those with you today.

- And Carla, you mentioned our stories.

You know, when I am so blessed and privileged to be on a stage like this, I can't help but think about where my journey really started and that was when I was seven years old as a young person living on the east side of Pontiac in a very challenging environment.

Single-parent home, exposure to all of the economic and substance abuse challenges you can imagine.

And it was a local community-based, faith-based program that through mentorship, after school/weekend programs, literally changed the trajectory of my life.

And I wouldn't be on this stage if it wasn't for that organization and also for those early moments.

Fast-forward, I had the privilege of serving as director of that program for eight years and working very intimately with children and families throughout Pontiac, but also I think realizing the real challenges I navigated as a young person, you know, realized these overarching systemic issues that our community has faced for a really long time.

And so that's what led us to launch the Pontiac Community Foundation four and a half, almost five years ago, with the mission of building a brighter future for Pontiac by engaging philanthropy, leadership, and collaboration to tackle Pontiac's most pressing issues.

- Let's dive into a little bit of the how.

How have these values, inclusion, diversity, equity, and access, shown up in the structures in your work, in your organizations?

What does it look like in each of your organizations?

- I can share that it has several layers, right?

So we're talking internal in terms of at Oakland University.

We understood that our student body is growingly, increasingly diverse, right?

So we want to create a sense of belonging for our students, and not only students, but within your workplace, you wanna create a sense of belonging.

So what does those investments look like?

That means that students have a space where they can be their authentic selves.

Same thing for the workplace.

Is there a space where I can be my authentic self?

A lot of corporations come to us, obviously, our work product is our students, the graduation of our students.

Our students at Oakland University, over 90% of them remain within southeastern Michigan, which means they're investing in the economy.

So those companies, they come to us to recruit our students.

Well, my question to the companies are, what does your BBL look like?

Not your Brazilian butt lift.

Your budget, your board, (audience laughs) and your leadership.

What does that look like?

Is your board diverse and reflective of the community you serve?

Do you have a budget line item filtered directly to inclusion, diversity, equity, and access?

Is your leadership reflective?

Even if you're recruiting our students at the ground level, is there a pathway to the C-suite?

So all of those mechanisms play a factor in the investment, and I've been fundraising for a really long time, not gonna say, but a very, very long time, but the conversations are almost always leading with diversity, equity, inclusion, and access.

Regardless of the programming, regardless of what you're looking for funding for.

It's always leading with that piece.

- [Carla] Thank you.

- So at- - Oh, go ahead, yeah.

- At the DIA, we have had a very unique opportunity to incorporate inclusion, diversity, equity, and access throughout our entire organization.

It's included in our updated strategic plan.

It's included in our core values, our job descriptions, our performance reviews, our recruitment process.

So we've been very intentional to incorporate the principles of IDEA, the competencies of IDEA in everything that we do, so that our team really understands that this is something that is important to the organization and it's also something that we're gonna hold everyone accountable to.

And we have a relatively large employee base.

We typically hover around 350 employees, and some people are brand new and some people have been there for 40 years, and everyone is at a different point in their IDEA journey, both personally and professionally.

And it's important for us as an organization to make sure that we've put the systems in place so that everyone understands what the expectations are for them around inclusion, diversity, equity, and access.

- Thank you.

- One of the things we talk about a lot as a movement-based organization is we have to figure out ways to sustain ourselves in order to be in this work for the long haul.

It's high burnouts.

There are a lot of impacts from our attorneys and social workers of secondary trauma.

And so what are we doing internally to assure that we're caring for our team and embedding those concepts of IDEA?

So some of you may also be familiar with the acronym JEDIB.

And so similar to IDEA, but it's justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging.

And so one of the things that we did over the last year is to implement a really law-informed JEDIB policy, 26 pages of text that is not just a document, but really something that we live our values by, that everyone who is part of the organization hasn't just read this and signed it and, you know, sort of passed it along and, you know, filed in the back of the memory, but it's something that we all abide by and live our true values through every day.

And acknowledging, also, that, you know, as many organizations, as we were talking about in the green room today, suddenly in the last few years, everybody has a chief diversity officer, right?

Where were those people?

You know, where are those people who've been doing this work for decades like Carla?

And so we want to acknowledge that, hey, even in our work, even in our work as focusing on supporting justice-involved clients, that we were late to the game.

We were a four-and-a-half-year-old organization and we just implemented our JEDIB policy a year and a half ago.

And so acknowledging, too, to our clients, to our internal staff, that we all have work to be done in this space is really critical.

- [Carla] Thank you.

- Yeah, I think the interesting thing about our organization is because we are so young, we have the ability to develop and create a brand-new culture and a culture that meets the community and the world we're serving in the midst of.

And I think that when we talk about IDEA, it's easy to assume that a Black-led organization probably has it figured out.

And the reality is we have to work just as hard as every other organization to ensure that there's equitable access and inclusion for everybody.

And that is not just at a staff level, but it's also at a board level, it's at a donor level.

And I can feel our vice president of development, Sommer Brock, coming through me right now, but ensuring that everyone has a chance to be a donor and not just those that have a high net worth, but everybody can be a donor.

Hearing from our community.

Every person, not just the loud voices, but those that customarily are not at the table.

And so all of those inputs inform who we are as an organization and who we desire to be as an organization.

And if I can just add, it's an open conversation and dialogue.

So we're continually having these conversations.

It's not just a policy or not just something that's on a sheet of paper, but it's something we talk about so that it's a culture we're living by as an organization.

- Hmm.

Thank you.

Wow.

So thinking about these documents in place, these values articulated, this culture being developed and generated in your organizations, have you seen any benefits and/or any specific pitfalls that you've surfaced and you can share with us?

- A few benefits, well, quite a few benefits is the increase in the companies and Oakland University paying attention to the diverse students.

They're allowed to hear their voice.

What happens most of the time and where I see there needs to be marked improvement is that inclusion, diversity, equity, and access needs to become embedded within an organization and not just in addition to.

It needs to be a part of your mission, your company mission, your organization's mission, not just, okay, these are our side goals and this is the mission of that goal, because everything you do leads to the mission of the organization.

So I think there is, like, really some work to be done across all levels here when it comes to that.

We didn't arrive here overnight, and we won't get out of this overnight.

What I fear is that a lot of the talk and the engagement is very performative.

We had the murder of George Floyd and then everybody instantly reacted.

Well, this has been going on longer than anybody in this room.

And so what we should not do and what we need to think about is take a step back, is this performative?

We mentioned chief diversity officers.

It's a buzzword now.

Well, we all are chief diversity officers if we're talking to talk and walking the walk.

So there is some work to be done, I would say, across industry, but it's a great start talking about it everywhere we go.

The fact that we have it here as a panel discussion is 100% the right direction.

Additionally, I would say we shouldn't have to have this as a separate panel discussion, right?

So, you know, there's work to be done.

You know, it's exciting, but there's a lot of work to be done.

- Thank you.

- Yes, snaps for that.

(audience applauds) (Tanya laughs) (audience applauds continues) - You know, for me, it goes back to listening, listening and learning, because the reality is, every single person in our organization, in our community, comes from a different background than I do.

They've had different experience.

They've had different successes, different failures.

And so I think we've tried to do a good job of listening to the community, hearing the voice of the community, making sure that if we're gonna be the Pontiac Community Foundation, that Pontiac is actually at the table.

And I think so often our Black communities, our urban communities, have had things done to them and not with them or done for them and not, you know, really hearing what they desire.

And so I think that's kind of this underlaying current is, you know, do we have that open door to listen as leaders, as staff, as board members, but do we also create that access for the community to be a part of that?

And I would think that we've done a pretty good job of that.

What's been a real challenge, honestly, that I've seen with our staff, because we work so hard to have Pontiac residents as a part of our staff and board, those that are not Pontiac residents sometimes we have to make sure that they get to be a part of the conversation about the future and everything that's happening because they're part of the community and have contributions to make.

And so, you know, this is a well-rounded conversation that has to be had if we're really gonna talk about inclusion and access and breaking down silos.

- And to amplify that, you know, internally with our team, that's one of the things we've really learned over the past three years is to really sit down and listen to what the staff need and want.

And I think it's easy to walk in and say, "Let's put in place a diversity training," or "Let's have some diversity events."

And some people may really resonate with those types of things, but other team members are looking for other things.

And, you know, we learned that our part-time employees were looking for more benefits.

So we figured out a way to make that happen.

We learned that our teams wanted to hear from our leaders more.

They wanted to make sure that they felt connected.

So all of our senior leaders hosted round tables that anyone could come to and ask them questions on the spot.

We supplement our workplace inclusion survey with facilitated conversations and we trained our leaders to facilitate those conversations with their teams, and they weren't always easy.

And sometimes leaders are hesitant to have those conversations, but it was important for us to hear what our teams needed and to put in place what they needed rather than trying to put in place something that we thought would help improve the culture.

- So to that point around really listening to what your employees need and what they're asking, so for us, as a team that is really focused on tearing down the criminal punishment system, it isn't just work we do every day, but for the majority of us, it's our own life.

We have family members who have been justice involved, who are returning citizens, who are currently incarcerated.

And around the time of the beginning of the pandemic when COVID was raging in our jails and prisons, we went to work internally too and we asked our team, "What do you need in order to be able to show up every day, knowing the many millions of things that you have going on outside of how you show up here at DJC?"

And so one of the things we did that I really think is connected to IDEA, though, it goes sort of more holistically into progressive benefits, but is adjusting to a four-day work week, and not just a four-day work week in theory where you cram, you know, 40, 50, 60-plus hours into four days, but a really intentional four-day work week where it is noted in our emails that we are closed on Fridays.

We have a policy that asks that you not communicate with your colleagues, you know, past 6:00 p.m. or before 8:00 a.m. so that we can assure that we are committing to work-life balance.

We also knew that we needed to have additional progressive benefits beyond already having a really intentional, progressive PTO policy.

We expanded so that we had an unlimited COVID sick bank.

So you weren't eating up your sick bank because you had a family member who had COVID or you had COVID.

That was unlimited time that you could take off to make sure that you were really able to support your staff and be able to show up as a professional in the way that you needed to.

We also implemented recharge weeks, so beyond what our staff already had access to in terms of vacation and sick time.

Two weeks per year, biannually, that the entire organization was closed.

And so you weren't taking time off but coming back to an inbox full of questions from your colleagues.

The entire organization was closed and we all used that time to really recharge and address some of the issues that we have as a staff around vicarious trauma.

- Now we have our final group of AFP National Philanthropy Day Award recipients along with the organizations that nominated them for this esteemed honor.

Take a look.

(upbeat music) - Dennis Archer is a true gentleman.

You know, I've never seen him raise his voice and he cares about people and it's just really obvious.

The Dennis Archer Scholarships have been really impactful, not only for students here at Wayne State, but also Western Michigan University.

Many of these students would have dropped out school had it not been for the financial support that was provided by these scholarships.

But it's not just these scholarships.

He has a Dennis Archer Community Development Fund, which has funded many neighborhood initiatives that have improved the lives of Detroiters.

He's also funded a number of organizations and institutions that are arts oriented and culturally oriented around town.

So his philanthropy has been both impactful and broad in scope and that's why he's deserving of this award.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) - So Chuck Stokes epitomizes everything that the Neal Shine Award is all about, but in particular, his role with arts and culture in the state of Michigan.

He's on the board of the Michigan Historical Commission and also he's on the board of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan.

Chuck is also very well known for mentoring students of color and journalists of color.

He's been known for that for many, many years and it's something that really Neal Shine epitomizes in giving people a chance, giving people opportunities, and he just epitomizes that throughout his entire career.

Everyone's been watching him for probably 30 years on Channel 7 as the editorial director and on "Spotlight on the News" and he just epitomizes everything that Neal Shine is all about when it comes to journalism and community.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) - So I met Ben actually on this board here at the YMCA.

So I joined the YMCA board, boy, longer ago than I can remember now.

Ben has always been a big believer in the Y and the Y's mission.

- I think Ben is one of the most generous, kind, and approachable people I've ever met in my life.

- Well, when it comes to philanthropy, Ben's my North Star.

- He thinks about what the goal is, how we're gonna achieve it, what kinds of things we're gonna try to do, who are the kinds of folks we need to talk to, and then helps get out and make those meetings happen.

- He didn't really retire.

He became the chief community officer, which meant he continued to devote his time and his resources to making a difference in our community.

- He makes you feel as if you're the most important person around when you're dealing with him and that this organization is the most important organization, but the reality is Ben makes everybody feel that way.

This award's long overdue.

It really is.

(upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) - Congratulations to all of the AFP National Philanthropy Day honorees.

You can read more about them at npddet.org.

That's gonna do it for this special presentation of National Philanthropy Day 2022.

Our thanks to everyone involved with tonight's program, and, of course, thanks to you for watching.

A reminder that Giving Tuesday is November 29th, and we hope you'll give back to your community by donating or volunteering on that day.

For the Greater Detroit chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals and Detroit Public Television, I'm Stephen Henderson.

Take good care of yourself, and goodnight.

(bright music) - [Announcer] Support for National Philanthropy Day 2022 is provided by the Kresge Foundation and by these sponsors: Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, Barton Malow Foundation, Beaumont Health, Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, DTE Foundation, Plante Moran, Henry Ford Health, Leader Dogs for the Blind, Non-Profit Personnel Network, the Remington Group, Trinity Health Michigan, Walker-Miller Energy Services, Wayne State University, Autism Alliance of Michigan, College Possible, Cranbrook Educational Community, Delta Dental, Detroit Public Television, Detroit Regional Dollars for Scholars, Detroit Zoological Society, Focus: HOPE, Forgotten Harvest, Hammond & Associates, Hudson-Webber Foundation, Judson Center, Macomb Community College Foundation, Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation, Michigan Humane, Michigan State University, Oakland University, Schoolcraft College Foundation, Vista Maria, and Melissa Weisse.

(bright music continues) (bright music)