Features

As part of the Inaugural Anthem Awards conference, winners highlighted their award-winning projects and the advancements they made toward racial equity.

Highlights include:

• Zarna Surti of Nike spoke of the amazing features on the episodic series FM Broadcast
• The team at Reinventure Capital shares an interesting fact about who their investments go to
• Aisha Alexander-Young reveals the large number of Black founded nonprofits that their users are able to access through their platform.
• Franz Paasche gives the money statistics of PayPal’s investment plan created for communities of color
• Keshia Pollack Porter shares how they incorporated artists and writers of color to help bring to light the issue of racism
• Christina Swarns of The Innocence Project speaks of the influence of her project on the wrongly incarcerated and highlights how the general public and help save lives

 

Watch the full discussion:

 

Read the full transcript below:

 

Trovon Williams  0:20  

Well, good afternoon, everybody. And welcome, welcome, welcome to the Inaugural Anthem Awards.  So honored to be on this panel with so many amazing creators and leaders from across the country. You all are going to hear some dynamic stories, some impactful stories about racial equity, and I’m thrilled to be able to share the stage with so many outstanding minds who have helped in narrating, narrating very much, what’s real and what’s happening throughout our country from a multitude of different angles and lenses. So that the stories that need to be told across our country are being shared effectively across our world really, are being shared effectively. I am Trovon Williams, Senior Vice President of Marketing Communications with the NAACP. I’m thrilled to be on here to talk about impactful stories with these amazing winners, who are a part of  the Inaugural Anthem Awards today.  Salute to each and every one of you all in your own rights, because you’ve done amazing work.  That’s why we’re here. I thought about this as we were getting ready to come on, because we have so many different names and faces from all across the country that have brought us to this moment. We don’t know how we got here. We don’t know what everybody’s day looks like before we arrived at this moment, but we all arrived at the same moment, we have this, we have this opportunity to end time. So I want to take a moment to say cheers to your journey. I don’t know what happened to you before you got here. But, you brought us to this moment today. Speaking about our journey itself, any journey that’s worth its salt has a story associated with it. These amazing leaders have the opportunity to tell us about their projects over the last year that have been able to be impactful in telling the story from their own vantage points themselves. I’m excited to get this kicked off, so you all can hear from them. I’m gonna shut up. You’re gonna hear from the real minds on this space here. We’re going to kick this off with Zarna Surti, Global Creative Director from Nike Purpose. Zarna, the floor is yours to talk about your amazing project.

 

Zarna Surti  2:23  

Amazing, thank you so much. First of all, I just want to say I’m so grateful to be here with you and to be in this space with all of these amazing creators. We’re so humbled as a Nike team to get to be a part of this. Also definitely want to acknowledge you know, our incredible leaders Jonathan Johnson, Griffin and Melanie Auguste on the Nike side. Bodega, our amazing agency and also Partisan, of course, are amazing production partners. So FM Broadcast is an episodic series at Nike. It launched last May and it truly was just a labor of love from all of us. It came at a time that we really wanted to figure out as a purpose team, what can we build that leaves a legacy? What can we build? Where can we have honest conversations? What can we build with something that is rooted in purpose and not product? When you see you know, sometimes it’s difficult to get ideas like this through and we were really able to develop a beautiful pathway to kind of have this workout in the world. Season One of FM Broadcasts was five episodes all centered around black features in sport and culture. It was hosted by our incredible, incredible talent Janaya Future Khan, who is a civil rights advocate, and also one of the founders of Black Lives Matter Canada. We were able to feature topics like Black and Asian solidarity, we were able to talk about the black queer folks that that are really in sport that are making the change from coaches, to players. We were able to talk to black Olympians and it was incredible. We had folks like John Carlos. I mean, it was incredible. Ibtihaj Mohammed, Simone Manuel, Naomi Osaka, Marcus Rashford.  To really get to sit down and to have conversations with all of these incredible, incredible people, alongside everyday coaches, activists, musicians. It was just such a beautiful space to have unfiltered conversations with all of these folks. So, it is a global initiative, we were able to talk to everyone from North America to Europe, etc. So, it was something that we were so grateful to create, walking in and seeing a set of, you know, amazing brown and black folks, just at every turn was really beautiful. This is a project that’s near and dear to our hearts. I’m so grateful to be here to share with you.

 

Trovon Williams  4:50  

You know Zarna, we appreciate you sharing that and I take a point of perfect personal privilege because the NAACP has just had an opportunity to work alongside FM Broadcast as just in the last several weeks, I think, like last week, if I’m not mistaken, working with you all. So I’m a little partial, very partial to this project. But the authenticity of the project itself is amazing. Salute to you all for your ongoing work and we look forward to this upcoming season. 

 

Zarna Surti  5:17  

Awesome. Thank you. 

 

Trovon Williams  5:18  

Excellent. Thank you for your time, because we’re going to shift very quickly here. I’m gonna go to Julianne Zimmerman. She is the Managing Director for Reinventure Capital. Julianne, do I have you? 

 

Julianne Zimmerman  5:31  

Yes. Thank you for having us here. Thank you to Anthem Awards for including us in this incredible company of innovators and creatives who are individually and as organizations at the forefront of racial equity. I’m joined here by our partner in this project. Our Developer and our Web Creator, David Kerr of Kerr Design. Reinventure Capital most of you may not even have ever heard of. We are an investment practice based in Boston, we invest exclusively in US based companies that are led and controlled by BIPOC, and or female founders. And we invest in those companies specifically because they are overlooked and dismissed by the venture sector writ large.  We know that they are fantastic innovators and problem solvers. They are creating real value. So we invest in them to help them grow economic engines that are the creators of wealth and opportunity. The third reconstruction. We had already planned to relaunch our website when George Floyd was murdered.  In the immediate aftermath of his murder, we decided to take down our existing website altogether and put up a temporary website that just expressed our solidarity and our commitment to honor the community we love. That not only resonated so strongly with our team, but it resonated so strongly with our peers and allies that it became the kernel of the new website. It became the design brief. So, everything about the website, everything about the image selection, the layout, the verbiage and the links that we chose to provide. All of it is designed to invite and entice people to deploy capital better. To help make connections among those who are interested. So that together, we can help knit together a more inclusive, more equitable, more vibrant, more prosperous ecosystem. We’re thrilled at the response that that has garnered, and we hope that it will continue to catalyze more capital flowing with our partners and with the founders we adore.

 

Trovon Williams  8:03  

That’s outstanding. Julianne and, and to both you and David, I salute you all for your efforts. I think we all know that the nation collectively blinked with the unfortunate events that happened with George Floyd. But, efforts like this, the projects that you all are spearheading, very much into the next step, which is what are we going to do about it. So I appreciate Reinventure Capital, you, Julianne you, David, for stepping up. Not just, you know, not just being emotional about the moment but taking action around the moment as much as possible, so that we can build equity within our communities at large. That we can build a  nation that is more reflective of what we want, you know what we want to happen. So I salute you all for your efforts, and look forward to your ongoing projects and, and hope that you all take advantage of being a part in partnering with Reinventure Capital going forward. Thank you both. Thanks for your hard work.

 

Excellent, excellent, outstanding work that we’re already seeing from each and every one. I’m going to pivot right over to Aisha Alexander-Young. She is the Chief Executive Officer for Giving Gap. Aisha do I have you? 

 

Aisha Alexander-Young  9:13  

You have me. Thank you so much for having us here today, thrilled to be especially as a very small startup organization thrilled to be here amongst the winners and in such a great company. I’d have the opportunity to talk a little bit about our work with you all. So, Giving Gap as a donation platform that helps people learn about and give to black founded nonprofits. We were founded in 2020 in the wake of a pandemic that disproportionately impacted communities of color, and the murder of George Floyd in the following racial justice justice uprising. So, in those moments, where an unprecedented number of people in institutions, corporations, were posting those black squares on Instagram, we all remember that and we’re proclaiming that Black Lives Matter on social media. Our platform was created to simply ask people to put their money where they were claiming their morals are. What started really as just a viral Instagram post turned into a widely shared Google Sheet, and then eventually became the powerful giving platform Giving Gap with the pro bono design support of our partner Working Co. Thank you to Working Co. for helping us be here today. So, since our launch, our platform has vetted and cataloged over 800, Black founded nonprofits, and made it possible for over 30,000 users to become everyday philanthropists who have donated over $1 million to black founded nonprofits. We exist simply to build a movement of millions of donors and dollars, that are committed to supporting Black founded nonprofits in black communities. This is very important not only in response to tragedy and trauma, but consistently. So our organizations and communities may thrive and flourish. So every year, Americans give over $400 billion dollars to nonprofits and charity, but only a tiny fraction of that goes to Black-founded nonprofits. We really believe that through our platform, that we can all come together and close that giving gap for black founded nonprofits. That’s the work that we do through this, this giving platform

 

Trovon Williams  9:18  

Aisha, this is so incredibly impactful.  I think you hit on some very, very key components, specifically as it pertains to donations and then making it into, you know, nonprofit space small businesses themselves, I think it’s incredibly important that we understand that how these are these funds, even those with best intentions, there has to be people who are responsible for making sure that funds get to those who actually needed the most.  This is incredibly impactful in its own right, I think you started off your introduction by saying you’re a small, small organization, but I love that framing, because I firmly believe in minor minor moves called major movements, right. You all, even as small as a small organization, can make a tremendous impact by laying some groundwork and some runway for somebody to figure out how to do this better. I think there’s some consistency that we’re hearing from all of the winners that you’ve heard, and that’s about allyship in partnership. Absolutely. Nobody changes anything by themselves. We have to do it in concert, we have to deal with our cooperations with our partners, our thought partners, we have to do it in concert. This is a great example of what’s possible when we are willing to work together and partner behind the vision. So kudos to you Aisha and your team for an outstanding project.

 

Excellent. Thank you for your time, Aisha. Next up, we’re going to talk to Franz Paasche, a SVP Chief Corporate Affairs Officer for PayPal. Franz, I know I probably butchered your last name again, and I apologize even after practicing it. But the floor is yours sir. 

 

Franz Paasche  13:08  

Okay, thank you. I’m used to it. First, it’s a real privilege to be part of this panel and to be part of these proceedings. I want to say that I’m also honored to be here on behalf of the entire PayPal employee community because the commitments we made and the initiatives we’ve undertaken, are truly the work of our entire community. As the pandemic worsened, in and around the period surrounding the murder of George Floyd, our Pay Pal community saw that we had to we had a role to play in closing the racial wealth gap. We could see that we work with customers all over the country, and especially small businesses, and many minority owned small businesses. We could see that black owned small businesses were closing at twice the rate of the national average. During the pandemic, for many reasons, many of which were systemic, and deep seeded. As a company with our capabilities and our resources, we felt we had to take some significant actions to do our part. We spent a lot of time with our nonprofit partners, with experts, with leaders of social justice organizations and community based advocates to develop a broad initiative with four pillars. Our total initiative and commitment that we made was for a $535 million commitment to work on closing the racial wealth gap in this country. It had short term, medium term and long term aspects including an internal project to do more work within PayPall. The first part was to really go straight at the issue that small black owned businesses were closing at an unacceptable rate. We thought we could get some immediate cash out in the form of grants, not loans, but grants to black owned businesses on Main Streets all across the United States, we focused on the hardest hit zip codes, we had a great, we had great nonprofit partners throughout, we looked at we distributed $15 million dollars in small grants of between $5000 and $10,000, but they made a big difference. We saw that over 90% of the small businesses that we were able to support, survived. We didn’t leave them just with the grant. We worked with them, brought in other partners and worked to help sustain them. I’m proud to say that three of our three of our grantees are right on this slide. We’ll talk more later about their stories.  I should say that that’s Jeanette Bolden Pickens who runs a 27th street bakery in Los Angeles. That’s Cam Kirk, who runs Cam Kirk studios in Atlanta and may be a part of the Atlanta community. That’s Bridgett Jeffries of Cafe WakeFern who has a pet sitting business. Each of these empowerment grantees told their own stories. We’re very grateful to them. Our second pillar was to work with nonprofit partners. We invested $5 million in to help with nonprofit partners who are sustaining black and minority owned businesses in their communities. As you said earlier, Trovon, we know we can’t do this alone, we have a certain amount of expertise, but the deep expertise is held in communities. We wanted to empower community based organizations and partner with them. We provided employee volunteers as well as grants to help work on that. How do you create the support system around small businesses that are struggling in communities of color? The third was a $500 million opportunity fund that we put together in order to invest in minority-lead high growth startups in venture investing and in depository making deposits, and investments in minority owned banks and credit unions. We have worked to invest those monies all over the country. Then finally, we knew we had to devote resources inside PayPal, to make sure that our work on ourselves continued. So we created a $15 million fund to focus on our programs around diversity inclusion, on making sure that we were doing the hard work on supporting our employee resource groups.  Understanding that if we’re going to do this work externally, we need to do the work internally. So that sums up our program. I’m proud to say that we’ve fulfilled, we’ve fulfilled over $510 million of that commitment, and we look when we will complete it shortly.

 

Trovon Williams  18:07  

Franz, this is outstanding and I really appreciate you lifting up this incredible project. For a multitude of reasons. One, you hit on something that we at the end NAACP feel very strongly about as well. Specifically, with regards to building up black small, small owned businesses as much as possible. But beyond the grant itself, you hit on something very key. That is being able to work alongside them to sustain the business, it does no good for us to be able to keep a business open.  We’re not reinvesting or training those owners as to what’s possible. In order to sustain the business, there are people within those communities themselves that are going to gain strength from those small businesses, people that you and I may never have the opportunity to reach. But they know the mom and pop shop, they know that they know their local corner store, they know those individuals personally. That can build a level of inspiration, you know, institutional knowledge, if you will, from a community standpoint where I can be inspired by seeing the individuals that look like me in my community giving back. So beyond just given the grant, the sustainability, sustainability component that you lifted up is so incredibly vital. I appreciate you all lifting it up. So kudos to you all for such amazing work as well.

 

Thank you Franz. Next up, I hope you all are being inspired by what you’re hearing because we’re hearing some incredible stories and incredible projects.  All of this is possible. You just have to have a thought and you have to be willing to get behind and we’ve seen amazing projects based off of commitment that has taken place throughout these amazing organizations themselves. The next amazing project you’re going to hear about come from Keisha Pollack Porter. She is the chair of the Department of Health and Policy and Management for John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Keisha, thank you so much for being with us.

 

Keshia Pollack Porter  19:57  

Great. Thank you for having us, Trovon. Really appreciate it. I’m just thrilled and honored to be here today with these amazing leaders and thank the organizers for inviting our organization to this space. Our creative piece of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s magazine that featured a special section of our Fall 2020 issue titled Racism is a Public Health Crisis. Together with me today is Brian Simpson, who’s the magazine’s Editor. I had the privilege of being the guest editor and was able to work with Brian and his team to make this piece come to life. As you can see here, this image is of the cover of the magazine. You know, clearly the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted significant racial inequities in health, which was alongside the murder of George Floyd and many other black and brown people. We wanted to highlight the critical role of structural racism in contributing to health disparities. So, we made the decision to focus on how racism specifically affects the health of black communities. We took an inclusive approach and solicited ideas from faculty. We invited local youth voices and community partners so we can capture their stories.  Under Brian’s leadership, there was a real emphasis on how we share those human stories, and couple that with evidence with facts with data. Because there are people that still don’t believe that racism is a problem when it comes to health. We also use writers and artists of color really celebrating the work of our black faculty and black designers, and was just so proud of this magazine. It was widely disseminated. We shared it with 29,000 Plus readers, and 756,000, plus social media followers, and E-newsletter readers.  I would say there were so many diverse responses by email, by phone, by web, by social media, and then the readers were reacting to each other, just responding to each other.  It was the exact kind of engagement we wanted to see as we feel like we helped shift the conversation on structural racism and health disparities.  We heard people telling us they use the magazine in their own organization and in their courses. Again, just really excited that we were able to use these visuals and the stories and fact based information to really highlight the importance of structural racism and health inequities.

 

Trovon Williams  22:19  

Keisha, Brian, this is fantastic. What I think is so telling about the project that you just listed is, anybody who’s a Creator knows that, you know, the visuals matter, they play a significant part in telling the story. The visuals grab your attention. You all have the unique opportunity in many respects to partner with, like some really, really dynamic visuals, and then build some substantive data and information behind it that people can really hold on to. It has to be more than an image, it has to be more than a picture, you all have the unique opportunity to get everyone’s attention with this amazing project from the visuals.  Then really just unpack some long, some long standing issues within the African American community at large with regards to public health itself. I, we could not agree more with you at the NAACP. That racism is 100% a public health crisis and seeing you all lean in so heavily in this respect. Then, quite frankly, distributing so broadly, it’s important that people understand that this is not something that black people need to be talking about. This is something that everybody needs to be talking about if we’re going to arrive at being the best version of ourselves as a nation as possible. So kudos to you all for this project itself. It’s  a labor of love. But, it’s a labor of so much more than that, because in order for us to start to turn the ship, we have to start changing people’s minds about what they’re seeing, what they’re hearing, as much as possible. So, I thank you all for the project. It looks amazing.  I hope that if you all have not had an opportunity to peruse this and take advantage of reading into the content, take advantage of the opportunity after here with what Keisha and Brian have lifted up to hear more about what they’ve just lifted.  Thank you all for the amazing project. 

 

Keshia Pollack Porter  24:00  

Great, thank you. 

 

Trovon Williams  24:03  

Awesome, awesome. Now last on our list, certainly, but not least, is Christina Swarns. She is the Executive Director for the Innocence Project. Christina, you with me?

 

Christina Swarns  24:15  

I’m here!

 

Trovon Williams  24:16  

 Christina, tell us about this amazing project we can’t wait to hear.

 

Christina Swarns  24:19  

Well, thank you. First of all, thank you so much for inviting us to participate and honoring us.  It’s really a pleasure to be here with these visionary leaders and organizations. I’m going to start by asking everyone to do me a favor. Let’s all pause for a second and think back to our happiest moments; your graduation, your wedding day, holding your child for the very first time. These are the moments that warm our hearts and bring us joy and pride and inspiration. Now, let’s imagine erasing every single one of them. Untold thousands of people in this country, including Huwe Burton and who you see here have had these incredibly special moments stolen from them by wrongful convictions. Today, there are 2.3 million people in United States prisons. More than 60% of them are Black and Brown. Experts say that anywhere from 2% to 10% of that prison population is incarcerated for crimes they did not commit. Founded in 1992, the Innocence Project pioneered the use of DNA testing to scientifically prove innocence. To date, 375 People who lost a combined 3600 years of their lives to prison, have been exonerated by DNA evidence. 60% of those exonerated people are Black. Can you imagine how many of life’s most precious moments were stolen in those centuries? Our work, the work of my organization powerfully demonstrates that Black people are systematically denied the presumption of innocence in America. The Innocence Project is therefore committed to freeing the innocent, to preventing wrongful convictions, and to creating fair, compassionate and equitable systems of justice for everyone. Our work is guided by science grounded and anti racism and inspired by the resilience and tenacity of our clients. Our work is not done. Today, we are putting the weight of our organization, including our 1 million advocates, behind a campaign to stop the state of Texas from executing Melissa Lucio on April 27, for a crime that never even occurred. We encourage all of you to join us by texting save Melissa to 97016 or visiting savemelissa.org. Together, we can ensure that Melissa has more happy moments in her future. Thank you.

 

Trovon Williams  27:15  

You know, Christina, thank you so much for sharing this amazing project. Those numbers are jarring. They’re  numbers that are incredibly sobering. They’re also realities that many within the Black Community have heard and dealt with on a number of different scales. You don’t have you? It’s not you, you know, someone who’s in a system very similar to what you just alluded to. I don’t know how many cases. As a member of the NAACP, we fought to avoid having someone be put to death, because of situations just like you just listed. And the word that you use that stuck with me the most was tenacity. We have to be tenacious about this. We have to be intentional about this. One of our board members of the association, she often says she’s in her late 80s. She’s still working just as hard for the NAACP, she says I keep fighting because we haven’t won yet. That’s right. Um, and that’s the thought sort of mindset around some of these amazing projects that we’ve seen. We fight so hard, because we haven’t won yet. So, I kudos to you, kudos to the Innocence Project for this amazing work. We look forward to the ongoing support of efforts like this. Because we’re all fighting and we know that we haven’t won yet, we have so many more battles to fight. So thank you so much, Christina for that. Thank you. These are outstanding stories that you all have all had the opportunity to hear from. I’m gonna bring all of our winners back to the stage here for a couple of Q&A questions. You know, just to celebrate this collective strength. These thought leaders in their own rights. These tenacious leaders in their own right, for their amazing work. So on behalf of, you know, communities at large. Thank you all for your ongoing work, we have so much diversity and projects. At the end of the day, they’re all rooting around increasing, inventing and bettering our communities and making them better than they were at the start. Right? We can do a little bit to do our part. I’m gonna pose some questions to you all in our last few minutes.  I’d love to hear you all unpack these a little bit. I wrote a couple things down. Feel free to jump in at your leisure here. So, all of your organization’s collectively work towards fulfillments of visions and missions. Every organization typically has a vision and a mission that you’re locked in step one. We know that over the last few years in particular, some ways our hands have been forced into new and innovative ways into how we go about fulfilling our missions as organizations. What have you all learned from your organization’s through this development of your outstanding projects, how have how has the last few years helped you in either pushing or pulling or going in a different direction, given what we’ve experienced over the last few years and that’s open to anyone at any point on mobile and told somebody.

 

Franz Paasche  29:57  

I could jump in, and I alluded to this  in my opening, I think, you know from, you know, Pay Pal has been an independent company for seven years, and we’ve had a strong mission, vision and set of values.  I think over the last year and a half or two years, we saw a surge of employee commitment and engagement in living our values and seeking to fulfill our mission. We’ve had it, we’ve seen this with community impact teams. We’ve seen it in volunteering, we’ve seen it in research, and in the growth of our employee resource groups. In the kinds of dialogues and safe space discussions that we’ve had throughout the last two years. So that has been a huge learning to just see how employee communities can come together and live the mission and live the values.

 

Trovon Williams  30:55  

Such an excellent point, Franz. Aisha?

 

Aisha Alexander-Young  30:59  

I’ll just second a little bit of what Franz is speaking of, you know, as a new organization that was founded at this moment, we haven’t had to, you know, transition in a way that many other organizations have had to. But as a person who’s been around and doing this work for a really long time working for black founded nonprofits, racial justice, movement work. I’ve been to this show before. I’ve seen the spike of support in Oregon for our organizations, and then I’ve seen it eventually wane off. So what we’re trying to avoid is that happening again. When people ask me, what’s different about this moment, and going back to what Franz was talking about. Paypal is another one of our incredible partners. What I see as being truly different, is the work that is being done internally. So not just these kind of performative acts that are external, and you know about making you look good or saying the right thing. You’re actually making that commitment from a values pay standpoint, internally as an organization. That’s where things really start to change and last, and you see this employee commitment, and yeah, the big difference.  Just wanted to call that as a signal of a big change here.

 

Trovon Williams  32:22  

You’re seeing that fully, I’m coming to you next Keisha. We see that playing out. There’s a level of transparency that’s being described within any organization. DE&I is becoming something that is not being done behind closed doors. They’re intentionally pointing out that efforts are being made. I think Franz alluded to it. Aisha alluded to it as well. But you know, beyond big donors, big, big donors and investments in the moment. It’s about changing cultures. You don’t do that overnight with a checkbook. That’s about training. That’s about being intentional. That’s about as Franz alluded to living your values as much as possible as an organization. Keisha wanted to come to you and get your thoughts on this as well.

 

Keshia Pollack Porter  33:06  

Yeah, just wanted to add to the conversation and say, I think it’s fair to say for our magazine. It was really a catalyst for more conversations for more energy. There have been dedicated funds to support research to say, let’s go ahead and figure out solutions to really try to dismantle racism and its impacts on health. Brian, and I stood up a monthly column for faculty called Voices Against Racism that grew specifically out of this issue. So every month faculty could volunteer to write about their perspectives on racism, really uplifting some pretty tough topics. We had a lot of faculty of color. Also, our white colleagues came and said, you know, we can’t just talk about being allies, like we need to be in this conversation. So, really excited about the momentum and the sustainability we’ve seen since this issue that came out at the end of 2020.

 

Trovon Williams  33:53  

Excellent point. I see Christina. And then I see Julianne,

 

Christina Swarns  33:57  

Thank you, you know, one thing I think everyone is flagging, but I’ll just say out loud was, you know, the thing, one of the big lessons for us was remaining nimble, right, and being willing to go where the people were right and meet them on the platforms, they were existing, right, we needed to get our message out, and we couldn’t stay, you know, traditional, we couldn’t stay safe. Right? At this moment. We had to be willing to take risks like this one, right? Making an Anthem Story, but also to go to platforms we hadn’t been at, you know, to use different mediums of communication. To make sure we were able to reach the communities and the people that we knew it was important to me to reach at any given moment. So, I think one of the big lessons for us was to be really willing to take chances and be nimble and try new things. You know, things that weren’t, you know, stayed that weren’t tried and true. Right? To be willing to go out on new and emerging technology and new and emerging platforms, and just give it a shot. I think that has been really important. and impactful for us.

 

Trovon Williams  35:01  

I love that, Just Go. We have a motto on our team Fail Fast. Let’s just see what happens. If it doesn’t work, we can pivot very quickly, Julianne.

 

Julianne Zimmerman  35:11  

Well, again, it’s just so fantastic to be in this extraordinary company, of amazing, amazing projects and organizations and people. One of the things that  we found in the last couple of years is that, you know, Reinventure  is carrying forward an investment strategy that my senior partner has been pursuing since the late 1980s. Right. So, it’s not, it’s not new. Yet, we had so many people coming to us and saying, like, well, this is unproven and, and we don’t have any evidence that it can work. So,  we really just leaned into that conversation about, you know, it’s fine if you’re making a gesture. You know, performative declaration. But, we’re not in the same endeavor. We really started getting very, very much more specific about not only praising and celebrating and amplifying the work of peers, and colleagues and allies and founders who are really doing the work. We also got a lot more frank, and a lot more direct about calling out where we said like, this is really, this is just performative. Like, this is not moving the needle. It’s not moving the needle by design. The really interesting thing that happened as a result of that was, yeah, some people canceled their subscriptions to our blogs, you know, so we don’t want your newsletter anymore. We’re like, okay, sorry, goodbye. What also happened is that people started coming to us and saying, I’m using this in conversation in my organization, I’m showing my colleagues, your blog posts, or I’m using the resources that you’ve posted, as a way to advance this conversation in, in our investment committee. Or, I’ve taken this to my partners, who are trustees of the endowment, and you know, we’re having a conversation that we would not have been having absent these materials. So for us, it was much more about just getting a lot more blunt, more blunt, and just saying, look, here are the facts, if you don’t care to subscribe to reality that’s on you. But here are the facts

 

Trovon Williams  37:53  

 I love it. I love it. Zarna, were you gonna weigh in on it as well?

 

Zarna Surti  37:57  

Yeah, no, I think, really, what what Aisha said too was was really a big piece of it for us is that internal, I think that this kind of this type of work we were doing really fueled what we were doing internally, I think it also helps kind of with the with the loop of how we really start everything with social and community impact. How can we actually talk about it and get out in the world and not be afraid to talk about what we’re doing behind the scenes. What I love for our creative community is, frankly, it’s a lot of these things that brown and black folks have wanted to talk about for a long time. We’ve been having these ideas. Suddenly, it’s like, there’s a little bit more of an ear, you know. So it was fun to just get to see the team really be themselves and have ideas that we could actually get out there that we all started to feel like, hey, this is actually what we do want to talk about and having people really galvanized behind that. Let us  really get in there and share some real conversations. I think that just it opened up a whole new way for all the folks that were working on our team.

 

Trovon Williams  39:01  

Outstanding, outstanding. You all just, I mean, I’m goosebumps because there’s so many different creative spaces, so many different gems that have come out of this conversation. I got one last question in the interest of time that I want you all to weigh in on . We got to be quick though, we got to be quick. So this is gonna test your muscles here. This is the Inaugural Year of the Anthem Awards, and your projects are literally groundbreaking. This is the first of its kind, and you all are in it. So kudos in that respect. How does the acknowledgement of each one of your organization’s from your own individual perspective? How does it feel? Being a part of the inaugural anthem awards is a groundbreaking project?

 

Brian Simpson  39:38  

I’ll jump in Trovon. 

 

Trovon Williams  39:44  

Yes, sir. 

 

Brian Simpson  39:44  

So I think for us,  it’s an exciting kind of recognition of our work. It’s fuel for the fire. It’s confirmation that we’re on the right track and headed in the right direction. It’s a reason to pause and to celebrate,  to be positive in a time that’s really, really dark right now. It’s really, you know, I just feel like, you know, the whole country is still in this not just the pandemic, but for a lot of reasons. And so for those reasons, I think it’s really appreciated.

 

Trovon Williams  40:15  

Excellent. Thank you, Brian. Aisha,

 

Aisha Alexander-Young  40:19  

Yeah, in many of the same sentiments, I think for us, it’s really just a validation of our work being valuable and necessary. The space that we’re carving out is needed for a number of reasons and for a number of people. So I hope to come back, you know, to the 5th Annual Anthem Awards and talk about our 1 million users and donors and our one we’ve raised for black founded nonprofits.

 

Trovon Williams  40:47  

Fantastic. Thank you for that Aisha. Zarna,

 

Zarna Surti  40:51  

Yeah, I think it was so nice for our team to get a bit of just the light and the shine and the acknowledgement. I think that we’re all just in our day to day, I know, we’re all on zoom all day, every day. So I think just that acknowledgement, we’re really grateful. It also signifies our organization. Hey, this is working, we can keep doing things like this. So we’re really, really grateful for the acknowledgement in the space and, and it really does make a difference for us day to day to have these types of moments.

 

Christina Swarns  41:20  

Fantastic. Any other thoughts? I’ll jump in, and just again, Echo, that is certainly a validation of the fact that you know, our work is really on the cutting edge. It’s just a real reminder, right? That fortune favors the bold, right? Take the chances and do the thing, and you will be rewarded for that.

 

Trovon Williams  41:40  

Fantastic. Thank you for seeing it, Julianne.

 

Julianne Zimmerman  41:43  

We could not possibly be prouder to be, again included in this crowd. To be part of this Inaugural Awards. It  not only is as everyone has said, a fantastic and gratifying and humbling endorsement. But it’s also another set of opportunities to make new connections for new collaborations to, you know, form new relationships with CO conspirators to get up to good trouble together.

 

Trovon Williams  42:15  

There you go! Franz,

 

Franz Paasche  42:17  

Yeah, I would just say I think we also come in with a sense of humility and gratitude for all the good work out there being done that may not be recognized, but there’s so much good work being done in our communities. If we can partner in that way and sort of bring to light some of the great grassroots work being done. That’s part of this. That’s part of what you’re bringing to light here. And so thank you for that.

 

Trovon Williams  42:47  

Outstanding, Keisha.

 

Keshia Pollack Porter  42:48  

Yeah, and absolutely echo all the comments very affirming, and just highlighting the importance of racism, for health, for public health for our communities. Just so excited for the energy and the validation that has  come  from being here today and look forward to coming back in the future.

 

Trovon Williams  43:06  

Outstanding. Listen, we’re at time I know I’m gonna get dinged here in a minute. But I wanted to thank each and every one of you all, for your amazing project. NAACP has a theme this year called This is Power. It’s about inspiring our communities at large to show them that advocacy and partnership takes on a multitude of different facets. You all are the living embodiment of that. As we speak, we have so many different projects that took on so many different angles, and you all helped spearhead and change ideas and mindsets around all of these things. So this is empowering for me to sit in the room and have the opportunity to share the stage with you all. Thank you all for able to join I asked you all to continue to go back and support continue to support Giving Gap, Reinventure Capital, PayPal, Innocence Project, Nike, John Hopkins, support all these organizations who are doing it right and headed in the right direction and we’re excited to be with you all at the next Anthem Awards. You all take care

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai