By Maria Rio, CEO of Further Together, provider of no-nonsense truths and actionable tips, and host of The Small Nonprofit podcast

Getting you alone is not about privacy or resolution. It’s about neutralizing the threat of your voice to protect their comfort. It’s not a commitment to addressing injustice; it’s a calculated tactic to isolate, reclaim power, and maintain the status quo.

When a boss, funder, or colleague says, “Let’s take it offline” or “Let’s chat one-on-one,” what they’re really saying is, “Stop talking—you’re making me uncomfortable.” 

Getting you alone is not about privacy or resolution. It’s about neutralizing the threat of your voice to protect their comfort. It’s not a commitment to addressing injustice; it’s a calculated tactic to isolate, reclaim power, and maintain the status quo. 

Behind closed doors, powerholders avoid public scrutiny. They center themselves, strip away your peer support, shift blame—and most importantly—silence you. 

Because when oppressed people unite they expose injustice and demand accountability; nothing terrifies powerholders more. 

Why isolation works so well 

This is “divide and conquer” in action. Fragmenting collective resistance makes it easier to control and defeat opposition. 

Once isolated, the expectation is that you’ll shrink, keep things polite, and manage their comfort. Challenging contradictions between their words and actions means you’re the problem—the “angry,” “uncooperative” one who refuses to see how hard they tried (spoiler: not very). 

Without witnesses, they can gaslight you: “Are you sure that’s what happened? Maybe it’s just a misunderstanding.” 

Their goal? To make you second-guess yourself, invalidate your experience, and ensure nothing changes. They want that private chat to drain your energy so much that they won’t have to take real action—no matter how serious the issue is. 

In most cases, these concerns have already been raised—publicly or privately—by you or others, only to be ignored. 

The offer to discuss privately can feel tempting—it mimics care and engagement. However, if you’ve been through one of these cycles, you know how draining they really are. The emotional labour. The preparation. The hollow compliments and empty promises. The fear. 

The power imbalance is intentional 

These meetings are never neutral. The power imbalance—whether it’s staff vs. ED, ED vs. board chair, or nonprofit vs. funder—is huge. If the person in power is white and the critic is racialized, the stakes are even higher. Without others around, there is less room for accountability or resistance. Every second in that room reminds you of who holds the power. They own the space, the timing, and the cadence of conversation, and they decide the outcome. Once isolated, they know the issue can be dismissed as a “misunderstanding” or framed as a matter of personal preference rather than systemic harm. 

And what about you, the critic? Did you forget your survival depends on appeasing them?  

The threat doesn’t need to be spoken aloud—you feel it. Your job, funding, projects, and reputation are on the line. No witnesses. No validation. Just you explaining racism again to people who benefit from not understanding it. 

You become the lone educator, the lone dissenter—while the system remains untouched, ready to roll out the next event or campaign but with the same underlying issues. Critics thus often leave without closure, knowing their concerns are unlikely to lead to meaningful change.  

Isolation in action: The real-world examples 

This type of response is frustratingly familiar: it leaves the critic with two unappealing options—either agree to a private conversation where they will likely encounter further gaslighting, or decline the invitation, leaving their critique unresolved and risk being labeled “uncooperative.” 

Example 1: SickKids Hospital’s Mexico-Themed Gala 

SickKids’ handling of criticism about their Scrubs in the City gala shows how readily organizations use private conversations to deflect public accountability.  

In their public response, SickKids attempted to pacify criticism by mentioning collaboration with Ballet Folklorico Puro Mexico (an entertainment company hired for the event) and Rosie Krcmar (I am unsure about her connection to Mexican heritage), claiming they were “consulted” for authenticity.  

This isn’t new; invoking tokenized consultation is a well-known deflection technique. It suggests that because a few individuals from the community were engaged, the event—and by extension, the organization—is beyond reproach. This deflection by SickKids shifts the conversation away from the valid critique of cultural appropriation and covert racism and instead implies that those raising concerns are either uninformed or unreasonable. 

This type of response is frustratingly familiar: it leaves the critic with two unappealing options—either agree to a private conversation where they will likely encounter further gaslighting, or decline the invitation, leaving their critique unresolved and risk being labeled “uncooperative.” 

Both outcomes serve to exhaust and isolate the critic, while the institution faces little to no real accountability. 

Example 2: A Funder Dismissing Feedback on Inequitable Practices

After publicly tagging them for poor funding practices, Crappy Funding Practices publicly received an invitation for a one-on-one conversation. The tone of the funder’s message may seem polite and clarifying, but it relies on familiar strategies: redirecting the conversation to individual discussion, reframing criticism as personal demoralization, and minimizing the legitimacy of public concerns. 

In their response, Giving Joy mentions their small size, volunteer-run nature, and personal financial investment to elicit sympathy. Statements like “We don’t want a prize for our work, but it would be nice if you would fact-check some of your messages before you demoralize an organization that is just trying to do good” serve a dual purpose: they attempt to guilt the critic into silence while shifting attention away from the legitimate concerns about their grant practices.  

Guilt trips and white tears, often deployed in one-on-one conversations of this nature, reframe the critique as a personal attack, rather than an opportunity for reflection and improvement. 

This deflection creates an exhausting burden on the critic. They are left to either retract their statements to maintain goodwill, stop responding, or engage in a private conversation. 

Furthermore, the funder’s invitation to “have a conversation” and “fact-check” offline is a prime example of the isolation tactic. It shifts the issue from a structural critique—highlighting how microgrants like theirs burden the sector through excessive applications—to a private, controlled space where the power dynamic always favors the grantmaker.  

In addition, the invitation ignores why initiatives like #CrappyFundingPractices emerged in the first place. Anonymous public platforms for reporting inequitable grantmaking practices were created to level the power imbalance. They provide oppressed organizations and individuals with a space to speak openly, without fear of retribution. Inviting critics to move into private conversations undermines this core purpose by reintroducing the same power dynamics that public platforms were designed to counteract.  

Isolation robs the sector of collective learning opportunities. Public conversations about grantmaking practices allow the broader community to engage, share experiences, and work towards sector-wide solutions. When funders insist on taking these conversations offline, they ensure that mistakes and inequities remain hidden, limiting the potential for meaningful reform. 

Public accountability or it didn’t happen 

Those without power are left navigating emotional labor alone, with careers, livelihoods, and mental health on the line. 

If powerholders can’t have these conversations in public, they’re not serious about change. Public spaces foster real accountability. In public, they can’t twist the narrative, avoid hard truths, or win by default. Public discourse ensures that the strength of the collective carries weight. 

We must insist on public conversations where powerholders have no escape.  

Let them squirm. Let them, for once, feel the discomfort. Let them know we refuse to enable them to hide behind closed doors. 

We see through it. We’re not going away, and we refuse to be silenced.