Zines are usually categorized as ephemera, something that exists only briefly or for a short period of time.
Zines are pronounced zeen, short for magazine, and are self-published, not widely distributed, and cost very little. As small and temporary as they initially seem, zines have actually been around for decades and can have the power to provide a voice to those who are not normally heard.
With her podcast, Fare of the Free Child, a Ted Talk, 10 books out and an entire network devoted to the unschooling community, hundreds of thousands of people have been tuning in to Akilah Richards’ body of work. In this episode, Michelle talks with Akilah about how we can decolonize ourselves, centering community and unschooling, which Akilah defines as “…shedding the programming and habits that resulted from other people’s agency over your time, body, thoughts or actions [and] designing and practicing beliefs that align with your desire to thrive, be happy and succeed…” This celebrated speaker, and organizer has just published her latest book, Raising Free People: Unschooling as Liberation and Healing Work. Tune in – you don’t want to miss this conversation.
I want you to know me a little more. While you can read a little bit about me in my bio below or from my byline above, get a sense of me on social media, and get a glimpse of who I am by what I post — and while all of these things will give you a fair amount of information that you can use to build assumptions about me — I want you to hear it from me:
I don’t like monogamy. In other words, I am polyamorous.
Polyamory is the simple notion that one can love multiple individuals at the same time.
Earlier this month at CCF’s latest BIPOC Town Hall, CCF Seattle organizers announced that we are working to transition leadership to a global council, which will continue to guide the Community-Centric Fundraising movement.
We want to take this space to explain key decisions we’ve made and how we are envisioning what this rapidly-evolving movement might look like moving forward.
It’s been about nine months since Community-Centric Fundraising launched, (though the seed of CCF was planted several years before that, from conversations that many of us in the sector were having about our frustrations with the way that we fundraise.) We’ve been thrilled beyond our wildest dreams by all y’all’s responses to CCF. It’s been so resonant and incredible to connect with and learn from so many others who have experienced the same frustrations and challenges we were personally experiencing, and to see, hear, and feel how many people across the globe are committed to changing the sector for the better.
On the first episode of Brené Brown’s Unlocking Us podcast, Brené Brown shares her concept of “Effing First Times”or “FFTs” as she calls them. FFTs are a recognition of the difficulty at being new, let alone good, at just about anything.
“When we have no relevant experiences or expertise, the vulnerability, uncertainty and fear of these firsts can be overwhelming,” she said. “Yet, showing up and pushing ourselves past the awkward learner stage is how we get braver.”
I long for 2018-me to have had access to this framing. I had just begun (intentionally) integrating justice, equity, and belonging into my development practice. As the founder of a boutique consultancy, I committed myself to the trials of novelty, knowing that more than once, I would — inevitably — fall on my face. But, I hoped (maybe knew?) the reward would outweigh the risk. I was open to experiencing and learning from failure.
There have been so many problematic practices we’ve used in nonprofit communications…so how do we start thinking about communications, differently? Well, in this episode, Michelle talks with Sarah Durham founder of Big Duck, a New York-based nonprofit communications firm, podcaster with The Smart Communications podcast and author of two books including Brandraising and The Nonprofit Communications Engine! We talk about the difference between communications, marketing and branding, how Americans are terrible at research, unnecessary urgency as a characteristic of white supremacy in communications, and what we can start doing differently today!
Whether you are an emerging professional or a seasoned one in the field, job interviews can take you through a series of emotions. A job interview can often feel extremely judgemental, which can lead to an incredible amount of pressure for some.
When alerted of an incoming job interview, while some folx may feel instant excitement over being one step closer to the job, others can feel anxious.
To ease these feelings of anxiety, many of us rely on research. Cue the endless Google searches on “how to prepare for an interview” and “how to make a good first impression at an interview.” The more detailed of these searches can go as far as including industry-related keywords, which will generate listicles, articles, and so much more to support folx on their journey through the hiring process.
As I write this essay, I’m thinking about Shanice*, a Black woman who joined my course at Cal State University East Bay several years ago.
On the last day of class, Shanice handed me a note. The note said, “I didn’t feel encouraged in this class.”
My first reaction was a defensive one. What is she talking about! I thought to myself. I didn’t intentionally treat Shanice differently than any other student.
That note stung. I put it away for a time and held onto my defensiveness.
But eventually, I picked it up again, looked at it, and thought to myself, what is the truth that this note is holding?
After 2020’s wake-up call for everyone to be better at embracing diversity and social equity, has philanthropy finally learned to make this a priority in every area of our work?
From where I stand (as a person of color, female, of Asian ethnicity, and an immigrant from India), while it appears that these issues are gaining in popularity, there is still an uncomfortable gap that needs to be acknowledged and addressed.
“…it’s really hard to promote the history of Black people and not address the inequities being experienced by Black people…it just felt disingenuous to not find a way to bring these things together.” Nneka Allen joins Michelle, to talk about her essay in the newly released book Collecting Courage for which she is co-author and co-editor. In this episode, Nneka shares the deep and meaningful work of saving one of the Underground Railroad sites – the Nazary AME Church (part of the Amherstburg Freedom Museum) learning her ancestors were leaders in that movement, and the failure of a Board of Directors, to center the current-day struggles of their community. We talk about aligning ourselves with the demands of love, forgiveness, the power of storytelling, and attachment styles!
You know how in “Jurassic Park,” Jeff Goldblum was like, this ain’t gonna end well? He was one of the few characters who tried to articulate that resurrecting apex predators that see humans as tasty walking lunchables may not be the brightest of ideas. But then overconfident white people did it anyway and death and dismemberment ensued.
And then do you remember how Goldblum — beautiful, dark haired zaddy Jeff Goldblum — became an integral part of the cleanup and ultimate containment of the very, very bad science experiment?
When I was a kid, my mom (shoutout to my mom), found this catalog in the back of a Lego instruction booklet that let us call the Lego company and order little packages of specific Lego pieces.
This was a game-changer in our house.
Because whenever we got that big blue Lego bucket out, we were always on the hunt for those little fiddly pieces that were so hard to find. Joints. Hinges. Those little toggles that make the Lego people look like they’re using a joystick. All of them worth their weight in gold if you wanted to build a cool robot or a spaceship with a working hatch (which, as it happens, I often did).