[Lace Watkins]

https://laceonrace.com/2021/05/10/grant-application-adventure/

Grant Application Adventure

Discussion

[Laura Berwick]

I feel such a tension between my desire to see our community not just continue but flourish and spread, and knowing that there truly are ways of funding that growth that are healthy to us and unhealthy to us.

And, focusing even more narrowly, there are ways of me being part of providing funding, such as considering myself as giving to a charity, donating, that are detrimental to me being fully engaged with this community, and truly committing to a praxis of racial equity and right relationship.

Which is so crucial. I can read all the books and give a $20 here and there and think I’m doing enough, while still being a well-read racist, siphoning off my excess from my safely elevated side of the power slash.

Here, I’m expected to BE a NEW PERSON, who steps down and away from the power slash, who invests in the health of racial equity through financially engagement to support our community.

No one can support our community better than us. We are the ones who know how worth investing in it is, without needing statements of purpose and financial reports. WE and OUR WORK are worth US investing in.

[Julia Tayler]

No one can support us better than us! That sums it right up. It’s so important for us to be part of the meal.

I feel the same tension too – wanting LOR to be around for a long long time without all the worrying that Lace endures – and the grant program.

[Rebecca McClinton]

I like how you reference both the health of LoR and this community and our part in that health through our investment and engagement. white people policies and procedures are ways of controlling the process and outcome of things instead of doing the work to invest in what’s healthy. I think about how the guidelines written here are for the health of this space and for the health of the people of color we stand with and for, not for determining who’s in/out.

[Julia Tayler]

I really feel that this community is unique and that it requires full engagement. I want to bring something to the meal. Even if it’s just cutlery and napkins I want to do my part.

[Emily Holzknecht]

Cutlery and napkins need to be reliable too and can be casually tossed on the table in the plastic wrapping or arranged with love and care.

[Julia Tayler]

Good point. Kindness and respect are important aspects of our engagement.

[Rebecca McClinton]

Thank you for inviting us into your living room to have these conversations, for us to learn from and explore our (my) part in. I’ve worked for nonprofits for years, but never knew or examined to any depth the ins and outs of how the grant writing part works and often goes counter to the missions themselves. I’ve learned that here. I’d like to externalize and call that secrecy on the part of organizations somehow, but really that’s me intentionally choosing to not look into that to any depth. Assuming good intent is how I have excused a lot of things away in my life, and that’s the personalization I most see here. I also appreciate the comparison, of the hand crafted meal collectively built and garden grown, as compared to a colder packaged catered one. The ingredients that go into this work are exactly what create the things I take outside of this space elsewhere, both as an individual and as a collective community.

[Shara Cody]

Your reflection on assuming good intent feels somewhat similar to my first thought as I read the post that “it’s okay” to try to use the system for the North Star but that ignores the fact that the very consideration and then need to engage with it has caused Lace harm. To mitigate it I’ll keep bringing my own ingredients and chopping and learning to serve in community.

[Clare Steward]

Your core convictions shine through. Sustainability can not come at any cost, the NS can not be compromised and how we walk in this space can not be dictated by grant funding received or not received. Navigating the grant process is tricky business and you held on to the NS. I want to emulate you as I work within the corporate world. My ethos and convictions must shine through and must not be compromised.

“And very much ‘In The Box’. When we have spent over three years now climbing out of the stifling box that robs us of curiosity, creativity, and agency.”

As Lace on Race Center for Racial Equity is formalized and as policies are being written, the necessity of procedures and meeting legal requirements can make the pull of checklists and formalization feel overwhelming. Lace an team are doing an incredible job by not losing site of the ethos of this space. Creativity and community and the relational is where the magic is even as a more formalize structure is erected to support LoRCRE in the background. Lace’s leadership, creativity, direction and Hesed love keeps the magic alive and we must do our part as a community to support the NS through engagement on all levels- intellectual, relational and financial. We all have something to bring to the table, let’s show up reliably and ready to serve.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by  Clare Steward.

[Michelle Wicks Cypher]

I love your heart and your vulnerability in sharing that heart. I am reminded of a post previously where I said that there are not always easy answers – but that does not mean sitting back and doing nothing. I see your struggle with the grant writing and request in the same light. I know this space is so much about having the hard conversations and doing the hard work and wading through the “no easy answers” with the North Star front and center. (I just saw the time and I ave to leave for an appointment – so I will be coming back to add more)

[Michelle Wicks Cypher]

Back to continue… I am proud that you are having the tough conversations. I 100% support our community funded model. I also 100% support the conversations around outside grants and 100% support and trust the Lace and team on making the decision to apply. Knowing you have done so and trusting in that tough process and conversation to do so, and knowing the good that will be done through receiving the funds, makes me more committed in my own personal financial engagement. It challenges me to look at where I am and am I having those tough conversations around my engagement – knowing the value of my engagement as a community member. I am proud to know the loving hands and hearts that make the soup and I enjoy it more knowing I have brought some tasty bread to add to the community feast. The idea of the grant funds does not make me want to step back and have a catered meal – it excites me to think how many more people the meal will feed. It excites me to know how many more community partners will be able to join in on the feast. It excites me too to know that it isn’t as simple as looking at the potential blessings – but also acknowledge the potential pitfalls. And to know that that difficult conversation has been had, is being had and will continue to be had. I never want it to get comfortable. Getting comfortable with something is the siren call of white supremacy and the seductive power of what keeps the constructs of supremacy alive. Being comfortable with it will rob us of the curiosity, creativity, and agency. Staying uncomfortable in the conversations around outside grants; staying uncomfortable around the IDEA of outside grants, is a sign that the focus is on the North Star and on the Western Star. “Can we endure the discouragement and the demoralization if we lose? And,
crucially, this–can we manage the hubris and the faux ‘meritocracy’ if
we win?” I believe we can – together, in community, in tough conversation, around the level table, sitting shoulder to shoulder, seeing eye to eye, enjoying the soup and the feast that we have created together through our continued community funded space. I believe we will as we continue to come to the table with our arms outstretched, sharing with each other. Humbled to be a small part of this amazing community.

[Shara Cody]

The part about the catered meal and what you said about it not making you want to step back reminds me that the catering is not for me and doesn’t alleviate me of any duties as I do the work, in fact, it compels me to do more.

[Emily Holzknecht]

I appreciate the conversation, this one here now and the ones before about the nonprofit world. I certainly have been taking these conversations to my life outside of this space and the nonprofits I participate in elsewhere so that we can have those conversations there as well. Making the covert overt is necessary here to begin to think differently and thinking differently and doing differently are interconnected.

[Shara Cody]

This isn’t an adventure we thought we’d ever be on at LoR I suspect and I’m thinking of the non-linear path that those that we nurture take that Lace described in the Mother’s Day post. Unfortunately this unwanted path is not only built on white supremacy but was created by it. I believe in and will continue to engage in the community funded model to keep up my praxis, nurture the community, and keep walking towards the North Star.

[Rhonda Freeman]

Been spending a lot of time sitting with the decision to apply for the grant. Above all else, I bow to Lace’s leadership and decision to apply. I ended up welcoming the practice of writing the grant (albeit I was only asked to review it) as she described it above – and, in fact, I am glad that whoever reads it will learn about us. I also believe that if we are provided with funding, it will be a challenge to walk the ‘grant path’ and follow our North Star at the same time. But, this is exactly what Lace has been teaching us – how do we behave when faced with system that is so steeped in racism? A system that even wants to be better, but still, the questions in the application couldn’t seem to help themselves….

[Rebecca McClinton]

“how do I stay in the car with this system?” It’s a question I regurgitate and question a lot in the systems I’m engaged with. Its counter question is “do I stay in the car with this system?” I watch people (employees, volunteers) leave the systems I’m involved in, sometimes in droves, choosing the later question to follow. I get it, and to a degree, agree. But then I see those left behind/those whose only choice is the system, get harmed by that abandonment and get questionable care. Though I question my part and involvement (which is a good thing, I’m thinking) where I’ve been focusing is how to stay in the car with these systems in the same hesed manner I learn to do with my relationships here. If I’m not willing to provide the accountability, the muscle and action part of hesed within those systems, making the covert overt, then it probably is time I leave because then I’m being a good little worker bee perpetuating a harmful system.

[Deleted User]

“In every other of the groups I am in for leaders of NGO …. It is sobering that even as almost all of the leaders agree that the current dynamic is beyond toxic, still they participate.” Yes. Yes to all of this.
It’s messed up, that those who hold the purse strings of foundations or granting agencies, with cash that has been earmarked for sharing with the creators and doers – those organizations with boots on the ground, those groups can be so judgmental, sterile, cold, withholding. They have all the power. Their boards and employees get to sit in judgement of who is worthy and who isn’t.

It’s the very definition of “nobles oblige” the notion that wealth, privilege and entitlement (all white supremacist concepts) requires those entities who hold great wealth, to fulfill social responsibilities. These agencies may say they need the information to make sure the funds are well spent, or they need to vent the work being done so as not to be fooled into giving money to a “false facade” or “shell organization” in other words, a person or a few people who masquerade as an NGO or NPO but are really pocketing the funds for personal gain or use. The irony is, most of these organizations with these funds, got them by exploiting workers and systems. Not all of them, perhaps, but quite a few. They are beneficiaries of an inequitable system, now doling out what they accumulated by the exploitations of others. Maddening. “Everything we do, including how to fund this space is always filtered through North Star, Full Respect Living.” This is a beautiful and equitable way to create a more level, shared community, where we each give as we can, to reach the common goal.

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[Emily Holzknecht]

I have been thinking about dog rescues and racism. I started following a local rescue for lap dogs probably 12 years ago, and although I’ve never gotten a dog from them, it still shows up on my feed. They always post photos of the adopters and the dog after someone makes it through the application process which requires an established history with a vet, a home visit and more. Yesterday was the first time I have ever seen a dog get adopted by a Black person in those 12 years of following that rescue. The Black family made it through all the hoops to get to adopt a puppy from them. Most of the dogs go to older white women. Many of the dogs go to older white women who have already adopted one or more other dogs from the same rescue. The people fostering the lapdogs (no doubt mostly also older white women) are the sole deciders on who meets the requirements to adopt a dog from the rescue. Requirements include having a yard, having a fence of a certain height and quality, established relationship with a vet, never having surrendered a dog in the past, probably paying for expensive surgeries on the dogs and not euthanizing unless significant cash has been put up first and so on. To my knowledge this rescue does nothing to support people in being able to keep their dogs or to pay for their dogs healthcare or to pay for better fencing etc. The dogs are being prioritized over Black and brown people.

[Emily Holzknecht]

I forgot to add the dynamic that the white women see themselves as “rescuing” these dogs from bad owners. Some of these owners might actually have been abusive or neglectful of the animals, but some people don’t have a choice not to give up dogs because of not being able to afford them anymore or because they are forced to move to housing that doesn’t allow animals and so on. And because racism is primarily an economic construct, the good dog owners in these situations are disproportionately Black and brown people. So the white women see themselves as rescuing these dogs from Black and brown communities full of bad dog owners.

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