By Kelly Pope and Paru Desai, SV2 Get Proximate Co-Leads, SV2 Partners

This article is the seventh in a series about the principles and practice of getting proximate:

• Article 1: Overview: Confronting Truths, Changing Narratives, and Impacting Systems
• Article 2: Getting Proximate to Understand Multiple Narratives 
• Article 3: The Power of Asset-based Language
• Article 4: Importance of Empathy
• Article 5: How Getting Proximate Helps Combat Unconscious Bias
• Article 6: The Transformational Power of Listening 

The term ‘social distance’ is likely tiring for many of us. A more accurate term could perhaps be ‘physical distance’. We know the challenges that different populations face in a virtual world from mental health crisis to equitable technology access and loss of learning for children. We are also aware of some of the unexpected blessings of Zoom, from the ability to access more events to reduced travel time. Technology and creativity have certainly helped us get through the pandemic by bridging the health need to maintain safe distances while supporting mental and social need to retain and build connections. We now see each other in various settings, sometimes with the movement of family members and pets in the background (or laps!).  We see glimpses of their homes and workspaces or their passions in what they choose for a background screen. These serve to show lives beyond this session and a humbling reminder that the focus of the meeting is just a piece of theirs, and ours, larger life puzzle.

We also had to re-think our Get Proximate in the physically distant world, and continue to facilitate understanding and relationship building in ways that couldn’t be done by sitting in our SV2 offices. Some questions we grappled with included: Would this format work on zoom?  Would the emotion and personal nature of these stories translate in a virtual setting?  Would we be viewed as supportive and empathetic listeners, when body language and facial expressions are difficult to gauge through a screen?  We, and our Community Partners, were willing to give it a try.  

In this article, we recap how it went and key takeaways. 

After a successful two year Get Proximate pilot (2018-2020), SV2 made a commitment to develop a 3 year relationship with our neighboring community, North Fair Oaks (NFO). T‌hrough the pandemic, we continued building relationships, developing empathy and trust by engaging with the NFO community amid challenging times. Together with the Lead Partners of our two NFO Community Partners, One Life Counseling Center (OLCC) and Upward Scholars, we approached the Executive Directors, Suzie Hughes and Linda Prieto to co-create mutually valuable Get Proximate experiences. This mutuality remains a key tenet of Get Proximate.

Suzie generously offered to duplicate a presentation that they had successfully given in pre-COVID times. It explained the ‌trauma immigrants experience in their countries of origin, why they seek to immigrate to the U.S, and how OLCC’s mission to provide mental health services to immigrants can be life-changing. 

In the first virtual Get Proximate event with One Life Counseling Center, Suzie shared an overview of the realities of newcomer immigrants, and she opened up to 3 young people to share their stories and experiences. In a very supportive Zoom environment, each told heartfelt, very personal stories about their immigrant journey and the lived trauma, both in country and migrating to the US. They described the impact that OLCC had in supporting them through counseling at critical times. In their stories, we heard their pain but also their resilience, successes, and aspirations. It was a powerful and moving experience for all who experienced this intense virtual space. 

After the event, one speaker shared:

“Thank you for opening up this platform for people to learn more about the immigrant community. I am so passionate about working with these children and making a difference. We were all in their shoes at some point. Thank you all for showing us so much love virtually. Like I said earlier, I felt so loved even if it was not in person. We had such a great group of participants join. I hope that one day, we can do this again in person.”

Partners reflected on the authenticity of the immigrants, how brave it was for them to open up and tell their stories, many reliving their past trauma. They also encouraged more events in this format:  powerful data + storytelling, a combination that proved to be a great learning opportunity and also one that helped build empathy, opening the door for alternative narratives. 

One Partner said:

“The first person stories from the immigrants who demonstrated resilience and determination to make a life here. And now these same people are helping others; so inspiring!”

In the second virtual Get Proximate event with Upward Scholars we followed a similar format, and explicitly scheduled it on a Friday evening to accommodate the busy work/school/family schedules of the Scholars. Linda presented the organization and its mission of providing adult immigrants educational and career development support. We were introduced to 6 adult learners who told moving stories of the many challenges new immigrants face, highlighting the stigma attached to them when they don’t speak English, and how that made them feel. The Scholars also shared so much determination and accomplishments they were most proud of, like starting a business, providing for their families, and being conversational in English. We then went into two small groups and engaged in more intimate conversations with the Scholars.  From these conversations we learned that, while physical proximity is nice, many of the feelings and interactions that bring humans close can happen virtually.  

After the event, multiple Scholars shared how they overcame some initial nervousness and their increased confidence in speaking English. They were so proud of themselves. Linda also shared that SV2 Partners were super great about chat, reactions, and providing a safe, friendly, and comfortable setting. The timing also worked really well.

While a few commented that the breakout groups could have been smaller to facilitate deeper conversation, many Partners commented on their learnings:

“I have a better sense of the importance of education for adult immigrants.”

“I didn’t realize how deeply a language barrier can affect an immigrant’s ability to find employment or navigate their child’s school system.”

“I was most impacted by the scholars’ stories.”

One of the goals of our Get Proximate work at SV2 is to embed the principles in all of our work. It’s a tool in the philanthropic toolkit, much like being able to do diligence or learn the latest in equity centered practices. Getting proximate goes one step further in that practicing it means living it and adopting it as a way of being in all interactions.

Our North Fair Oaks Grant Round in 2020 was influenced by these concepts through the use of coffee chats and walking tours of the neighborhood as part of the diligence. Because deep learning and building trust-based relationships takes time, SV2 also committed to a three year Get Proximate commitment to NFO. Ongoing conversations with staff, Lead Partners and Grant Round leaders means that we are very conscious of bringing these values to different programming activities which in turn increases Partner learning.  There is great overlap between getting proximate and justice, diversity, equity and inclusion (JEDI) practices and as SV2 moves forward towards more equity centered practices, we are excited that this way of being will also permeate other aspects of Partners lives and actions. 

As Amanda Nguyễn, a civil-rights activist and co-founder of Rise, a sexual-assault-survivor advocacy organization, noted: the past few weeks alone have seen several violent attacks on Asian Americans across the country: An 84-year-old Thai American man, Vicha Ratanapakdee, was killed in an unprovoked attack in San Francisco; a 64-year-old Vietnamese American woman was assaulted in broad daylight in San Jose and robbed of $1,000 in cash she had taken out for the upcoming Lunar New Year celebration; and in New York, Noel Quintana, 61, a Filipino American, was slashed in the face with a box cutter while riding the subway. 

Asian Americans Advancing Justice, recorded more than 3,000 hate incidents in their self-reporting system since late April 2020 – by far the highest number in the tool’s four-year history, including many hate incidents against people over 60 years. According to NYPD data, hate crimes motivated by anti-Asian sentiment spiked by 1,900% in the last year. 

Simultaneously, we are heartened by kind, compassionate, and courageous acts of changemaking, for example: 

• Jacob Azevedo, an Oakland resident, has had nearly 300 volunteers sign up to join his initiative: Compassion in Oakland – providing chaperones to anyone in Oakland’s Chinatown neighborhood to help them feel safe while running errands and outside.
• SV2 Partner Philein Wang, Artistic and Executive Director of Ziru Dance, has been doing work to help dispel feelings of isolation, xenophobia, and racism as a result of responses to COVID-19, while promoting equity between all parties. Ziru Dance has received support from the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Embassy in Beijing in the form of a grant specifically to counteract the backlash through her dance company. Philein and her team hosted a dance festival in December with this as its theme. 

Here are some curated resources and ways to support. 

We are so humbled and in awe of Jacob and Philein’s efforts, those of organizations we’ve funded such as Asian Pacific Environmental Network, and more ways our community is coming together to uphold justice and compassion for all.

By Kelly Pope, SV2 Get Proximate Co-Lead, SV2 Partner

This article is the sixth in a series about the principles and practice of getting proximate:

• Article 1: Overview: Confronting Truths, Changing Narratives, and Impacting Systems
• Article 2: Getting Proximate to Understand Multiple Narratives 
• Article 3: The Power of Asset-based Language
• Article 4: Importance of Empathy
• Article 5: How Getting Proximate Helps Combat Unconscious Bias

In previous Get Proximate articles, we have examined the importance of discovering multiple narratives, framing our communication through asset based language, and how to develop empathy. These are core principles of “getting proximate” which are only realized by employing our vital sense of listening.

There are many types of listening that (active, reflective, empathetic, deep). While many of these listening techniques share similar attributes such as listening neutrally or being patient while listening, deep listening is best suited for getting proximate as it allows us “to hear every dimension of the other person, both what is said as well as what is implied. It means to hear the words and the emotions underneath them.”

Listening by itself sounds so simple, but to listen deeply is not so easy. Deep listening takes a certain stillness of mind and body. It takes focus yet requires openness. Listening is not merely hearing. Hearing is the physical process whereby our ears convert sound waves to electrical signals and are sent to our brains. Listening, on the other hand, requires cognition – the mental process of becoming aware of what we have just heard. When we notice something new or different from our own experience, then the value of this deep listening is very high. As defined by the science of information theory (my major in college), the more “surprising” the content of a communicated message, the higher value this information holds. Thus, part of the goal of deep listening is to hear those things that are novel to us or that we have not known or experienced before.

As we get ready to listen, there are several primers that will help focus our ears and minds for deep listening:

Seek relevant videos or pre-reading

SV2 recently held a Get Proximate experience with its Community Partner/Grantee, One Life Counseling Center (OLCC), an organization that provides trauma and life counseling services to immigrants. Several articles and videos were sent to Partners before attending to prepare them for the experience. These articles described the trauma that immigrants face as they journey to the United States. (e.g. How Being a First-Generation American Affected My Mental Health) In the survey after the experience, 89% of survey participants said they had a better sense of the importance of social services provided to immigrants. The articles primed Partners to listen deeply as they heard traumatic stories told by immigrants, ultimately helping them understand how OLCC was a lifeline to them as newly arrived immigrants.

Develop a set of questions

As your parents used to say, “You only get out what you put in.” As with any new learning experience, if a priori, you think about what you want to get out of the experience and develop a few questions ahead of time, your antenna becomes highly tuned to listen for the answers. There is a high probability that you will absorb much more than just the answers you were seeking.

Lose the temptation to talk

The best way to hear an authentic story is to make the storyteller feel comfortable. Humbly affirm your desire to hear their story. Be in-tune with the storyteller’s voice and body language so you can sense their needs and respond respectfully. Sometimes you may receive a signal that it’s best to remain quiet, even in moments of long pause. Other times that signal may require you to respond with empathy, ask a respectful question, or hold the space for others to speak. If note taking helps you practice deep listening, consider giving the speaker a heads up ‌you are doing so. This can help confirm you are still being present in the conversation. In your notes, try to capture what is said and how it said. Resist the urge to re-organize information and change things so they are in your own words. In the conversation, you can then demonstrate your deep listening by reiterating the speaker’s exact words as you share some thoughts. 

Eliminate pre-judgement and open your mind

To fully experience deep listening, let’s purge ourselves of preconceived notions or ideas about what we are going to hear. We must clear our minds so that we don’t have any niggling thought bubbles that might distract us from fresh stories. Finally, let’s not try to predict anything about what we will hear and experience. Let’s listen with humility and curiosity, acknowledging that we know we don’t have all the answers and approach listening with a willingness to learn. 

Consider a reflection session

When the storytelling is over, one of the best ways to synthesize and absorb what we heard is to join a group of others who have shared the same experience. Being able to listen and reflect on what others heard from the experience helps us integrate our learnings and understandings.     

Deep listening can transform us. As we listen and gain new information, we naturally develop fresh ideas and perspectives. We see things as they are, not as we might have presumed. Deep listening is the beginning of building trusting relationships. It is foundational to getting proximate. Deep listening leads to learning, which in turn leads to understanding.  

Our second session focused on public equities and debt, and featured Rachel Robasciotti, the founder of Adasina Social Capital and Chelsea McDaniel of Frontline Solutions. By building a diverse team and partnering with social justice organizations within impacted communities, Adasina defines the criteria that guide their investments. Their social justice ETF (JSTC) launched shortly after our session.  In addition, their municipal bond strategy is built on research showing that Black communities are rated riskier than communities with other similar risk characteristics, and so provide a higher yield to their municipal bond holders. Over time, Adasina’s outperformance is intended to bid this unjustified premium away. 

The third session focused on venture capital equity funds — Partners heard pitches from three funds with Black founders: 

• Precursor Ventures invests in people over product at the earliest stage of the entrepreneurial journey providing that hard to get first check to entrepreneurs with a priority for companies led by women and people of color. 
• HomeTeam Ventures invests in early stage founders bringing breakthrough technology to one the world’s largest but least innovative industries—construction and housing—with a goal of ending global homelessness. 
• Zeal Capital Partners invests in exceptional diverse management teams building high-growth, early-stage businesses that are bridging America’s wealth and skills gap, with a focus on FinTech and the Future of Work. 

After a follow-up diligence process designed specifically for equity funds, Partners voted to invest $25,000 in Zeal Capital Partners — SV2’s 17th impact investment since 2015. Their Inclusive Investing strategy is intended to provide impact at each step: they invest in and partner with exceptional founders with diverse management teams in underrepresented geographies that can create solutions to wealth, employment, and education gaps in the US.

In our fourth session in this series on Investing for Racial Equity, we will hear from some of the leading names in the Community Development Finance Institution (CDFI) sector about the deep impact of CDFIs and the unique opportunities they present to invest to address the racial wealth gap.  CDFIs provide vital credit and financial services to underserved populations making loans for housing, business, consumer, and community infrastructure. Their impact recently has been and remains especially critical to help those in low income communities survive the economic effects of the pandemic.

Our upcoming panel includes:

Amir Kirkwood, Chief Lending and Investment Officer of Opportunity Finance Network, the National Association of CDFIs.

Caroline Yarborough, Syndications and Strategy Officer of Calvert Impact Capital, one of the largest non-profit investment firms that funnels capital to CDFIs at favorable rates.

Lori Chatman, President of Enterprise Community Loan Fund, one of the largest CDFI affordable housing loan funds in the US.

Steve Zuckerman, President of Self-Help Federal Credit Union, part of a leading national CDFI with more than 70 credit union branches in low income communities in CA, WA, IL, WI, NC, SC and FL. 

RSVP here for this session, scheduled for March 23 from 12pm-1:15pm.

 

If you’re interested in reading more about this important equity issue, please see the following background articles:

– This June 15, 2020 Forbes article: Have we Reached the Tipping Point in Racial Equity Investing?  demonstrates how the heightened awareness around racial injustice is now resulting in a higher commitment to racial equity in investing. 

– ImpactAlpha, July 10 – The movement for racial justice in the criminal justice system has cast a spotlight as well on systemic and anti-Black racism in finance.

https://impactalpha.com/agents-of-impact-toppling-systemic-racism-in-finance/

Long before the protests, ImpactAlpha has featured Agents of Impact and New Revivalists doing the work of changing assumptions, practices and power structures within finance and investing. They are dismantling age-old excuses, biases and malpractices, including within impact investing itself, that lead to inefficient allocation of capital, underfunded founders of color and unrealized solutions to community needs.

– An SSIR article that highlights case examples of impact investing for racial equity is:  How foundations are using impact investing to advance racial equity  

– A recent SSIR article Racial bias in philanthropic funding and webinar with Echoing Green and BridgeSpan group quantified the difference in capital invested in organizations led by people of color, and the reasons why this is happening. 

 

The Environment Lightning Grant Round explored Bay Area climate solutions and environmental justice. Partners learned about actionable, day to day approaches to be more climate friendly, as well as the broader system of advancing climate solutions for all. Special thanks to our Funder Allies, Laura Wisland, Heising-Simons Foundation and Ash McNeely, Sand Hill Foundation, who shared with Partners what they are learning about climate solutions and justice, as well as their insights about the organizations they nominated for SV2 to consider.

We’re delighted to announce SV2’s newest Community Partners / Grantees: Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) and Menlo Spark! Both impactful organizations participated in our Environment Lightning Grant Round as finalists, and decided to split the grant. We’re learning a lot from their leadership to advance equity practices, and have an even greater appreciation of the quality and depth of collaboration amongst nonprofits to further environmental justice.

We got to know and learn from Miya Yoshitani, Executive Director, Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) and Diane Bailey, Executive Director, Menlo Spark. 

Founded in 1993, Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) has been fighting–and winning–struggles for environmental justice and economic opportunity for over twenty-five years. APEN is nationally recognized for its commitment to developing the leadership and power of poor and working-class Asian immigrants and refugees in Richmond, Oakland, and throughout California. The mission: All people have a right to a clean and healthy environment in which their communities can live, work, learn, play and thrive. APEN is increasing the climate resilience of communities of color.  APEN’s projects are growing locally produced and governed 100% clean renewable energy resources in the neighborhoods that need it most – poor and working class communities of color that have been at the frontlines of fighting big polluters. APEN makes it possible for people to stay in their homes and for communities to stay together by organizing for strong tenant protections like rent control, healthy homes, and just cause eviction ordinances. APEN also advocates for equitable development policies to make sure that those who profit from our neighborhoods invest directly back into improving open space and parks, building deeply affordable housing for seniors and families, and providing living wage jobs to the community. Now, APEN is forming land trusts so that long time residents can own the homes they live in, and keep these homes permanently affordable for future generations. APEN’s work and impact extends nationwide as the organization runs one of the largest multilingual Asian American voter mobilization programs in the nation. APEN engages immigrant and refugee voters in seven different languages to advance our shared vision for racial justice, economic equity, and climate solutions. 

Founded in 2014, Menlo Spark began when a small group of community members with diverse interests and experience joined together to explore opportunities to promote long-term economic vitality, equity, and quality of life in Menlo Park, while addressing the urgent threat of climate change. These community members united around a common vision of Menlo Park, with its highly engaged residents and unique resources in the heart of Silicon Valley, to be a national leader in sustainability and climate action. Menlo Spark joins together businesses, residents and government partners to achieve a climate-neutral Menlo Park by 2025. Menlo Spark’s early policy and program traction has demonstrated that a small organization, with just one full-time staff person can spark a hyper-local network to address climate change at the ambition and scale needed to make a global impact. Menlo Spark is ramping up to engage youth and the broader community to join on the path to zero carbon emissions, with the Campaign for Fossil Free Buildings in Silicon Valley. Menlo Spark’s mission is to help Menlo Park become climate neutral (zero carbon) by 2025, while promoting community prosperity, protecting civic heritage, and creating a replicable model for other small cities in Silicon Valley and beyond. This can be achieved by:

• Transitioning from high carbon fossil fuels to clean, renewable power
• Reducing car trips, and accelerating a transition to zero emission cars and trucks
• Requiring new buildings to be carbon free and increasing the efficiency of existing homes and businesses
• Adopting responsible waste practices
• Inspiring residents and particularly youth to take personal climate actions
• Menlo Spark’s model combines the financing of economically sound solutions, piloting forward-thinking approaches
• Incentivizing every business and resident to help themselves and the city succeed. In doing so, we will create a prosperous, healthier Menlo Park

Join us in welcoming these effective and impactful organizations to the SV2 community!

Kudos to SV2 Partner Co-Leaders Jennifer McFarlane and Zweli Mfundisi for putting together this insightful and action-packed experience!

We’re pleased to introduce our newest Impact Investees, MedHaul and Harvest Thermal! SV2 has made a $50,000 investment in MedHaul and a $25,000 investment in Harvest Thermal — our fifteenth and sixteenth impact investments since 2015.

MedHaul offers cloud-based software solutions that ease the laborious and costly burdens of managing specialized patient transportation, especially for patients in vulnerable communities. Hospitals, patients, and medical transportation providers now have an end-to-end platform that makes it easy to find and book transportation for patients with complex needs, while also streamlining the management of day-to-day transportation operations. Their app connects healthcare organizations to high quality non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) providers for patients with special needs. Their technology automates the transportation process, providing a single place to schedule and track rides for patients. This saves schedulers and nurses time, and significantly reduces missed appointments, saving costs for medical systems and increasing positive patient health outcomes. MedHaul’s founder and CEO, Erica Plybeah, is an African-American woman whose lived experience with family healthcare transportation challenges shaped her company vision. MedHaul serves the lowest income zip codes in Memphis, and plans to expand to other low income areas across the southeastern United States.

Harvest Thermal is developing innovative heating, hot water and cooling systems that reduce our impact on the planet while providing superior comfort, healthier and safer homes and lowering costs. Harvest Thermal designs and manufactures a combined domestic hot water and home heating system using a single [air-to-water] heat pump and water tank to both provide hot water and air heating and to store thermal energy for use during peak rates, reducing both costs and greenhouse gas emissions. Their high-efficiency heating with thermal storage cuts energy bills up to 50 percent, slashes greenhouse gas emissions up to 90 percent, and provides cleaner air, inside and outside the home. The team, including co-founder and CEO Jane Melia, includes multiple PhDs and is well qualified for designing, engineering, manufacturing and deploying the Harvest Thermal product. Harvest Thermal aims to work with green builders, commercial and affordable housing developers, and individual homeowners on both new and retrofit installations.

Join us in welcoming these two terrific companies to the SV2 community. For more information, please visit MedHaul and Harvest Thermal on their websites.

Impact Investing? Tell me more.

If you’re new to impact investing, learn more about how it works at SV2 by checking out our helpful overview. The SV2 Impact Investing Working Group meets monthly to discuss prospective impact investment opportunities, hear pitches from social entrepreneurs, and perform due diligence in order to make informed investment decisions on behalf of SV2. All Partners are welcome to begin regularly attending IIWG meetings at any point in the year or are welcome to audit meetings on a drop-in basis. This is a fantastic way to hear from inspiring social entrepreneurs and participate in a hands-on and highly engaged investment process. Please reach out to Jody Chang with questions.

By Paru Desai, SV2 Get Proximate Co-Lead, SV2 Partner

This article is the fifth in a series about the principles and practice of getting proximate:

• Article 1: Overview: Confronting Truths, Changing Narratives, and Impacting Systems
• Article 2: Getting Proximate to Understand Multiple Narratives 
• Article 3: The Power of Asset-based language 
• Article 4: The Importance of Empathy

Most of us know about the resume study where researchers mailed thousands of identical resumes with the only difference being that some had stereotypically African-American names while others had stereotypically white names. Resumes with a “white” name were roughly 50 percent more likely to get a call back for an interview; the difference in outcomes was attributed to the manipulated factor: the name. This was a result of an (unconscious) judgement which either favored a group that was familiar, that is, white, or ascribed undesirable characteristics to another.

Unconscious bias, or implicit bias as it is also called, results in associations, beliefs, or attitudes toward any social group where we often attribute certain qualities or characteristics to all members of a particular group (also known as stereotyping). These attributions affect how we understand and engage  with a person or group or what we say or do, often without being conscious of our biases. This plays out in many ways in our daily lives:  who we choose to sit next to in a conference room or on the train, who our friends are, which neighborhood we choose to live in, whether we cross the street based on who is walking towards us or lock the car door in certain neighborhoods. In 2020, as we struggled to understand our individual roles in the racial justice movement and why the pandemic disproportionately affected some racial groups, we became more aware of how many unconscious biases we each hold. And many times, this truth was uncomfortable.  

Because most of us only have conscious access to 5 percent of our brains, much of this type of othering occurs at the unconscious level. This doesn’t necessarily mean we are  prejudiced or inclined to discriminate against other people. Most of us consider ourselves to be unprejudiced and are shocked when presented with examples of behavior that show our unconscious bias. It’s important to know that while unconscious bias is far more prevalent than conscious prejudice, it is often incompatible with one’s conscious values. So though the good news is that most of us aren’t prone to discrimination, it does mean that we have to work to understand our biases so that we can remedy the injustices that we are unwittingly participating in. 

How do we de-bias our unconscious biases? Getting Proximate allows us to become more aware of the impact of implicit bias, particularly through values like empathy and curiosity, and allows us to take a more active role in overcoming stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination. Understanding our implicit biases will also influence how we interact with systems of oppression and marginalization.  

First, it’s helpful to understand that implicit bias is a combination of two things. First, human brains pick up information and patterns and learn from it. If we repeatedly see that CEOs are male and assistants are female, that is what our brain learns. But the second part to implicit bias is the culture or environment in which we live. In our culture, historically, men have been the CEOs and women the assistants. But if the opposite were true, we would have the opposite bias. Bias is learned and constantly reinforced by our culture and environment.

So the first step is discovering things about ourselves and truths about our world and questioning them. In a presidential debate, Hillary Clinton said, “I think implicit bias is a problem for everyone, not just police. I think, unfortunately, too many of us in our great country jump to conclusions about each other. And therefore, I think we need all of us to be asking hard questions about, you know, why am I feeling this way?”

What Clinton is referring to is, in knowing that vast inequities exist in our society, we need to be more conscious in asking ourselves why am I crossing the street, why am I hiring this person, why did I choose to sit here, why am I holding this view or reaction about this person/group, etc… What is the truth here? Sometimes the truths may be uncomfortable but that is where we move from the unconscious to the conscious.  A group of SV2 Partners doing a walking tour of the North Fair Oaks community admitted that we were more likely to drive through, often with our doors locked, in this “other” neighborhood. It was humbling to realize that the vibrancy of the community and local businesses, including some delicious taquerias and coffee shops, was in fact not that different from the streets we were normally used to. 

Another way to get proximate is to focus on seeing people as individuals rather than on the stereotypes we typically use to define them.  I will never forget my 17 year-old telling me ‘mom he was just like us in how much he likes to travel. I’m glad I came because he’s not just a homeless man.’ She was referring to our lunch with  David, as resident of the Maple Street Shelter in Redwood City. who had lost his job as freight mover at SFO due to a back injury.  Prior to this, he loved to travel and they bonded over their favorite memories of Thailand. 

This also relates to understanding multiple narratives which we talked about in a previous article. As we hear different voices, we can pause and reflect on our responses. What was our reflexive response and was it rooted in biases or stereotypes?  Replace them with positive examples as you hear the different narratives. If I only see this community as crime ridden then I miss seeing others in the same place who are working tirelessly to help their youth break cycles of neglect, lack of opportunity and poverty.

And as the narrative starts to shift, we reinforce the empathy and curiosity cycle where empathy allows us to be in someone else’s shoes while curiosity allows us to ask, listen and connect. Curiosity helps slow us down so that we get a more accurate picture and allow for the questions that start arising:  why is happening;  how would I respond if this (injustice) was happening to me; what would I do if I was in this position;  what are the external factors that created this situation;  what was my assumption about this situation/person/group and how was it wrong;  what more do I need to learn, etc. Being curious about what is happening externally as well as internally and being open to learning from different sources allows us to better understand how others are experiencing the same situation.  Empathy and curiosity allow us to move to a commonality based on facts rather than feelings. 

One additional way we can reduce our unconscious biases is just getting out more and increasing our exposure to people from different backgrounds and experiences than our own.  When doing so, we can utilize the tools of getting proximate mentioned in this article, and in others in the series, so that these experiences are richer, more meaningful and lead to better understanding of some of our biggest divides and challenges. 

Unconscious bias carries a heavy toll on both individuals and societies — socially, politically and economically.  What resides in the unconscious part of our brain is impacted by what we have been exposed to and our environment, but by being aware of this we can take active steps, like practicing getting proximate, to counter those influences.  By consciously working to understand our unconscious, we can start to better understand ourselves as well as how to remedy the collective impact of our biases, which are usually not rooted in facts, on oppression and injustice.  As Anu Gupta, founder and CEO of BEMORE puts it, “People aren’t seeing one another. We aren’t seeing one another. We’re seeing ideas of one another.”  We can unlearn bias — by being in the presence of and getting proximate to others.

The Economic Inclusion Grant Round — part of SV2’s local Pathways to Opportunity focus — looked at approaches and organizations that are supporting economic rebuilding in just, equitable, and inclusive ways. As job displacement is accelerated by the pandemic, Partners learned about a range of needs and how various groups of workers are being disproportionately affected — and what interventions, including both direct services and advocacy, are working to get people back to work. Special thanks to our Funder Allies, The San Francisco Foundation and The Sobrato Foundation, who shared with Partners what they are learning about this rapidly evolving sector, as well as their insights about the organizations they nominated for SV2 to consider.

We are delighted to announce SV2’s newest Community Partners / Grantees: Braven and Mujeres Unidas y Activas! 
Braven’s mission is to empower promising, underrepresented young people — first generation college students, students from low-income backgrounds, and students of color — with the skills, confidence, experiences and networks necessary to transition from college to strong first jobs, which lead to meaningful careers and lives of impact. Braven partners directly with universities and employers to offer an innovative two-part student experience.  It begins with a 15-week credit-bearing career-acceleration course that students take during their sophomore or junior year (traditionally hybrid online and in-person, now fully online). After the course, Post-Accelerator Fellows receive additional opportunities to develop leadership and career-readiness skills, engage in an enduring professional network, and stay on track to securing strong internships and jobs. Across the entire Braven experience, partnerships with local employers, like Adobe, LinkedIn, Cisco, Salesforce, Deloitte, and others play a key role. For employers, these partnerships offer them access to rising diverse talent and provide employees with meaningful employee engagement experiences. And, for Fellows, these partnerships offer exposure to the workplace, access to professional networks, and a pool of strong internships and jobs. 

Mujeres Unidas y Activas is a grassroots organization of Latina immigrant women with a double mission of promoting personal transformation and building community power for social and economic justice. MUA does direct service work (peer counseling, English classes, etc) and advocacy work (training and developing women to become leaders to their peers and to work in community organizing and policy work). The Executive Director, Juana Flores, came to the organization as a client, became a member and leader, and is now the senior executive. MUA conducts business in Spanish. MUA views their impact in terms of women who receive services, women who become leaders at MUA, and legislation and policies enacted with MUA’s advocacy efforts. They are committed to a collaborative and coalition approach with other organizations in their work. MUA helped create the Rapid Response Network which is a network of allies on call to respond to ICE and to ensure that people’s rights are respected. MUA started the Domestic Workers Alliance, which is now an independent national organization, but which is still tied to MUA. In this capacity, MUA was instrumental in passing the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights in California. 

This Grant Round continued SV2’s application approach in which virtual “coffee chats” between small groups of Partners and nonprofit applicants took the place of written grant applications. After a highly engaged learning and diligence process, we concluded with an unprecedented situation: a tied vote — twice. Braven and Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA) received equal numbers of votes, both in the initial vote, and then in the “run off” vote. The Board Committee has approved making unrestricted grants of $63,000 over two years to both Braven and MUA, along with three years of Beyond-the-Dollars support. SV2 will also make a $10,000 finalist grant to Juma. 

Join us in welcoming these effective and impactful organizations to the SV2 community!

SV2’s Spring 2021 Education Grant Round — part of SV2‘s local Pathways to Opportunity focus — will focus on education approaches and organizations that are addressing the effects of the COVID pandemic and building toward more equitable education outcomes in the recovery. The pandemic has disproportionately affected low income students and families, and has both revealed and intensified inequitable academic outcomes for students from underrepresented groups. This Grant Round will look at interventions including expanded learning, family engagement, and teacher development — approaches that are needed both now and as we look forward to recovery and rebuilding from the pandemic. We’re especially interested in organizations which have innovated or pivoted to address root causes of educational inequity.

As part of SV2’s commitment to embedding an equity lens in our grantmaking practice, we’ve designed this Grant Round based on insights from a variety of community stakeholders, especially those close to the ground and with lived experience. A Partner research team conducted almost 30 interviews in November and December with a variety of educators, funders, researchers, and nonprofit leaders. Their insights and recommendations have shaped our approach to this Grant Round as well as the pool of nonprofit organizations we’ll consider.

This Grant Round will continue SV2’s approach to the application process: virtual “coffee chats” between small groups of Partners and nonprofit applicants will take the place of written grant applications. Partners will learn about the sector and conduct diligence on the organizations over the course of five meetings from January to June. The Grant Round is led by Partners Meg Bannick and Grace Mah and staff member Jody Chang. Meetings will be on Thursdays from 11:30am-1:30pm via Zoom.

If you’d like to participate in the Grant Round, please join the Education Group on mysv2 in order to receive future communications and access to files. Please contact Jody Chang if you have questions about the Grant Round or trouble accessing mysv2. We look forward to this learning and giving journey together!

By Kelly Pope, SV2 Get Proximate Co-Lead, SV2 Partner

This article is the fourth in a series about the principles and practice of getting proximate:

• Article 1: Overview: Confronting Truths, Changing Narratives, and Impacting System
• Article 2: Getting Proximate to Understand Multiple Narratives 
• Article 3: The Power of Asset-based language 

It is often said these days that we are living in an unprecedented time.  We are seeing disproportionate suffering from those experiencing the direct effects of the pandemic; first time visitors in long food bank lines, front-line health workers feeling the trauma of extended exhaustion, gig economy workers left months without a paycheck, and disproportionate sickness and death among people of color.  Layered on top of this are the deep political divisions and the loud cry to right the persistent injustices of racism.  As we watch these scenes play out, our anguish is tangible, yet we feel the need to turn the corner and unwind this confluence of societal maladies that have become so acute.  

It Starts with Empathy

What will be our first step towards healing and coming back together when so many people are hurting?  How do we provide the necessary mental health and economic support? How will we mend the divisions between people and communities when rejection of other points of view has become the norm? Whether we are looking through a national or local community lens, empathy is our first stepping stone on a path towards restoration.  Empathy is a core principle of getting proximate.

What is empathy and why is it important as we work to bring people together and move beyond our societal misunderstandings and divisions? 

Empathy has a variety of definitions, most commonly, the ability to “walk in someone else’s shoes”.   Paul Parkin, empathy teacher and researcher points out that we can never *actually* walk in someone else’s shoes, that we will always be making assumptions about people’s lives and perhaps dangerously misunderstanding them.  Instead, he defines empathy as  “a righteous struggle”

• to sense someone’s emotions
• to understand and share the feelings of someone else
• to walk in someone else’s shoes

Empathy is hard and deserves those two precursors:  “righteous struggle”. 

If we truly make the effort to comprehend someone’s emotions and feel their lived experience, then the potential for compassion, understanding, and trust begins to unfold.  We start to care about others’ perspectives leading to deeper understanding and mutual respect.  We see people in our lives differently, we hear different narratives, and we become more accepting.

How to Build Empathy

Communication is the key to building empathy.  It should be curious and non-judgemental, compassionate, and validating to the other party, not just reconfirming our own preconceived notions.

The first step in an empathetic conversation is to approach it with an open mind and to be authentically curious. As a nation and local community, we must *want* to come together and foster mutual understanding. We must be curious and go outside our own comfort level, willing to reach beyond our own experiences to understand what others are feeling and experiencing.  

After being authentically curious, we must be open to hearing the lived experience of others and observe without judgement. If we allow judgement to creep in, we may revert to thought-bubbles that contain deficit, instead of asset-based vocabulary. We run the risk of falling back and relying on a single narrative, not allowing fresh stories to emerge. We must work to keep judgement at bay.  Instead, we must listen and observe with unconditional compassion.  Only when people feel seen, heard, and valued will they reciprocate by also giving and receiving without judgment.  When empathy is co-created in this way, it can be transformative. It acts as a flywheel to create more empathy, becoming a virtuous cycle.

How to Practice Empathy

There is a healthy debate whether empathy is a skill – a muscle that we need to practice in order to build, or whether empathy is a moral stance – how we move through the world. In either case, practicing empathy will make us better at it.

The best way to start practicing empathy is to get proximate with those you seek to understand/connect with.  Start a dialog, be present, and focus on connecting. Leave any preconceived notions at home. It is important to be curious, non-judgemental, compassionate, and ultimately, make sure your words are validating for the other party.  When we cultivate empathy in this deliberate way, we increase the capacity for connection between each other.

An interesting way to practice empathy is to try the Describe-Feel exercise¹.  The next time you see a provocative picture of a person’s face in a magazine or newspaper, divide a blank piece of paper in half.  On one side write Describe, the other side Feel.  Then follow these directions and write on the appropriate side.

• Describe:
  • Look at the picture and try to notice the details about this person.
  • Objectively focus on the external features and appearance of the person.
  • Write one sentence describing the age, gender, and mood of this person..
• Feel:
  • Look at the picture and try to feel what this person is feeling.
  • Empathetically focus on the internal experiences and feelings of this person.
  • Write one sentence describing the feelings and experiences of this person.

This exercise challenges us to look and feel beyond the surface of what we objectively observe.  

The result of practicing empathy is illustrated by researchers who published their findings on the outcomes of students who served in the national service program, Teach For America². They found that, compared to similar non-TFA students, the TFA students left their service “significantly more likely to attribute poverty to systemic issues rather than to poor people’s lack of individual effort.” The study illustrates that when we are proximately exposed to a situation or issue, our understanding of it deepens. As with many TFA alumni who stayed in public service even after leaving teaching, empathy increases our desire to address social justice issues.

Building a Culture of Empathy

SV2 Partners would likely score high on the empathy quotient.  Even so, we should actively put ourselves into situations to practice empathy.  All encounters are different, and sometimes practicing empathy can be hard.  Also, stress, like many of us are feeling now, can make showing/feeling empathy even harder.  

The benefits of making ourselves vulnerable and practicing empathy will make us feel more connected to one another and feel that we live in a more just and compassionate society.

When empathy is in the air, we listen more deeply and perceive feelings we did not know existed.  We begin to recognize some of the underlying systemic complexities and see the possibility that systems can change as the people within them change their opinions and attitudes. We become less judgemental.

Not surprisingly, empathy is contagious, and establishing compassion and kindness can create new social norms – norms that have the potential to spread. 

Together, we can create a world (or community) where everyone contributes to a culture that chooses to be aware of one another’s emotions and needs. That would be the best outcome in our “righteous struggle” for empathy.

 

¹Cameron, C. Darryl. “Empathy Is Hard Work: People Choose to Avoid Empathy Because of Its Cognitive Costs.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Genera, 2019, pp. 2-5, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000595.

²When Do the Advantaged See the Disadvantages of Others?

https://escholarship.org/uc/item/65q9d5hp#main