Session 2: Black Joy in Philanthropy: Creating Practices for Wellbeing, Sustainability, Growing Your Leadership and Impact

This session welcomes:

• Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and/or LGBTQ+ professionals working at MCF member organizations 
• Members of MCF's new People of Color and LGBTQ+ Community of Practice

Session 2 Overview: Black Joy in Philanthropy: Creating Practices for Wellbeing, Sustainability, Growing Your Leadership and Impact

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When Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois wrote about “double consciousness” in “The Souls of Black Folk” (1903), he named something distinct about the African American experience in the United States: the necessity of seeing oneself through two sets of eyes at once - through one’s own perspective and through the eyes of American institutions and society where unearned advantages and disadvantages shaped access to opportunities. This went beyond simply noticing and naming different perspectives. Rather, it described a deeper awareness that emerged as both a survival skill and a way to navigate a society where historical unfairness and exclusion shaped - and continue to shape - daily realities in America. The patterns Du Bois observed remain relevant in the United States today, though their forms may have shifted.

In Minnesota philanthropy, this “double consciousness” continues to matter. A Black foundation leader might deeply grasp a grassroots organization’s approach through shared experience, while also needing to convey that understanding effectively in a board room. This dynamic remains present in many settings - from investment committee meetings where we read both spoken and unspoken criteria, to community gatherings and site visits where we bridge different ways of understanding impact, to operational decisions where we connect perspectives of those most impacted to institutional priorities.

This dual awareness in the Black experience shapes how resources move, how relationships build, and how change unfolds in grantmaking practices. The ability to see from multiple visible and invisible perspectives becomes both a strength and a challenge requiring care and renewal to sustain.

Navigating Multiple Identities: Triple Consciousness 

Building on Du Bois’s foundational concept, scholars and practitioners have developed the idea of “triple consciousness” to understand how Black LGBTQ+ professionals navigate additional dimensions of identity and community. This expanded framework recognizes how Black professionals in philanthropy often move through spaces while managing not only racial dynamics but also the complexities of gender and sexual identity. In philanthropic spaces, this might mean considering how to approach relationships, engage in decision-making, or participate in institutional conversations where multiple aspects of identity inform both perspective and approach.

Why Joy Matters for Sustainable Leadership

Within the Black experience, joy represents a source of strength that has sustained communities across generations despite persistent unfairness and exclusion. Joy can appear in seeing a junior colleague grow into their strength, in watching the voices of those most impacted by our decisions help reshape institutional priorities, in feeling energy shift in a room when new possibilities open up. In those moments when someone else’s perspective clicks into place, when trust builds across difference, when a door opens that seemed firmly closed. This joy becomes vital to sustainable leadership, especially when working to expand the boundaries for inclusion and positive progress from within.

Growing into ourselves as leaders calls for many forms of renewal - not as luxury but as necessity:

• the physical rest needed after being “the only one” in many rooms 

• the mental space required when constantly bridging different worldviews
• the emotional grounding essential for navigating charged conversations
• the social connection found in spaces where our experiences are understood without explanation

• intentional time to check-in with what brought us - and continues to sustain us in this work

Our development as leaders often moves through cycles rather than straight lines. Early on, we might focus on learning institutional practices while quietly questioning whose experiences they reflect. Later, we may find ways to introduce new approaches while building allies for deeper change. Throughout, we face questions that rarely offer easy answers: How do we honor both urgent needs and the patient work of systems change? When do we push boundaries around how decisions get made? What becomes possible when we bring our cultural wisdom into institutional spaces?

Pre-Session Reflection Questions:

1. What sources of joy and strength sustain you in your philanthropic work? How has your understanding of what nourishes you in this work deepened over time?
2. In your journey of being and becoming yourself in philanthropy, what practices help you stay connected to what brought you here? When you think about support, what practices do you want more of or less of? 
3. What questions about joy, support and sustainability are you sitting with?

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We’re grateful to have Repa Mekha and Adora Land help set the context for our collective exchange of experiences and learning by sharing their reactions to this session and to our 2025 theme - Different Voice, Shared Journey: Leadership Without Easy Answers.

Session 2 Summary Runsheet 

Our 90-minute virtual program includes:

Optional Pre-Reads

• “The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power” by Audre Lorde 
• “All About Love” by Bell Hooks 
• “Rest: Why You Get More Done When you Work Less” by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
• “The 7 types of rest that every person needs” by Saundra Dalton-Smith MD

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This session is designed by and for the People of Color and LGBTQ+ Community of Practice. It is part of their 2025 Series “Different Voices, Shared Journey: Leadership Without Easy Answers”.

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Logistics

• Zoom link provided upon registration

• In-session materials and resources shared afterward

• Session is NOT recorded 

• Closed captioning provided

Questions or Accessibility Needs?

Please contact Awale (Wally) Osman at [email protected] with any questions about the program or registration process.

This program is part of our two primary strategies for growing the capacity of our members to operationalize equity and belonging in outcomes: organizational learning to strengthen policies, practices and resource flows, alongside leadership development to provide a combination of challenge and support for becoming aware, using self as learning territory, and experimenting with constantly learning and adapting to create the conditions for a culture that increases the likelihood of equity and belonging in outcomes.