On September 16-17, I joined my Changemaker Strategies team in partnership with What Will It Take Movements for “Women & Money: Making Money Moves that Matter” in Austin, a unique gathering of leaders and activists in the fields of strategic philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, angel investing, and impact/gender lens investing. Here are my opening remarks below.

I’ve reflected on the extractive behavior I experience in my work and activist circles as well as ways that all of us, especially my White colleagues, can counteract this behavior.

I am writing this piece as a Black woman leader who is immersed in work with White allies and colleagues and who has also built a community of people of color, including equity and inclusion change agents. I am intentionally sharing my thoughts on extractive behavior with this entire continuum of people. I am writing to privileged and historically oppressed that may have their own “internalized oppression” to contend with.

Thank you all for being here and for traveling far and near! For me, authentically being honored here tonight means so many  things.

Most importantly, being the first African American woman honored by Berkshire Business and Professional Women, I see this as an opening of the gates. So thank you to BBPW for honoring me and being flexible as I’ve thought about how I want to intentionally celebrate tonight. Thank you for amplifying me and my work. I know I am being honored at this time because at this juncture in our political and cultural history BBPW is endorsing the need for a mission that promotes equitable representation and reflection as well as mutual respect for our Berkshire community of professional women while championing everyone’s humanity.

How are you accountable to yourself and your community? How are you accountable to underserved and underrepresented communities who make up the world we live in and communities you occupy? to your commitments and work results? to mistakes and harm? to teamwork, unity, and progress? How do we all embody accountability in our everyday encounters and relationships towards our collective humanity?

Since the midterm elections, I have seen the political scene be challenged by the fact that money is not and has never been the only resource, especially for women and specifically, women of color. When you have an abundance of courage, knowledge, and community and you have resilience at your core, you are incredibly resourced in the face of the most ominous hurdles, for example, getting to Capitol Hill.

You must know the “why” at the core of your work. Then it’s a matter of nurturing your “flock” of fellow leaders… Surround yourself with folks who are further along in the work, but who share a similar vision. Engage them as mentors. Connect with folks who are different from you in terms of socioeconomic, ethnic, and racial background, skill set, and capacities. This makes you stronger, which makes your organization stronger. Your flock may shift over the years and letting this be ok is part of the process. Shared values and diversity are essential.

Here's an exercise best done between the eve of Solstice and New Years Day! To get started, create some personal retreat time, a quiet afternoon or evening in the next couple of weeks. Think of this time and process as a way of gaining creative power in your life. I suggest three total sessions. Allow yourself to embody this personal inventory.

Leah and her colleagues are at the lead of a national Black Community Land Trust conversation and a re-emerging movement that is gaining even more traction and momentum in 2018. You can read more about Leah’s incredible accomplishments in the program, and I invite you to follow her work as author and activist when we leave here this evening. At Soul Fire Farm, which she co-founded in 2011, new Black, Latinx, Native American, and Asian growers participate in agricultural training workshops that focus on healing people as well as the land. Soul Fire Farm is also responsible for the Black-Indigenous Farmers Reparations Map, a project to promote “people-to-people” reparations.

Some "best practices" for organizing in rural communities work almost everywhere; others appear like they may apply, but actually require specific attention to place and context. This is important because if relational organizing work is done with proper care and resources, policy work often becomes much more facile. Activists and communities are able to draw a much simpler, cleaner straight line to implementing policy changes.

The issues that individual rural communities face are unique, but there are also similarities across all communities. After the Equity Summit focused on practice and policy, politics, and power—the ingredients needed for transformative change—I am so clear that we must keep learning from each other, creating unlikely but necessary partnerships and speaking truth to power. It is critical that we continue to build power across our regions and learn from each other and show up for each other.