Courageous Fundraising Principles w Virginia Community Voice

01/19/22 • 45 min

Lea Whitehurst Gibson and Bekah Kendrick talk to us about the processes they created and used to develop a community-centered organization with courageous fundraising principles...

Virginia Community Voice “So our mission overall is to equip neighbors and historically marginalized communities to realize their vision for their communities. And then the second part of our vision, our mission is to prepare institutions to respond effectively.” Learn more and follow them on socials: Facebook, Insta, Twitter, LinkedIn and of course, you can donate here.
- Facebook: @virginiacommunityvoice
- Insta: @vacommunityvoice
- Website: https://vacommunityvoice.org/
Lea Whitehurst Gibson is the Executive Director of VCV and is a seasoned community organizer. Priori to leading the VCV, Lea was the Director of Community Engagement at Thriving Cities Group. She also worked for Richmonders Involved to Strengthen our Communities (RISC) where she organized 1,000 people in 20 diverse congregations to stand together for just practices. Lea has a degree in theology from Elim Bible College.At VACV Lea oversees the organization’s operations, fundraising, staff and board development, and leads Community Voice Blueprint training and coaching. Lea and her husband are foster parents and live on Richmond’s Northside.Contact Lea at [email protected].
Bekah Kendrick is an experienced nonprofit professional, grantmaker, and grant writer. Prior roles include: Technical & Grant Writer for Thriving Cities Group, Director of Community Impact: Education at United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg, and Director of Programs at MentorVirginia. Bekah has a Bachelors in American Studies from The College of William & Mary and Master’s in English from Virginia Commonwealth University. She manages fund development and communications for Virginia Community Voice. Bekah enjoys reading, hiking, and being near the water with her husband and son.Contact Bekah at [email protected].
Find the Community Voice Blueprint here
Virginia Community Voice was inspired by Community Centric Fundraising and its July 2020 launch!
Here are the 10 principles of CCF, and here are the Courageous Fundraising Principles of Virginia Community Voice

Process:
Virginia Community Voice equips their neighbors to realize their vision for their own neighborhoods. Locally they work with marginalized communities that have not historically been listened to or heard and implementing the solutions they think best for their communities. And they work to prepare the official decision makers and traditional positional authority to listen and implement those solutions. All of this is towards a commitment for equity for the entire Commonwealth of Virginia - and specifically in Richmond, which is the former capital of the Confederacy.

It's important to know their programs:
1) RVA Thrives, has a goal and mission of equipping neighbors to realize their vision for their own community and to make sure they have resources and coaching to engage in what is happening in the neighborhood (food access, affordable housing, gentrification etc.)
2) Community Voice Blueprint (downloadable for free) is a four-step guide to community engagement around which they offer coaching and training.

As they are a Black and woman led organization, they wanted to make sure that their inception did not include the traditional racist and donor-centric practices that most npos use.

Here are a few notes about what Bekah and Lea describe as part of their process:

They set the intention of dismantling old ways and centering racial equity, and “injecting equity into our entire process”
They questioned whether they needed to start another nonprofit
They looked for resources and saw no documented path towards equitable community engagement
As they formed the organization (as a spin off of a white-led organization) they took the time to research fundraising norms and ways of working that they disliked and are rooted in white supremacy.
In doing research in current norms and racism in philanthropy/fundraising specifically, they identified the most problematic:
- Donor centric fundraising only presents one model of who a donor can be. Said Bekah: “we knew we wanted to have a more democratic and accessible model in which all gifts are valued equally, no matter whether they're small or large, whether they're monetary or time. “
- Avoid communication that objectifies peop...

Lea Whitehurst Gibson and Bekah Kendrick talk to us about the processes they created and used to develop a community-centered organization with courageous fundraising principles...

Virginia Community Voice “So our mission overall is to equip neighbors and historically marginalized communities to realize their vision for their communities. And then the second part of our vision, our mission is to prepare institutions to respond effectively.” Learn more and follow them on socials: Facebook, Insta, Twitter, LinkedIn and of course, you can donate here.
- Facebook: @virginiacommunityvoice
- Insta: @vacommunityvoice
- Website: https://vacommunityvoice.org/
Lea Whitehurst Gibson is the Executive Director of VCV and is a seasoned community organizer. Priori to leading the VCV, Lea was the Director of Community Engagement at Thriving Cities Group. She also worked for Richmonders Involved to Strengthen our Communities (RISC) where she organized 1,000 people in 20 diverse congregations to stand together for just practices. Lea has a degree in theology from Elim Bible College.At VACV Lea oversees the organization’s operations, fundraising, staff and board development, and leads Community Voice Blueprint training and coaching. Lea and her husband are foster parents and live on Richmond’s Northside.Contact Lea at [email protected].
Bekah Kendrick is an experienced nonprofit professional, grantmaker, and grant writer. Prior roles include: Technical & Grant Writer for Thriving Cities Group, Director of Community Impact: Education at United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg, and Director of Programs at MentorVirginia. Bekah has a Bachelors in American Studies from The College of William & Mary and Master’s in English from Virginia Commonwealth University. She manages fund development and communications for Virginia Community Voice. Bekah enjoys reading, hiking, and being near the water with her husband and son.Contact Bekah at [email protected].
Find the Community Voice Blueprint here
Virginia Community Voice was inspired by Community Centric Fundraising and its July 2020 launch!
Here are the 10 principles of CCF, and here are the Courageous Fundraising Principles of Virginia Community Voice

As they are a Black and woman led organization, they wanted to make sure that their inception did not include the traditional racist and donor-centric practices that most npos use.

Here are a few notes about what Bekah and Lea describe as part of their process:

They set the intention of dismantling old ways and centering racial equity, and “injecting equity into our entire process”
They questioned whether they needed to start another nonprofit
They looked for resources and saw no documented path towards equitable community engagement
As they formed the organization (as a spin off of a white-led organization) they took the time to research fundraising norms and ways of working that they disliked and are rooted in white supremacy.
In doing research in current norms and racism in philanthropy/fundraising specifically, they identified the most problematic:
- Donor centric fundraising only presents one model of who a donor can be. Said Bekah: “we knew we wanted to have a more democratic and accessible model in which all gifts are valued equally, no matter whether they're small or large, whether they're monetary or time. “
- Avoid communication that objectifies peop...

Previous Episode

How To Feed A Movement w Tomme Beevas

Tomme Beevas lives out his values in ways that we hope will inspire you too!

In this episode we talked about the tremendous work he participated in at:

Pimento Relief Services - learn more and follow them on socials: Facebook, Insta, Twitter, LinkedIn and of course, you can donate here.
- Facebook: @pimentorelief
- Insta: @pimentoreliefservices
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pimento-relief-services/
- Website: https://pimentoreliefservices.org/
Pimento Jamaican Kitchen and Rum Bar is Tomme’s restaurant and there are many tv episodes that feature he or the restaurant - this is the newest...a dinner with the Beevas family on the Magnolia Network
- Facebook: @pimentokitchen
- Insta: @pimentokitchen
- Twitter: @pimentokitchen

Tomme notes that Pimento Relief Services was created for those “on the front lines of liberation.” Pimento Relief Services was created after the lynching of George Floyd. He later talks about the 99’ murder of Amadou Diallo as well. As I write these notes, we have just learned of the shooting of 4 year old Arianna Delane, George Floyd’s niece, who was asleep in her bed when a yet-to-be-identified person shot into her apartment.

Tomme lists Marcus Garvey as one of the north stars of Pimento Relief Services, and quotes him saying: “Take advantage of every opportunity; where there is none, make it for yourself.”

Michelle refers to her experience at Sexual Violence Law Center, talks about the Harlem Nutcraker by Spectrum Dance

Tomme refers to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals which we could use to see how US cities are developing - as the US holds other countries to these standards...

Process:
Here are a few notes about what Tomme lists as how Pimento Relief Services was built to serve the community:

They took a meeting place that already existed as a safe, community-based space: Pimento Jamaican Kitchen and Rum Bar
Friends and community members were invited to identify their own needs!
Needs included food as the primary need for which they threw a food drive. (Tomme points out that Minneapolis is the food headquarters of the world, and yet Minneapolis had a food desert in their city.)
They coordinated an active list of needs for those on the frontlines of liberation - reporting needs out in real time via social media (needs ranged from fire extinguishers to insulin, diapers to food.)
A week later, they threw a healing event, involving yoga, art, and other healing modalities
The following week they held a gathering with 150 of the top leaders of the community in the small backyard of the restaurant - including religious leaders, the mayor, business leaders etc talking about how these groups could provide services to those on the frontline of liberation in the community
Tomme defines liberation in three categories:
- Economic Liberation: How do we create more Black business leaders, how do we elevate folks in their occupations?
- Social Liberation: Tomme includes Food Justice, Social Justice, Academic Justice (women in academia, accurate political and social history,
- Political Liberation: How do we get people to show up for voting, running for office - what resources do they need to run their campaign, political action committee that funds candidates

Big pieces of wisdom:
Tomme drops wisdom through the entire episode, from how we use consultants, how we create community, how to center people from the beginning, what liberation looks like and overarching philosophy about our highest purpose. But here are just a few quotes:

“Start with Trust. Trust the people you’re serving to know what they need, and know what they want...I simply got out of the way and allowed them to build the community that they needed in the space that I happened to be a steward of.”

“Growing up in Jamaica, we recognized that even if there is just one loaf of bread...that’s enough to feed our whole community.”

Next Episode

How I Became An Accidental Sweatshop Overlord w Kristina Wong

Kristina Wong does some pretty incredible things with her life energy and creativity - damn!

You can find Kristina Wong on:
- Facebook: @ilovekristinawong
- Insta: @mskristinawong
- Twitter: @mskristinawong
- Venmo: @givekristinawongmoney

In this episode we talked about several bodies of work she has created including:

The Auntie Sewing Squad
- The massive mutual-aid network of volunteers across the United States, sewing homemade masks for vulnerable communities - like asylum seekers on the border, which Kristina started. In early 2022 they are still sewing and involve hundreds of Aunties, shipping thousands of masks to vulnerable communities across the US.
The Book = Auntie Sewing Squad: Mask Making, Radical Care, Racial Justice (released 2021) talks about America’s pursuit of global empire at the cost of its citizens, the significance of women of color performing a historically gendered and racialized invisible labor...
- And was written with cool coauthor Rebecca Solnit
Kristina Wong, Sweatshop Overlord
Kristina Wong for Pubic Office
- She’s actually an elected official at her neighborhood council in LA’s Korea Town
- Legit check out her hand sewn props and if you have time, her interview on Sew and So is great! (and literally a sewing podcast.)
Big Bad Chinese Mama.com a performance piece, her fake harem of brides - a “sophomoric” project that is still up!
She’s been a guest on late night shows on NBC, Comedy Central, NFX...I watched ALL of these TV spots and you’ll enjoy them too!

Kristina references:

Jose Luis Valenzuela and Teatro Campesino as well as Guillermo Gomez Pena as key artists of inspiration
Art to Action, as the generous fiscal sponsor for The Auntie Sewing Squad
Wild Harvest Food Bank is an LA food bank, operates as a grocery store for all, and their CEO Glen Corrado,
- $50 p/month food challenge, where she survives on that budget every month!
Upcoming Project? Kristina plans a concept called Food Bank Influencer working on perhaps a food bank performance space to benefit the Navajo Nation - a nation which she reports, has only 13 grocery stores spread across three states serving 300,000 tribal citizens.