EquitAble

Crystal Collier, an executive coach and leader in adaptive practices, discusses the intricate balance between achieving tangible results and honoring the humanity of teams. She emphasizes the importance of emotional intelligence and healthy boundaries in leadership, urging leaders to include team members in the journey to meet goals. The conversation tackles the necessity of clarity and accountability, highlighting how trust is built through honest feedback and understanding diverse needs to foster a thriving work environment.

Jamila Walker, a clinical social worker and therapist, founded Nashville Emotional Wellness Counseling, focusing on the mental health needs of BIPOC women and marginalized communities. In this conversation, she emphasizes the necessity of mental health support tailored for Black women, especially in leadership roles. The discussion covers the impact of workplace culture on personal wellness and the importance of community. Jamila also highlights the significance of therapists with lived experience and the need for culturally relevant care to foster true equity in mental health.

Amber Hamilton, a nonprofit and philanthropy expert, dives into the flaws of institutional philanthropy, emphasizing its role in perpetuating inequality. She critiques wealth-hoarding and advocates for community-led solutions, highlighting Black philanthropy's focus on mutual care. The discussion touches on the need for humility, listening, and active partnerships to shift power dynamics. Humorously referencing a 'Batman prophecy,' Amber stresses the urgency for foundations to act decisively against entrenched systems and support those directly impacted.

Dave Armstrong brings us inside the vital role small, locally owned grocery stores play in rural community resilience, equity, and well-being. Through the story of Farm Fresh in Carterville, Illinois, the episode highlights how such businesses support local vendors, foster personal relationships across generations, and address issues of isolation and imagination. By blending old-school values with a modern commitment to inclusivity, Farm Fresh demonstrates the quiet, everyday work of building equity and community from within.

In this engaging conversation, Chad Jones shares his journey as an organizer for social justice and embodiment coach. He emphasizes innovative event models that foster community connection and genuine leadership. Chad highlights the importance of vulnerability and resource-sharing to promote equity. The discussion dives into emotional expression, particularly among men, advocating for somatic awareness as a tool for authentic relationships. He calls for systemic change to ensure access to basic needs, urging everyone to participate in the movement for a more equitable world.

Dr. Nika White, founder of Nika White Consulting and a leader in DEI initiatives, joins Jasmine Williams, CEO of Parson Williams Group, to dissect the complexities of equity work. They discuss the fine balance between compliance and authenticity, emphasizing the importance of values alignment and understanding audience demographics. Their candid conversation also explores personal healing and its role in fostering inclusivity, alongside the need for data-driven strategies to address systemic barriers, all while keeping humor alive in their approach.

Holistic wellness is often co-opted by profit-driven industries rooted in white supremacy, failing to serve the unique needs of queer, trans, and BIPOC individuals. In an impactful conversation with Standpoint Consulting's Kym Alexander, Dalia Kinsey, RD, LD shares significant lived and professional experience as a holistic dietitian, offering strategies for resisting toxic wellness culture, reclaiming body autonomy, and centering self-affirmation and pleasure. The conversation explores decolonizing health practices, creating environments for authentic thriving, and recognizing systemic barriers that impact marginalized communities’ paths to wellness. In this episode, Kym refers to the concept of Targeted Universalism. john a. powell, the Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, offers this approach as a way of focusing on the specific needs of subgroups in pursuit of positive social outcomes.

Direct Primary Care is presented as a transformative model for healthcare, re-centering the doctor-patient relationship and bypassing insurance-driven restrictions, bureaucracy, and inequity. Dr. Maryal Concepcion shares her personal journey from corporate medicine burnout to founding her own rural practice, advocating for a more affordable, accessible, and human-centric approach. The conversation highlights both the systemic obstacles and the opportunities that arise when healthcare is driven by small business principles tied to empathy, equity, and direct community impact.Our guest refers to the infant isolation experiment attributed to Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire. The story is widely considered apocryphal, but such forbidden experiments have been conducted with highly detrimental effects. The fact of the human need for connection is regularly affirmed in ethical research.

The episode explores the philosophy of community-driven change and equity through the eyes of Natalie J. McKinney, executive director of Whole Child Strategies, Inc., and Dr. Adriane Johnson-Williams. By challenging the myths of individualism and the "bootstrap" narrative, the conversation reveals the indispensable role of communal infrastructure, trust-building, and direct engagement with residents in neighborhood transformation. The objective is to highlight how sustainable change and equitable opportunities can only be achieved by empowering communities to define and solve their own problems.

The significance of genuine collaboration and trust-building between philanthropic organizations and black-led nonprofits are highlighted in this special conversation with Aerial Ozuzu, Director of Community Impact for The Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, and Tenikki Sesley,  Chief Executive Officer of Apple Seeds, Inc.. The discussion covers the creation and operation of the Black-Led Nonprofit Leadership Alliance by the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, the discussion unveils how centering equity, vulnerability, and honest dialogue led to actionable changes in funding approaches and organizational support. Personal narratives and professional insights underscore the need for listening to those most impacted and shifting power dynamics in philanthropy to amplify equitable outcomes.