C4 Innovations

Achieving Racially Equitable Leadership

An episode of “Changing the Conversation” podcast

Regina Cannon, Livia Davis, and Kristen Paquette discuss what leadership must look like to truly transform systems and achieve real racial equity.

February 22, 2022

[Music]

Kristen Paquette, Host (00:05): Hello, and welcome to Changing the Conversation. I’m Kristen Paquette, CEO at C4 Innovations. I’m joined today by two of my colleagues here at C4, Regina Cannon, Chief Equity and Impact Officer, and Livia Davis, Chief Learning Officer. Regina, Livia, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Regina Cannon, Guest (00:23): Thanks so much for having us, Kristen.

Livia Davis, Guest (00:25): It’s a pleasure to be with you today, Kristen.

Kristen (00:27): We wanted to take the time to invite our listeners into a conversation today. It’s an invitation, but it’s an invitation that’s got some real urgency to it. We’ve been having this discussion internally here, as leaders at C4, and also as leaders in the fields in which we work. We felt that it was time to step back and take stock of where we are in the work of transforming systems towards racial equity.

Kristen (00:51): This work has been going on for a long time in our country, and also here at C4. Especially in the last couple of years, the visibility of this work and the public commitments and urgency to work to dismantle racism have become really heightened. Beginning in 2020, with all of the change and unrest surrounding first the COVID pandemic, and then with the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and far too many other instances of racist acts of murder and terror, so many people leaders, companies, institutions stepped forward and declared their commitment to addressing racism and doing their part in the work of racial equity.

Kristen (01:33): We felt that we saw this clarity and fierceness and urgency on a large scale for the first time in a long time. To be clear, that clarity and urgency has always air among Black and Brown communities, but we saw, in a way, an awakening across the country, including among many, many White people and really across the globe that things cannot continue as is in the US, and that it is long past time to confront our racist history and all of the ways that racism continues to infiltrate our systems and our communities.

Kristen (02:06): But where are we now? Where are we in channeling all of that fierce urgency that we heard from leaders, often hearing from some of them for the first time? Are we seeing the kind of transformative changes and justice that we hoped for? Are we seeing leaders continue these commitments and deepen them? Are we seeing some leaders step back, step aside, step forward, create more seats at the table, share power with those who are most marginalized and most underrepresented?

Kristen (02:32): Today, we’re focusing specifically on the question of leadership and holding and sharing power in the context of racial equity. We want to just take a look and see what’s changed. Where are we seeing movement, where are we seeing stuckness, where should we be heading, and what does representative leadership look like?

Kristen (02:49): We also invite our listeners to try to hold the tension of several things being true at once. It’s very tempting to get caught up in either/or thinking, especially when we’re talking about race and leadership and roles. We can think of it purely as a narrow question of who’s in the seat next and what do they look like, but we’re trying to hold a lot in our brief conversation today, as we acknowledge the historical struggles that have led us here to this moment and as we hold out the possibility of hope for true change. We also have to look at the organizations and institutions where we work and collaborate and live out our lives and hold ourselves and others accountable to the promise of racial justice and equity for all.

Kristen (03:31): I want to start by inviting Regina and Livia to just share what’s on your mind coming in today’s conversation. What are you seeing? Regina leads work in the housing and homeless services space, Livia leads work in the recovery and behavioral health space. Both are driving forward a lot of work every day on anti-racism and racial justice in these spaces. What are you both seeing? Regina?

Regina (03:53): Thanks so much for that great framing of this conversation, Kristen. It’s a long time coming, to really delve into what does it take to truly transform our systems and what will it take from leaders, both White leaders, Black leaders, other leaders of color, in this moment, and who will actually meet the moment.

Regina (04:14): What have we been seeing in terms of advancing racial equity toward racial justice? Kristen, I’m afraid to say, not a whole lot. There was this fire that you spoke of, this fierce urgency, this awakening, as it were, in 2020. That seems to have burnt out, that it’s no more than an ember. Everybody joined a reading club and started tweeting about all the things that they were doing and putting signs out in all of this, but in terms of real change and structural change in our field, in terms of who still sits on boards in those decision making positions, who are the executive directors, who make up the management staff, those have not changed significantly. Until we can actually make those kinds of changes, I think we’re going to keep going down the same paths.

Regina (05:09): See, here’s the deal. We’d like to say that everyone will benefit from advancing racial equity, but some folks believe that they won’t. Here’s what I mean. Take, for instance, if we have White leaders, who are at the head of many of the nonprofits or small mission-led businesses, and they’re being asked in this moment to really interrogate their place, their role, to meet this moment in history, to actually make sure that decision making, that power holding, that those things are really representative, that they are across all races and ethnicities. The real question is whether or not they’re willing to cede those positions, to cede that power. When does personal ambition or need to be at the head, when does that bump into advancing racial equity? To your point, Kristen, I think that we can hold both, but it’s going to be a struggle.

Regina (06:13): Let’s give a clear example from the work that all of us do around housing and housing instability. Many of you all may be aware that there’s a new position that has been filled at USICH, United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, the executive director position. Let me just pause to give a little bit of history. Every single executive director for USICH has been White. A year ago, there was an interim director who happened to be Black. This director, for whatever reason, is being replaced by a White male.

Regina (06:56): Now, the question is going to come up, so what do you mean? That White folks can’t have positions of power anymore? They can’t be leaders? No, that’s not what we’re saying at all. But when you look at a field like homelessness, like housing instability, all of the work that we have done to try to advance the notion of racial equity and to practice that, and then in this moment in time, in 2022, to say that no one else can fill that position that’s bringing all of these federal agencies together, only a White man can do that? Kristen, I think we’ve got a long way to go.

Kristen (07:36): Regina, that’s a really timely example for work in the housing and homeless services fields, with the appointment of Jeff Olivet as a new executive director. It’s also a great example of where we can hold many things to be true at once, as you’ve said. For example, I know there have been a few statements circulating from leaders in the field about this change in leadership. Most acknowledged that Jeff has been a skilled and principled and valued leader in driving forward the work of racial equity in the field, and we hope and expect and need to see that commitment continue, and yet, some others have acknowledged that it is another missed opportunity to have some of that representative leadership at the highest levels.

Kristen (08:15): Jeff pointed out himself in a recent statement, mapping out a vision for the work of the Interagency Council, that for far too long we’ve relied on leaders that typically don’t bring the explicit lived experience at the margins, yet they’re leading agencies and decisions that have tremendous influence on the lives of those who do bring those experiences and identities.

Kristen (08:35): These questions about leadership, new leadership, leadership that hasn’t yet changed, do give of us pause as we step back and think about where we’re seeing change and where we haven’t yet, especially knowing how widespread the focus on racial equity has been in recent years, right?

Kristen (08:50): Livia, how about you? What are you seeing?

Livia (08:51): A lot of the work we are doing around advancing racial equity is in the behavioral health, treatment, and recovery spaces. What we have seen in the last two years has been an incredible commitment to looking at becoming aware of the issues, so this idea about getting trainings, understanding some of the core definitions and concepts, and looking at doing the internal work to understand where you are in a white dominant culture. If you are a White person or if you are a Black person, what does that mean in terms of the roles you occupy and the power that you may have from either being in a privileged position or in a subjugated position.

Livia (09:41): We’ve seen a lot of trainings and a lot of effort and a lot of commitment to try to at least understand the foundational knowledge of racial equity and looking at, okay, what would it take to actually transform? Then what we are starting to see a little bit of is commitment to actually taking some action steps, or at least articulating action steps, what systems and programs can do to say, “All right, so how are we going to actually do this work?”

Livia (10:13): We have seen some progression in that, but we haven’t seen a lot of progression, certainly to your point, Regina, where we are seeing leaders going, “You know what? I need to look at what does it mean to share power or give up power or delegate power in order to truly achieve the promise of racial equity.” If we are looking at and working in programs and systems that are supposed to serve all of us, all populations, then what does that mean in terms of representative leadership? What should leadership look like?

Livia (10:48): We have not seen the movement towards leaders currently just saying, “Hmm, what does that mean for my role? Should I be,” as you’re suggesting, Regina, “cede this and what would that look like? What would those steps entail in terms of getting ready to transition my leadership role to somebody else?”

Regina (11:09): Livia, I’m so glad that you brought that into the conversation, because I think that we need to look at leadership in a way that’s saying to White leaders, it is not about perhaps giving your seat to a Black person, to a Brown person. We’re not talking about charity here, let’s be very clear. We’re talking about justice. If we are talking about justice, then why wouldn’t leadership look like all of us? Why does it always, always look White?

Livia (11:40): Yes. One of the things from the recovery movement that we’ve done a lot of work with is this idea that nothing about us without us. That is one of the core tenants of the recovery movement. As we have been doing work with racial equity and recovery movement, the recovery movement itself has also had to say to itself, going, “Huh, are we actually being truly representative in what we are elevating, what we are funding, what we are giving power to?”

Livia (12:09): It’s too slow of a process for me, personally. I wish we could go get there a little faster, but I am seeing, and our team is seeing, a lot of progress in systems and communities and programs sticking with it and saying, “We’re going to commit resources. We’re going to stay with this over time,” and that is very hopeful, to me.

Regina (12:33): We have been having this conversation about time and about how we really advance racial equity, getting to racial justice, and this whole notion that we have to move in this incremental way and that it’s just slow and just be patient, it’s coming if you just hang in there. Well, you know what? That’s what they said 400 years ago. That’s what they said during the civil rights movement, just be patient, you want too much too soon.

Regina (13:00): Well, to James Baldwin’s point, how long do we have to wait for your progress? We’re there. We understand who we are and what we bring into every organization as leaders. It’s this whole notion about we’ve just got to move slowly, and it’s always at the pace of White people’s feelings, of White people’s ambitions, of their comfort level. Why is it that we can’t have what we need right now? Why is it that we’re always the ones that are being asked to just be patient, wait your turn. Our turn is right now.

Kristen (13:39): I want to go back to something that you said earlier as well, Regina, of why, why do we always come back to this place? Why is it always White leaders in these positions of power? From the perspective of folks who are racial equity practitioners, leaders, champions, doing the work every day in different ways, why is the change so hard to come by at the highest levels of power? If that’s where the game truly changes at the end of the day, why is it that our efforts are so focused on this incrementalism and this individual learning and processing? We’re not toppling the power structures, why is that?

Regina (14:19): It seems to me that when the rubber meets the road and folks are actually asked to say, “You know what? I’m going to walk away from this because I am not the best person at this moment,” not that I’m stepping back so, gee, you Black folks can … Mm-mm [negative]. That in this moment, I am literally not the best person, that in this moment it requires a person who has the lived experience at the intersection of having experienced oppression through these systems. I think that people don’t want to take that step, because think about that, that’s asking something personal. Everybody feels comfortable, as long as we’re talking about, okay, we’re going to change some programs and some policies, some institutional things, some structural things, and yet it is people who are holding those things up. Some of the people have got to move on.

Regina (15:13): I think that that’s the challenge, that no one wants to move on, because everyone’s saying, “Well, I worked really hard for this position. Why should I be the one to sacrifice?” Well, ask Black people that same question, why we’ve been sacrificing for the good of all, for all of these many years. At the end of the day, we know that especially in some fields, in some work, that you simply will never achieve racial justice through the eyes of folks who have not experienced injustice at the levels, at the bodily experience, that Black and Brown folks have.

Kristen (15:49): Thanks, Regina. I think this is a good point in the podcast to maybe acknowledge, for folks who don’t know, that I’m a White leader here as part of this conversation and in the role of chief executive officer here at C4 Innovations. I’ll acknowledge that we are doing a lot of work internally, as well as externally, to bring racial equity forward into everything that we do into our organization, into our hiring practices, into our leadership, and yet the work is really slow going here too.

Kristen (16:22): I’ve asked myself a lot of very hard questions about that and about my own role, especially in the last couple of years. We’re an organization that’s so explicitly committed to working on behalf of deeply systematically marginalized populations, and here I am. We’ve had to reckon with the fact that we’ve been doing this work for over 15 years and for most of that time, we were not very explicit at all about the forces of racism and racial disproportionality and racial injustice at play with perpetuating homelessness and mental illness and addiction and mass incarceration, everything that goes into that. We’ve done our own reckoning in a way.

Kristen (17:06): I do wonder what it looks like when it’s time for me to step aside and what the organization needs to look like in order for that to be a successful transition. We want to have financial stability, strong and diverse leadership, so we can keep innovating and keep being on top of our game and at the edge of the work and making real impact, which is the only reason that any of us really want to be here, but I also recognize that’s probably a conversation that a lot of their White leaders are having with themselves. You could have that conversation for years or for decades. It’s never the right moment for me to step back, so I’d better stay for the good of the work. I don’t know the answer to that.

Kristen (17:47): I’m curious your thoughts, because I’ve heard messages from different racial equity practitioners and consultants over the years as well, around how you think about stepping aside or stepping forward as a White leader and making space.

Livia (18:01): One of the things that I have pondered a lot also, as a White leader, who is an immigrant from another country, is how do you achieve representative leadership? If you look at other countries, in terms of representative leadership, in terms of women and men in parliament, there are some fascinating statistics. In looking at those commitments to making sure that there was more representative leadership, my thought is that sometimes you have to jump and make that commitment and take that action before you are completely ready yourself.

Livia (18:46): By that, I mean, we look at some of the statistics, we know, for example, in Cuba, 53.4% of people in parliament are women. We know in Finland it’s 46%, we know in France it’s 40%, in the US it’s 26.8%. What are the forces and the commitments to representative leadership that impact parliamentary representation, and what can we learn from that?

Livia (19:14): Part of what I know, from being from Denmark, is that there is a strong commitment to make sure that representation is supported. Sometimes that means that to be equitable, that you elevate some folks in order to be representative. I don’t think that we necessarily see that in many places in the US. I certainly personally have said, “Okay, what does that time look like for me as well? Because I made the same commitment internally, when should I step aside and really have that internal conversation with my colleagues?”

Regina (19:57): I’ve got so many thoughts at this moment. I’m loving listening to both of you all here and I want to pull a few threads here. One, Kristen, you said something so important in terms of when White leaders think about, “Well, it’s going to be my time to step aside and I want to make sure that I leave the organization in financial good standing and that we’re strong,” and I so appreciate that. And, and, I also want to acknowledge that sometimes that may take forever, and that many times, Black leaders or folks who are aspiring to be leaders will say things like, “Well, my gosh, yet once again, they’ve left the mess for the Black folks, especially Black women, to come in and clean up.” All of those things are legitimate.

Regina (20:53): But what I’d like to push a little bit here is that if, if we waited to everything was always in perfect place or if every Black person said, “Well, I’m not going to accept such and such position because it’s all messed up now,” we don’t even have to go back too far. Then if we look at Senator Barack Obama who was coming in at an economic collapse in our country, if he’d said, “You know what? I’m going to wait till this country comes back economically before I run,” and just said, “Nah, I’ll wait it out,” what if the Black woman who will be nominated for the Supreme Court said, “You know what? Mm-mm [negative]. This court is so messed up right now, they’re trying to suppress voters all over the country, they’re supporting local efforts to do this, they’re trying to bring down Roe V Wade, all of this. I’m going to wait until we get some more folks in there that can think a little bit more sensibly. Nah, don’t want it this time.” Think about that.

Regina (21:56): If we push those to the extreme, what do we get? We will never have Black leadership, Black people in those roles. I think that we have to figure that out, that’s the principal struggle. It is not just this wholesale of, well, we’ve got to wait here or there, or, well, no, we don’t want those roles because they’re leaving with us with a mess. Well, I think that we can actually figure out how to do that, because there are some Black folks who can come in and make the kind of changes that need to be made. There are Black people who would love to come in and have an opportunity to put their vision forth and to lead organizations.

Regina (22:42): We have to make sure that they have the support and the resources that they need, because we do know that most Black people don’t have the mentorships that White people in leadership positions had. Just because someone needs any kind of resources or additional supports and all doesn’t mean that they’re not ready for other job, it just means that they’re having to get the resources at this particular time, 10 years later perhaps than their White counterparts did. I want us to be able to play in all of that because I don’t think it’s an either/or.

Livia (23:16): I’d agree, and frankly, we need the creativity, the brilliance, the life experience, the informed decision making of that kind of varied leadership, and we need it desperately.

Kristen (23:29): Yeah. Thank you for bringing us back around to this notion of moving past this very polarized way of thinking, because I think when we talk about the politics of appointments, of leaders and who gets the job, we get very stuck in the conversation and thinking, are we saying we don’t want any more White leaders anywhere or it’s time for all White leaders to step down? Or the example about President Biden’s plan to appoint a Black woman is getting really weaponized like, “Well, how could we possibly know that we’re going to have a qualified Black woman right out of the gate,” but it’s so much more complex than that, including his thinking and his commitment.

Kristen (24:08): You can be unapologetic, to your point earlier, Livia, that we need to right these wrongs. When we look across these power structures, there is a lot that’s still very wrong when we think about representativeness and justice, especially for organizations that are working on behalf of deeply marginalized populations, where there’s probably some real disproportionalities and some very layered intersecting oppressions in different ways. What kind of solutions are we going to get if it’s primarily or fully from a limited, in this case, very White, perspective as we’re talking about today?

Regina (24:46): Oh, Kristen, I’m so glad that you brought that into it. Can I just go ahead and say the words? I’m going to go ahead and say the words. When you have folks, White people, White-identifying folks, who walk through the world in a very different way, who are very much the beneficiaries of White privilege, you can not, you simply cannot, have the kind of leadership that is required for everyone. This is what I mean, if it is only White folks, if it is only Black folks, why can’t it be both? Why can’t we make sure that our leadership is representative of our country, of the communities that we serve. Because if you are walking through the world in a certain way, there’re going to be some things that you will miss. Your privilege, sitting in this whole bowl of white supremacy ideology and culture that we all sit in, it will prevent you from seeing, but here’s someone else who’s walking through the world in a very different way and can see things differently because they’ve always been at the margins.

Regina (25:54): It’s sort of like a camera. Okay, here’s the thing, I don’t really know anything about cameras, but I’m thinking that there’s some lens that zoom in really small and then some that zoom out really large, and you can get the whole picture. Well, those of us who are on the margins, we got the whole picture. You think about making sure that we are brought into the center of leadership and the kinds of ideals and brilliance and the gifts that we bring to that, rather than always being put out to the margins.

Kristen (26:27): Absolutely, Regina. I think we’ve named some incredibly profound benefits of having representative leadership and having leaders from different marginalized identities, backgrounds, life experiences. There’s also a lot of intangible benefits and outcomes in terms of how we change organizations’ landscapes, how having diverse leadership sets a precedent for future diverse leaders, serves as role models for little kids who are now seeing our first Black woman vice president in the United States. It’s an incredible game changer, and there’s rippling effects of policies and folks feel permission to step forward and expect more and to be more. It’s also important not just to get stuck in the narrowness of White leader or leader of color, but also what are the incredible missed opportunities for layers and layers and layers and years and generations to come every time we pass over somebody who’s brilliant and talented and a Person of Color and just go back to the default of typically White, and often White males.

Regina (27:35): Kristen, I know we are not in church, but can I just say amen?

Kristen (27:38): Yes, you can definitely say that, Regina. That’s allowed on our podcast.

Kristen (27:42): I want to come around, I know we’re coming to the end of our conversation. It’s also important to acknowledge the reality that in a lot of these spaces, day to day, we are still working in spaces with a lot of White leadership, and again, acknowledging the elephant in the room here as a White leader in this conversation and in our organization. We still want to make sure that we are expecting and holding folks accountable to the work of equity in ways that are measurable and inclusive and transformative. How can we, again, holding intention, sometimes maybe our disappointment, with those realities, but also not wanting to miss out on the opportunity for deep impactful work and change that has to come. What does some of those accountability structures look like? How can we foster that sense of shared accountability?

Regina (28:37): Yeah. I think the first thing, especially for White leaders at the top of nonprofits or small businesses or across the landscape across any domain, is that they first have to realize that they need to be partnering with other leaders of color, with other Black leaders, so that they are not missing things, so that they can be held accountable to actually advancing this work. First, the acknowledgement, you need other folks to be in partnership with you, and then understanding who you are accountable to, so these partners that you have and also to the communities of color that you are serving, especially folks who have lived experience of and fill in the blank. We know that most times they’re going to be disproportionately Black and Brown folks that have this lived experience, the folks that we are serving every day.

Regina (29:32): I would start with that, the acknowledgement that it’s needed, and then to be accountable, ask yourself who you need to be accountable to, and then figure out how do we do this in a shared way, and not just the shared decision making, of course that, but also in the shared recognition, the shared face time.

Regina (29:55): Let’s be clear. We can, if we’re not careful, we can set up a system where, okay, well, White leaders, yes, you get some partners here and talk about it or some of your management staff may be folks of color, but then you’re always the face of it, you’re always the one that people are looking to who’s coming up with this wonderful things and all, rather than seeing that you have an entire team and a partnership helping with this. That’s exploitation and extraction. We want to be really careful while we’re setting up these systems of accountability, while we’re setting up these partnerships, because while in this moment, here we are with White leaders, and so we want them to be successful because of the work that they do, the communities that they serve, but we also want to make sure that everyone sees who’s doing all of the work, that it’s not just that face that is in front of you, but that it is a whole group of folks, many of them Black and Brown folks who are doing the work, and they need to receive the credit for doing that.

Livia (30:59): Now, I would add to that list, impressive list, Regina, that if we reframe, certainly as White leaders, our work as partnership with communities of color, rather than serving, I think even words matter, because the privilege and the ability to partner with people at the grassroots level, at the community level, to find common ground, to define collective action also means that you have to address the power dynamic, the power hierarchy right up front. That means that you need to think yourself of as a facilitator, almost as a steward leader, that you are doing it for the sake of the process, for the sake of the end result. You’re not doing it to advance your career or make sure that you feel good about coming into work and doing good in the world.

Livia (32:03): You have to have a certain level, I think, of maturity and humbleness so that you can have support to check yourself, because egos tend to get in the way, even for the best of us, where we try to check it, where it feels really good. That’s not the point of the work. The point of the work is to empower the communities to be equal in power to you, in not only identifying the problem, but coming up with the solutions so at the end of it they can say, we did this ourselves.

Kristen (32:39): That’s wonderful. Thank you so much, Livia, that makes me think about what I’ve seen you both do so beautifully in your work, is create that space, set up the expectation that that space is absolutely critical and valuable and is going to get you to a better solution on the other end. That’s hard. In the work that we do, we’re fighting against funders and timelines and government deadlines and deliverables and things like that, but if we just barrel ahead and don’t take the time for that deep, deep inclusiveness and collaboration and community-centeredness and person-centeredness in equitable ways, we haven’t done our jobs.

Kristen (33:23): Last question for both of you, as we are having this moment to step back and take stock a little bit of some things that have maybe changed a little and some things that haven’t changed much at all, where are you both today, as you think about your work, especially over these last couple of years? Feeling hopeful? Maybe a little cynical? What’s on your mind as we close out this conversation?

Livia (33:48): I think we need to hold both realities, because part of me does feel a little cynical because it does feel way too incremental in the steps and the progress that’s been made. The hopeful part of me really enjoys seeing so many stakeholders reach out to say, “We know we need this. We don’t know quite where to start. We are going to commit resources, and we’re going to commit time, and we need some leadership to partner with us so that we know how to proceed.” That we keep seeing, and that’s very hopeful to me.

Regina (34:34): Where am I today? Kristen, oh, the question. I have to say that I’m holding lots of emotions about this moment. There is anger, sometimes it borders on rage, at the slow pace of justice, but there’s also this unquenchable hope because I understand that I am sitting in a moment, just a moment in a long, long line of history of work toward racial justice. I’m just a blip on this. My hope comes from 400, 500 years, the hope that got me in this moment, that gives me this great opportunity to do this work every day, to perhaps create space for others to hope, and to do the work to make that hope into real tangible things, into real justice. I have to say that even in my disappointments, even sometimes in my anger and my rage, I am hopeful because those before me were hopeful for me and so I’ve got to stay hopeful for those that will come behind me.

Kristen (35:55): Thank you both so much for sharing that. I think those are beautiful, true, hard sentiments that you both are holding, and we’re all holding in this conversation and this work today. Thank you so much for taking the time for this conversation. It’s an important one, it’s a hard one, it will continue to be an important one and hard one. I just want to say how much I appreciate you both as colleagues so much in this work, and I continue to learn so much from you as you lead the work of equity every single day, in different ways, and Regina especially, for all the tools and the accountability and the opportunities that you’ve brought to us and to C4 to even be here having this conversation today. Even though it’s not enough, I’m so deeply grateful for that, so thank you.

Regina (36:43): Kristen, thank you so much for inviting us into this conversation today. It’s my sincere hope that this won’t be the last time, that this is the first of many of these hard but necessary conversations.

Livia (36:56): Kristen, thank you so much. Regina, thank you so much. Being in community with you is such a privilege, and I just hope that our listeners will have similar conversations to the conversations we are having.

Kristen (37:10): And to our listeners, thank you for taking the time to join us today on Changing the Conversation.

Erika Simon, Producer (37:15): Visit C4innovates.com and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube for more resources to grow your impact. Thank you for joining us. This episode was produced by Erika Simon and Christina Murphy. Our theme song was written and performed by Peter Hanlon. Join us next time on Changing the Conversation.

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