Branding to Break Stereotypes with Temi Bennett
About This Episode
This week, we’re talking with someone of big ambition, who recognized that the greatest change can happen by starting small.
Temi Bennet, Esq. is Director of Policy for if: a foundation for radical possibility, where she is responsible for engaging local government in the DC metro region in developing racially equitable policies that enable Black people and people of color to thrive.
It was her influence and leadership at if that moved the organization to take a distinctly different approach in their own branding. What was formerly known as the Consumer Health Foundation evolved into a new, provocative name and brand, bold and explicit in its mission to eliminate systems of oppression in favor of racial justice.
Temi is in a position to make big change, and ifis an example of an organization working diligently, showcasing the impact of brand in clear and powerful advocacy. But we hope you’ll take another message from our conversation with her, too. She went to Washington looking to influence change from the top. What she learned is that the real power to make change started locally, right where she was. Thinking small to make big waves. And today she’s moving a big mission forward, removing barriers all along her way.
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Carrie Fox:
Hi there and welcome to the Mission Forward Podcast, where each week we bring you a thought provoking and perspective shifting conversation on the power of communications. I'm Carrie Fox, your host and CEO of Mission Partners, a social impact communications firm, and certified B corporation.
This season, we are talking with an impressive mix of nonprofit and foundation leaders, along with some of my favorite communicators about some of the most common challenge points and barriers to moving missions forward. Today's guest is doing just that, moving a big mission forward and finding ways to remove barriers along her way.
Temi Bennett is the director of policy for if, a foundation for radical possibility, where she's responsible for engaging local government in the DC Metro region in approaches to develop racially equitable policies that enable communities of color to thrive. It was her influence and leadership that also guided the organization to take a distinctly different approach in their own brand. From what was formally known as the consumer health foundation to a new thought provoking name and brand, which is bold and explicit in its mission to eliminate systems of oppression and bring about racial justice.
Temi and I started the conversation by learning more about her, her awesome upbringing in Chicago, to her HBCU education, roles and DC city government, and then ultimately to a foundation, where she's found she can have the greatest impact on addressing systems of injustice. Listen in and learn with me and I'll see you on the other side. Temi, it is so good to have you here and to learn more about your experiences with the If brand.
Temi Bennett:
Thank you, Carrie. It's great to be here.
Carrie Fox:
So Temi, I gave folks a little bit of background, but I really want to hear what brought you on this journey. You have such an incredible background as I've been learning more about you. What brought you to first the consumer health foundation and now If?
Temi Bennett:
Yeah. So I'm originally from Chicago, the south side of Chicago and my community in Chicago is an African center, like Pan-African, pro-black centered community that I grew up doing west African dance. I went to this pro-black private school. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the schools that the Black Panthers created in the 1960s.
And so in Chicago, there's a black nationalist, Baba [inaudible 00:02:50]. He created the in 1970s, late '70s, he created New Concept Development Center, which is this pro black private school. And so I was raised in this community that centered blackness and all of its beauty and even its ugliness and the history of black people in this country in particular.
And so that centering has just been a part of my life, my parents, my community. I went to HBCU. I went to Virginia State University, which is where my grandparents were professors. And so after college, I decided I wanted to go to law school. And so that's what brought me to DC.
Carrie Fox:
So Temi, you go on to study at Georgetown, you start the critical race theory journal there, and that led you to start advocating for policy change on the issues that you deeply care about. But you had this aha moment, as you were telling me about earlier, and you learned that the ability to affect change at a federal level pales in comparison to what you saw was possible when working in local governments and in the roots of a community.
Temi Bennett:
There was this click around local government, where it just, it was completely different. I felt more seen, more heard. And when you do your typical advocacy, particularly on the hill, you go, you have your portfolio, you have these photos, you're giving that... Only the staff were going to read maybe, maybe they'll read them. But I just felt with local government felt very tangible, and the goals that we were trying to reach seemed more attainable.
Carrie Fox:
So Temi, tell me who the organization was when you arrived.
Temi Bennett:
Consumer Health Foundation was a health equity foundation. Our endowment came from the sell HMO and I believe it was 1995. And so what ended up happening, I think it's 1920s, a community, a black and Jewish community in DC came together and said that everybody should have access to healthcare.
And so that was like a precursor to an H- and HMO didn't even exist at the time, but eventually it became an HMO. And so with this sell of the HMO in 1995, they created the foundation. It was called Consumer Health Foundation because at the time it was really focused on access to healthcare. Lot of those early grants were like direct services around healthcare access.
But as the foundation grew in its knowledge and scholarship around healthcare and access, we know that access is important, but that's really only 20% of somebody's care, right? There are all these other social determinants that make up someone's health. The foundation pivoted from focusing on direct services and access to healthcare, to health equity disbelief, and racial equity was foundational. This belief that everybody should have access, no matter your race to be healthy and thrive.
Racial equity has always been at the center of our work. And so when we pivoted from direct services to funding advocacy, it was funding health at anything dealing with economic justice or health equity with a racial equity lens. That was how we funded the work. So you were doing something with economic justice or health equity, and it was through a racial equity lens, then you would be a candidate for funding from us.
We talked about how we wanted to center community in our work, not only center community in the grant space, but also pipelining community like, is there a way for us to build the capacity around community members on the sector? What the sector is, what is philanthropy, what are the nonprofits doing? And then pipeline them in, like what if they wanted roles and philanthropy is a role that's, I mean, it's the wealth. It's a sought after industry, but it's pretty much dominated by white folks. I think it is majority white women.
And so how could we get some BIPOC folks in the sector who actually had lived experience, who was closest to the issues and the solutions that we were trying to bring about. We also said we wanted to be a place of healing. And we also said that the work is traumatizing and we don't even know how to heal ourselves. And so that was how we started building out this healing justice portfolio that we have now.
Carrie Fox:
Temi, there was a seminal for the organization at a staff retreat as I understand it. Tell me more about that.
Temi Bennett:
What came up was healing, participatory, grant making, and what would that look like for us and then censoring community in a way that went beyond, so it wasn't extractive, but it felt like true partnership.
Carrie Fox:
So at some point you enter into a strategic plan with your colleagues and you all decided to make a clear shift in how you talked about racial equity to instead talk about racial justice. Tell me why that shift was so important to you.
Temi Bennett:
If we said we were about equity, you could almost wake up and like say, oh, the world isn't equitable and I'm going to be a good person because I'm going to address it. But if we said justice, then there's this certain acknowledgement of harm that has to take place when you're talking about justice. We were saying we wanted to be a place for healing for black folks and for people in general, but how can we be a place of healing if we couldn't even acknowledge the injustice and repair.
So we still think that we're supporting health and looking for black people to live in a healthy, thriving life. But in order to do that, we said that we wanted to be able to support other things. And so those other things are our five pillars, systems, institutions, and structures, culture, community power, healing justice, and reparations and economic justice. Those are our five pillars and then all done through a racial justice lens.
Carrie Fox:
I am certain that there are people listening thinking, how did they do all this? We've been talking about this for years and I think that's a problem in a lot of organizations is they're talking about it, but the activation, and to hear the amount that you have been able to shift in really a relatively short amount of time is incredible and speaks to the depth of commitment to what was really needed to happen in order for you to make that shift.
But I also want to acknowledge just for a minute, I appreciated your story so much on where you started and now where you've moved, moving from. What we often think about is, as the grass tops of federal government, realizing that there was only so much that felt tangible and accessible in terms of change there, moving to local government and then shifting into a foundation, into a local foundation. And it sounds like you've really found your sweet spot of where you can affect deep and meaningful change at the roots is not at the highest seat of government, but it's really at that low local level.
Temi Bennett:
Definitely. I'm a fan of local government, local politics. I think that is people see you. Politicians have to see you because you're the ones voting them in office. So it's how our federal government works too, but such at a macro level, that's just touchable in a way that federal isn't.
Carrie Fox:
And then the other thing I, this like stream I hear as you're talking is, I know a bit about your work having had some great conversations with you in the past, but how important it is for you all to think about democratizing philanthropy and the power of philanthropy, but how you are also thinking about democratizing power at the community level and shifting and re-imagining how power in fact can play out in a community.
I know that, again, you were starting to talk about your strategic plan. It's still relatively new and this brand is still relatively new, but tell me how the reaction has been, because it feels like there is... It feels like there is so much wind at your feet, but I'm curious how it feels from your perspective.
Temi Bennett:
Yeah. So what ended up happening... So with the strategic plan, and so it was a long, it had been years in the making. But the strategic plan itself was this weekend of board and staff retreat where we were... We actually, this is 2020, we did a verses, do you know the verses? But it's like, two performers, it came out, became popular with COVID. I mean, because we were all in our houses. But you had two performers and they go back and forth performing. And we're playing their songs.
And so we did this concept with a few... We had somebody advocating for us staying a racial justice. I mean, a racial equity foundation versus racial justice and going back and forth in competition on the debate, that was the debate. Same thing with community leadership. What does that look like?
And so we had all of these. And it was emotional, it was challenging, but it also served as alignment. It enables everybody to flesh out their fears, to flesh out their concerns, but then also get on one page. And so when we finish our strategic plan, we looked up and we said, we are no longer a Consumer Health Foundation, that name no longer suits us, it's not who we are. Not necessarily the name, but our look, like our website.
Most of the time when folks who to look at our old website, they thought we were like a children's national, some kind of like a children's foundation because of our page was a person and it looked like a little kid or something, the H and CHF. That looked wasn't reflective to me of who we were, but it became very much apparent with this new strategic plan that we felt that was so bold and so brave.
And our former image, it just wasn't reflective. And so we went through this year process of the rebrand, trying to figure out who we are and what does that imagery look like? We want to be bold, we wanted it to center blackness and beauty. And so one of the initial names that we were contemplating was that one of my colleagues submitted was Innovation Foundation.
Innovation Foundation itself didn't really work, but I loved the acronym if, and it was like, oh, we got to be some kind of way. The possibility of if was just endless to me, Yanik really loved it too. But we felt like innovation, it felt very much more technology driven and that wasn't us. To innovate in the past in the idea of like radical possibility, it was just really at the root of this rebrand.
There are other names too that was coming up, RE was one of them, Radical Healing Foundation was another one. But then when we really wanted if as the, if it was an acronym, we wanted that to be what is the for. And so then we try Indigo Foundation, Insight Foundation, Ignite Foundation, those were like the three top. And the board went back and forth with that. We did a community listening session where community members went back and forth with names and what we were thinking. And it was like, doesn't have to be an acronym. Can it just be if? Everybody supported just if, and then with the tagline, foundation for radical possibility. And so that is at the core. That's what if is about, it's what if philanthropy did what we were actually saying we were doing.
What if we... And then we liked Angela Davis's definition of radical, grasping at the roots. And so we were familiar with the word radical because we also, in the midst of COVID, we were a part of a funders group that created resourcing radical possibility, which is a funders collective centering blackness in the region. And particularly around BIPOC led organizations that had under a million dollars in their operating budget and that they were like... But during COVID, they were the ones doing grassroots organizing, mutual aid. They were out there in the streets and pushing for systems change. And so how, if we were getting to the root, to the heart of the work, then we felt like we were doing what we were supposed to be doing. And we wanted to represent that possibility.
Carrie Fox:
Yeah. I'm going to go back into the archives for a minute. Because I pulled your old mission statement and then I pulled your new one and I love how clear it is. So I'm going to read them, bring you back in time for a minute.
Temi Bennett:
Sure.
Carrie Fox:
So old CHF mission statement was, a private grant making foundation in DC, whose mission is to advocate for health and racial equity through programs and investments that advance the health and wellbeing of low income communities and communities of color. Set that aside for a minute, where you landed. We achieve our vision now by centering the leadership and expertise of black people and people of the global majority in the Washington DC region who live at the sharpest intersection of systems of oppression, in particular race, class, and gender identity. And there is no question of what you do now.
Temi Bennett:
Yeah. Well, actually Carrie, I want to read the vision, because you read the first vision. So our current vision, our new vision is black people and people of the global majority live powerfully, abundantly and beautifully in healthy, self-determined communities, free of social economic and ideological violence.
Carrie Fox:
Oh, It's beautiful.
Temi Bennett:
That is our new vision.
Carrie Fox:
It is beautiful. And it is so positive and it is so inspirational and real and tangible. And I think this is where a lot of organizations struggle is they struggle to figure out first, how do they define their what in a really succinct way. But ultimately at the end of the day, what does that vision look like for us? Where are we moving towards? What are we driving towards? There's no question for me on what you're all driving toward.
And that confusion that I remember having firsthand, when I first learned about Consumer Health Foundation, is gone. I know exactly what you stand for. So have you gotten, it sounds like you're getting some good reaction. Have you gotten the reaction you expected or was there anything unique or different or surprising in the reactions to the new brand?
Temi Bennett:
No, we've gotten... I mean, everything's been overwhelmingly supportive and surprisingly so actually from some folks, I think the boldness of it because it's not, as you said, it's very clear. And so I think even if people don't necessarily align with what we're fighting for, what we're standing for, they're clear on what we're doing.
And so even that is I think, helpful and useful. It's very clear to any partners that we have. And I'll tell you that just with this new rebrand, so many new opportunities opened up for partnership. And so everything to think, I'd say overwhelmingly positive. I think the biggest thing that people are pausing on is reparations specifically, but we're okay with that. And we're here to challenge and we said we would fight for it.
Carrie Fox:
Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, I mean, I know that you are setting the precedent for a lot of foundations in the DC region, but my hope is you'll appreciate this. I was on a call earlier today with a national foundation that we work with and they were bringing us through their reparation strategy. And so I'm really glad to hear that you are leading the charge on that because the other organizations will follow. It might take a little time, but it's an important move to be taking.
Temi Bennett:
Yeah. And we hope to be influential in our sector. It's funny, because, Tonya Wellins, one time I asked her, when I was newer to the foundation, I was asking her like, what's the perception? Because we're small, we're a small foundation, $30 million endowment, we're small and we're regional.
And she said, we're we're small but mighty, we punch above our weight. And I completely agree with that. And I'll say, with this new rebrand and our new communication strategy, another colleague said this to Yanik, that CHF is where we were when we were doing the transition, but CHF is like, philanthropy's best kept secret. And so that was one of like, that's something that we struggled with, because we don't want to be a secret, we don't want to be this resource that only a few people know about and come through.
And then what we also were seeing was a lot of our ideas and thoughts were being pushed by other folks. And so for... One of the goals for this new communicate, one of our communication goals is to amplify the work, amplify our voice in a way that does not stifle of course, or take up the space of our grantees and community. But to lift up the amazing work that we are doing with our grantees and community members. And so no longer trying to be that best kept secret.
Carrie Fox:
Yeah. And it feels like you have so deeply leaned into who you are, why you exist, what you stand for, what you believe in. All of those pieces, whether you explicitly asked yourself those questions or not when you were going through the rebrand, you got to the answers. And once you have those pieces in place, it becomes so much more clear to determine what you will do, what you won't, who you are, who you're not, what your value are. You are deeply as an organization leaning into those values.
And as a result, it feels like people are, it's easier to be aligned with you because they know who you are. They know what you stand for. And I'd be curious to get your take on this. I know we're getting ready to wrap up, but what I've often seen in the nonprofit, especially social service sector is organizations who I tend to think want to play it safe because they have to be careful not to offend their board or not to turn away their donors.
And so there's this, let's just walk the line and play it safe on the work that we do. But I think what you all are such a good example of is that when you're explicit in your purpose and clear in your vision, yeah, there might be some people who question you along the way, but the depth of impact you can have is far greater and more transformative than you would've ever created if you stayed walking the line as Consumer Health Foundation.
Temi Bennett:
Yeah. That's exactly how we feel. We feel that Aria uses this analogy around groundwater. And so this idea of [inaudible 00:22:36], we're talking like the systems that perpetuate violence against BIPOC folks in this country and particularly rooted in anti-blackness are so pervasive that we can't baby set, we can't make you comfortable for us to get... When we're trying to get to the root, we have to be bold, we got to be loud and we have to be intentional. And unfortunately, I mean, we can acknowledge that. Race can be uncomfortable, it can be very uncomfortable to talk about, but we're pushing you to really lean in a way that is uncomfortable. We want you to be uncomfortable. But when we do that we come out the other side stronger, more understanding and more human, all of us.
Carrie Fox:
Well, that's a great reminder and takeaway for folks who are listening, who are considering this rebrand process, or just considering communications in general, that I think you all are beyond the days of being the best kept secret. And now moving into maybe your full being of really being a national model of what a foundation can be. When you really take that bold step of asking yourself those questions of why are we here? Who are we here for and how are we going to be fully true to the work that we're going to do?
There's a lot more to watch and learn from you all. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing so much with me today, Temi, I've really enjoyed this conversation and appreciate you so much.
Temi Bennett:
No problem. Thanks, Carrie. It's great to be here.
Carrie Fox:
Mission Forward is produced with the support of Nimra Haroon, Savy Lockhart, and the Mission Partners team in association with TrueStory FM, engineering by Pete Wright. Music this week is by David Roy and Josh Leak. If your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, we hope you'll consider doing just that for our show. But the best thing you can do to support Mission Forward is simply to share the show with a friend or colleague. Thanks for your support and we'll see you next time.
Not so fast. I'm a runner, not an overly accomplished one, but a runner, just the same. It's part of my identity, to the point where if I were asked to introduce myself, my affinity for running would likely show up in the first minute or so. After my love of family and dogs, and before my love of Sunday baking.
However, I don't need to have ever run a race, let alone the lap around the block to know that if you jump off the starting block at break neck speed, you are not going to feel very good at the finish. The race to the finish, right? How often it shows up in our daily routines, the race to finish the campaign concept, the race to develop the event materials, the race to see results. For a long time, I assumed this was just how PR professionals operated, at a pace that is entirely unrealistic at best and terribly unhealthy at its worst.
Why then is urgency so steeped in our everyday work? One might say, you need to have urgency for the work if you're going to effectuate change or the issues are so important, how can we stand a chance at addressing them without urgency? In some cases they're right, but here's the thing, there's a time and place for break neck speed.
Maybe you're closing in on new voting rights or climate change legislation, and you need supporting materials to help drive the case home. Maybe you're creating an experience that supports community led innovation. Those sound like good reasons for urgency, but to where the teams and leaders who see urgency as a daily standard and essential to your individual success.
It took me years before I was ready to say to a client, hold on for a moment and let's talk about that timeline, because honestly, there's very little strategy when operating an urgency despite what the experts will say.
A well documented and defined white dominant norm, urgency can perpetuate power imbalances. It can limit your ability to engage multiple perspectives and it can restrict any meaningful rest or reflection. Employing urgency effectively requires the ability to also practice stillness, the ability to scan the landscape, to see the big picture and to strategically plan your steps before raising to the finish.
Reflect on the pace you've been keeping in the first few weeks of this new year. Does it feel comfortable, sustainable, enjoyable? Do you let your break neck speed dictate the speed of those around you? Think about how a sense of urgency might be contributing to your work and then ask, if this is how we operate from a place of urgency, what remarkable impact could we have if we slowed it down a bit?
