Every year presents new tests for the South and philanthropy, but heading into the 2024 Annual Meeting, it was clear that the past 12 months had been particularly challenging.
Only a few weeks before the meeting, hurricanes Helene and Milton brought devastation and trauma to communities that will take years to address. Attendees in Nashville were still processing the outcome of the previous week’s elections, the divisions they caused, and questions about the policy environment in the year ahead.
The meeting was also the first time many Philanthropy Southeast members would be together in person to reflect on the life and legacy of Janine Lee, who died in February after a transformative, 13-year tenure as the organization’s president and CEO.
Over three days in Nashville, attendees were able to discuss these events – and many others – while connecting in ways that proved inspiring and invigorating.
“I wasn’t sure if I had the mental or emotional bandwidth to be present at the conference,” said Sabrina Slade, vice president at the John Rex Endowment in Raleigh, North Carolina. “Thankfully, sharing space with peers who reminded me what perseverance and resilience looks like, and hearing from dynamic presenters, filled my bucket, giving me the motivation I needed to charge forward.”
Providing people with an opportunity to replenish both mind and spirit was an early goal of this year’s meeting, said Dena Chadwick, who marked her first Annual Meeting as Philanthropy Southeast’s president and CEO.
“From our first design meeting in April, we knew we wanted this year’s Annual Meeting to provide a healing and unifying experience,” Chadwick said. “As the year continued, that initial vision turned out to be what I’ll remember most about our time in Nashville. So many people needed chance to connect and look ahead, and we’re so glad we could provide a place for that to happen.”
Remembering Janine Lee
The Annual Meeting kicked off the only way it could – with a tribute to Janine Lee.
“She was a colleague, a mentor, and a friend,” Chadwick said during openings remarks in Nashville. “She was an advisor, a counselor, a teacher, and an ally. She could deliver hard truths in ways that conveyed genuine love and respect for those hearing them. And she was an inspiration, a joyful presence, and a relentless force in the quest for equity and justice for everyone.”
The tribute culminated in a panel discussion dedicated to Lee’s legacy of courageous leadership. Moderated by Council on Foundations President & CEO Kathleen Enright, the conversation also included The Center for Effective Philanthropy’s Phil Buchanan, Marcus Walton of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, the Betty and Davis Fitzgerald Foundation’s Brittany Collins, and Regan Gruber Moffitt, a former Philanthropy Southeast Board chair now with the St. David’s Foundation.
“I realized this woman has been paying attention to me all along and probably guiding me and steering me right, and even set it up to where, when the opportunity presented itself, that she was able to advocate for my consideration for this role,” Walton said, sharing how he came to lead an organization Janine founded. “She taught me how to be a quiet advocate and also a firm yet gentle champion for change and for living out the values that hold us all together in community.”
Moffitt’s time as Board chair coincided with one of the most eventful periods of Lee’s tenure, which included the development of the Equity Framework.
“She also ushered in this new era for Philanthropy Southeast,” Moffitt said. “Ushering is a good word because she didn’t push us, she didn’t prod us, she didn’t shove us in this direction – but she really ushered us in many ways over her time, since 2011, toward the direction that we wanted to go.”
Collins noted that Janine’s love of philanthropy and her commitment to supporting the field’s emerging leaders – particularly Black women – meant that even those who didn’t have a years-long relationship with her benefited from her mentorship and guidance.
“It was really clear that Janine thought that there were more tools at our disposal in philanthropy, and we should think differently about who's leading philanthropy,” Collins said.
The Art of Conversation – and Listening
Along with courageous leadership, this year’s Annual Meeting also put a spotlight on the need for courageous conversations.
Dr. Laura Gerald, president of the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, and Decolonizing Wealth author Edgar Villanueva – a Hull Fellows alum and former Trust staff member – discussed how philanthropy, if it wants to help bring about systemic change, must also be honest about the ways it has benefited from, or helped prop up, inequitable systems in the past.
“We don't look back and we don't ask the questions about how we got here, what has been broken, or what were the situations or what actually happened in history,” Villanueva said. “To be the most effective grantmakers, we have to bring all of that into perspective, and so it's really important, I think, that philanthropy can step up right now, in our power and privilege, and actually help bring our communities together in a time where division is at an all-time high.”
Gerald drew on the Trust’s work to account for its past, including the mixed legacy of its founder and its connections to the tobacco industry. Finally divesting from tobacco, Gerald said, allowed the Trust to be more honest in its work to promote healthy communities.
“You can never change out there what you cannot or refuse to change in here,” she said. “So, as we were working with communities who were interested in change, communities who were working with the Trust, we were also needing to work on ourselves and the way that we did things.”
Villanueva emphasized that he was not seeking to assign blame or make people feel guilty about past events, but rather to help the field find a way to act from a place of joy and authenticity.
“Some of this stuff happened before we were born, but yet we're the ones sitting in the seat today, making decisions about resources, representing these legacies, representing these institutions, and to be able to do so from a place of liberation and freedom, because we can acknowledge that it hasn't always been great,” he said.
Courage laid at the core of a conversation with Mónica Guzmán, the author of I Never Thought of It That Way. Through her book and podcast, A Braver Way, Guzmán works to help give people the tools they need to talk with people they disagree with, gain greater understanding, and find common ground.
“We Americans are great at freedom of expression. We're terrible at freedom of reception,” said Guzmán, in a conversation moderated by the Dogwood Health Trust’s Mark Constantine. “Receive people as they are. Prove to them that you are capable.”
Guzmán urged the Annual Meeting audience to pursue conversations in person, instead of on social media.
“So many conversations are happening on social media that social media cannot handle,” she said. “I'm always stunned by how much tension is released in a tough conversation in person, when our bodies are in there.”
Coming on the heels of the election, Guzmán’s message resonated strongly with many in Nashville.
“Mónica exemplified and modeled how thinking differently can lead us to unexplored and never-thought-of-before ways to impact and help a community,” said Patricia Pavia, a trustee with the West End Home Foundation. “It was mesmerizing to see how she gave examples of how to have more in-depth personal conversations with the people we want to help.”
While Guzmán highlighted the possibilities of one-on-one communication, community conversations were the focus of another discussion featuring the leaders of three Nashville universities: Agenia Walker Clark of Fisk University, Daniel Diermeier of Vanderbilt University, and L. Gregory Jones of Belmont University.
In a session moderated by Michael Murray, president of The Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, the three discussed how their institutions cultivate environments where students feel free to share their views and debate one another without demonizing.
“The leaders that have come through Fisk University have left behind a culture and an environment where students are free to express themselves,” Clark said. “What we really work with them on is the mode, method, and process by which they do it, so that they can feel that whatever their opinion is, it is in a safe environment.”
Jones noted that Belmont’s Christian values play a key role in its approach to debate and disagreement.
“We talk about those disagreements and cultivating those disagreements vigorously while recognizing every other person as a person made in the image of God and worthy of dignity and respect,” he said.
Diermeier said Vanderbilt works to foster a strong culture of debate and discourse from the start of a student’s tenure, with a goal of preparing them for the world outside of higher education.
“Those challenges are part of growth, and they're part of preparing our students to lead in the real world, because you're going to be confronted with points of views that that challenge your very core, and you're going to have to have to know how to respond to that, how to deal with that, how to process that, how to interact with that,” he said.
Celebrating the Power of Music
The rich musical heritage of Nashville and Tennessee was on display throughout the Annual Meeting, from the very beginning to the very end.
Before the opening session, attendees heard a stirring performance from the Fisk Jubilee Singers. At that evening’s Chair’s Reception & Dinner, music flowed from multiple stages featuring West Memphis blues, Nashville country, and East Tennessee Bluegrass. Spontaneous dancing broke out during the second day’s lunch, when the Stax Music Academy Alumni Band’s mix of soul, funk and R&B drew dozens out of their seats.
The conference ended with a powerful exploration of the neglected role Black writers and performers have played in the history of country music, thanks to closing keynote speaker Alice Randall, author of My Black Country.
Randall, a novelist and songwriter, tied together the music present throughout the meeting with the event’s emphasis on connection, community and courage.
“Diverse groups are not antithetical to a focus on excellence,” she said. “Rather, they are an essential structure for achieving and maintenance of excellence. That is a Black country truth.”
Bringing the meeting to a powerful close, Randall invoked its theme – Leading Lights: Connection, Community & Courage – with a call to action for everyone in attendance.
“I hope you are all lighting lights, putting candles in the window for a weary world, a weary country, to come into its best self and most generous selves and most honest selves,” she said. “That is what we are at our best.”