1 Jul, 2020

Ask Nicole: How Can I Raise My Voice When No One is Around to Hear Me?

By |2021-08-19T20:53:38-04:00July 1st, 2020|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: , |0 Comments

Have a question you’d like to be featured? Let me know.

I received an overwhelming number of responses from one of my recent blog posts, “Your Values Always Come at a Cost“. So much so, that the majority of that post’s comments came directly from subscribers to my Raise Your Voice newsletter via email replies.

This comment came from Amanda, a public health student:

One thing that’s given me solace during this time is that so many people are looking for Black voices, in all professional fields. And I want to capitalize on that! Your quote “There should be no question where you stand and you should only want to surround yourself with people who share the same values” really resonated with me. As I matriculate through my MPH program, I’m discovering the importance of raising my voice, as you always remind us to do. But I feel like, no matter what I try to bring awareness to, no one hears me. I know that I have to promote myself in creative ways outside of the traditional resume, and I’ve been utilizing social media to share my thoughts on issues I care about. But I feel discouraged because, between Instagram and Twitter, I don’t have many followers (combined it’s like around 700 total). How can I raise my voice when no one is around to hear me? Hardly anyone likes, retweets, or comments on my posts. Is it because what I’m saying isn’t resonating or that I’m not articulating myself in a way that would make people want to listen to me?

My consulting business began as a Tumblr blog. I used that blog as an outlet to share my thoughts on what eventually became my business’ vision, mission, and core services.

Over the years, I’ve slowly built up a social media following, where I’ve been more intentional about connecting, networking, and highlighting what I can do. But what I’ve learned along the way is that there’s more to building an audience than likes, shares, and retweets.

While these metrics can tell you how you’re resonating with your audience, unless you ask every single person why they’re following you, these numbers don’t tell the full story. Some of the most engaged followers you’ll have are the ones that don’t do these actions, but they’re still paying close attention.

I would consider myself to have a small social media following, but while promoting myself on social media as been part of the job, I’ve never landed a client based on something I’ve posted on social media.

How did they find me? They either asked around or they Googled something and came across one of my blog posts. Possibly an older blog post in which my voice and message weren’t as strong as it is today. They perused my blog and website and noticed how my voice has evolved and strengthened over time. I’m also sure my Raise Your Voice newsletter subscribers who have been around since my first newsletter have noticed this as well.

I took the time to get clear on who I am and how I wanted to show up for my audience, especially my clients. I wanted to position myself so that a prospective client could look at me and say, “She’s the right person for the job”.

Raise your voice regardless of the size of your audience. Use this time to strengthen your voice and message for the followers who are here right now.

The last thing you want is to suddenly gain an influx of followers and you haven’t strengthened your voice and message.

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10 Jun, 2020

Your Values Always Come at a Cost

By |2021-08-19T20:50:15-04:00June 10th, 2020|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: |0 Comments

Image description: Two protestors in Washingon, DC, holding brown and white signs with the phrase “Black Lives Matter” written in black. Photographer: Yasin Ozturk

Over the last 3 months, I’ve been doing a lot of observation.

Observing the ways in which my client organizations have (or not have) been able to pivot their operations and programming while supporting their staff and community in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the shelter-in-place orders many states and countries are still under.

The coronavirus coupled with the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the deaths of Breonna Taylor, Nina Pop, Ahmaud Aubrey, Tony McDade and George Floyd in recent weeks have exposed what we already know: Our society is unequal and many of the systems and infrastructures we engage daily are not efficient, not accessible, and not equitable.

But lately, I’ve observed something else: Companies, organizations, thought leaders, and brands who have never spoken up about racial injustices before now bombarding our inboxes and social media feeds with solidarity statements and using the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag.

If you’re like me, you’re skeptical of what you’re seeing. While there are some companies that have made their stance known on current events and social justice issues for a long time, I’ve divided public response into five categories:

  • The ones that do care and always speak out on social injustices
  • The ones that do care but have never spoken up until now
  • The ones that may care but are unsure what to say because it’s not “on brand”
  • The ones that don’t care but also don’t want to come off as racist, so they speak up
  • The ones that don’t care and haven’t said anything

I’m seeing a lot of “I know this is important and I want to say something but don’t want to say the wrong thing/am not educated enough on racism and police brutality/don’t want to offend anyone” remarks. These comments are stemming from people and companies who would fall in the third category.

While I don’t believe that companies should be forced to make a statement on something they have no expertise in, many of these companies, organizations, thought leaders, and brands aren’t discriminating when it comes to who they get their money from. And since racism is embedded in many systems we engage with, these entities need to speak up about it.

When someone says they don’t want to offend anyone, who are they referring to? The people directly impacted by systemic racism, or the ones that aren’t? I’ve seen several people with large social media following focusing more on the number of social media followers they’re losing for speaking up.

If taking a stand against systemic racism and police brutality causes people to unfollow you or no longer support you, were they really your ideal people anyway?

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28 Feb, 2019

Self Care Corner: You Might Be Suffering from Resistance Fatigue

By |2021-08-19T20:25:44-04:00February 28th, 2019|Categories: Self & Community Care|Tags: , , |0 Comments

Today’s post has been on my to-write list for some time, but has been put on the backburner in favor of other topics I felt needed my attention.

Which is how many of us view self-care in general: Something that should get done, but gets regulated to the end of the priority list.

And in my Self Care Corner posts, I share an exercise, resource or piece of advice I think may be useful in helping you to build an effective self care practice.

Today’s post is more food for thought. It’s about the fatigue we feel when we are in a constant state of resistance and is inspired by a YouTube video I saw recently that beautifully illustrated what resistance is (and what happens when we choose to allow the resistance.)

In the video, Amy Westmoreland demonstrates what happens when you get your fingers caught in a Chinese finger trap. The most obvious option is to figure out how to get your fingers out, but you’ll notice that the more you struggle to release your fingers, the tighter the trap becomes.

To remove the trap easily, you have to relax. Amy says, “All I have to do is acknowledge what I’m in resistance over. Now, sometimes you’re not going to be able to pinpoint it exactly, but in this case, we know exactly what we’re in resistance over: Oh. My fingers are stuck. And you stop struggling and you allow it to be there, and that’s when you let it be that your fingers are stuck. As you do that, you naturally relax. We haven’t resolved the original problem, the thing we’re struggling against….but what you have done is made a major shift in your energy from resisting the resistance to allowing the resistance. When you allow it, it becomes easy to disengage.”

I first noticed resistance fatigue when I started getting into activism as a college student. I noticed it even more as I entered the workforce. Since watching Amy’s video, I’ve thought about how resistance shows up in my activism and in my client work. When something is happening in the political landscape that we don’t like, we go to the nearest protest or spend our time fighting with people on social media. When my clients get feedback about their programs, services, and strategies that they don’t like, they want to figure out how to spend it so that it sounds better. (And in some cases, they don’t want it to be reported at all. Luckily, I don’t work with these types of clients anymore.)

But what would happen if we stop resisting and allow what is to just be? As Amy mentions, we haven’t solved the problem that’s causing the resistance. But in this moment, there’s a relief.

How can we apply this concept to how we take care of ourselves and each other?

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7 Feb, 2018

Ask Nicole: How Are Your Raising Your Voice for Women & Girls of Color?

By |2021-08-19T20:08:46-04:00February 7th, 2018|Categories: Miscellaneous|Tags: , |0 Comments

Have a question? Let me know.

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“Raise Your Voice for Women & Girls of Color”  is more than just a tagline for my business. It’s a call to action that leads how I do my work and who I do it with.

More importantly, it guides who I am ultimately in service to.

These days, I work more closely with the “gate keepers”. These are the executive directors, program managers, grant writers, foundations and more that are responsible for the funding, development, and implementation of programs and services that are designed to meet the needs of the various communities they service, especially women and girls of color. But I try my best to never lose sight of who I’m really working for.

Outside of deciding if something sounds interesting, when I take on a client project or speaking engagement, I ask myself:

How will this help me raise my voice for women and girls of color?

Before I started working more closely with the gate keepers, I was on the frontlines along with women and girls of color. And I still am in many ways.

But asking this question forces me to think outside of myself and remember that it’s much bigger than me. Another question I ask myself is:

How am I CURRENTLY raising my voice for women and girls of color?

This is more of an integrity question. Away from social media, when no one is watching, when I stop doing my work for the day, and when my speaking engagement is over. How am I currently raising my voice for women and girls of color in my personal AND my professional life?

How do I speak about women and girls of color? Am I more empowering and focused on resilience professionally yet resort to victim blame and shame privately? Do I continue to work with clients doing the status quo or encourage them to maximize their potential and impact by involving women and girls of color–their key stakeholders–in their collective impact? A third question I ask myself is:

How do I WANT to raise my voice for women and girls of color?

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19 Oct, 2017

Should I Pass You the Mic, Or Speak For You?

By |2021-08-19T19:58:15-04:00October 19th, 2017|Categories: Equity & Justice|Tags: , |0 Comments

With the rise of storytelling as a form of advocacy and resistance, and various forms of research and evaluation that place communities, researchers, and evaluators on the same playing field gaining in popularity, I’ve been refining my thinking and processes in develop more effective strategies for centering the voices and lived experiences of women and girls of color.

When I’m working with my clients, I always have in the back of my mind who I’m really working for. And it’s not my clients. My clients are essentially the gatekeepers. They provide the programs, services, and initiatives that are designed to reach women and girls of color.  Depending on what I’m doing with clients, I’m tasked with finding ways to engage women and girls of color to share their experiences in order to measure the program, service, or initiative’s impact. But before I’m an evaluator or program designer, I’m an activist and community organizer.

The Center for Evaluation Innovation’s 2010 brief, “Grassroots Action and Learning for Social Change: Evaluating Community Organizing”, posits that evaluating advocacy initiatives and community organizing campaigns should be participatory, more prospective rather than less retrospective, learning-based, culturally responsive, and less academic. The brief also shares a framework for evaluating community organizing campaigns, which includes:

  • Craft evaluation questions that are relevant and useful to organizers to generate buy-in and participation
  • Set clear yet flexible interim benchmarks that focus on outcomes related to various organizing components (such as participation and membership, organizing wins, and organizational capacity)
  • Utilize data collection methods that fit the style of the organization and tailored to capture various components of organizing
  • Develop buy-in and trust for successful implementation
  • Set achievable expectations to maximize learning and sustainability
  • Use evaluation results to create impact
  • Clarify what “success” means

Innovative and engaging frameworks and methods like these is what making program design and evaluation fun for me. And you’d think that processes like these are a no-brainer, but they aren’t for many organizations and communities.

(more…)

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