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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?

In what ways can I raise my voice for women and girls of color? What’s stopping me from raising my voice for women and girls of color in a bigger way? How can I play bigger and help others do the same? What skill or attribute can I focus on that can help me think more creatively and be more intentional of my service to women and girls of color?  How can I create an effective call to action that helps my clients and audiences move beyond wanting to please funders and actually do good work that makes a difference?

What am I afraid of? Am I afraid of being seen or heard? Writing a blog post or doing a workshop seems like an deceptively easy way to raise my voice, but blogging has given me a vehicle to share my passions and expertise (which helps others learn new concepts and ways of thinking…and also gives a call to action to people who do work with women and girls of color). Now I’m interested in doing more media appearances and adding video into my content. It scares me but excites me at the same time because I will be able to reach larger audiences.

At the risk of sounding morbid, when we get to the end of this life, I want us to be able to look back and see that what we’ve done on behalf of women and girls of color has been meaningful. How we impact communities and the next generation of women and girls of color is crucial.

My call to action

I want to know more about you and the Raise Your Voice community, from the blog posts I share to my weekly newsletter. I have a short survey that, through your feedback, will help me to tailor my content and services to help you raise your voice for women and girls of color.

Click here to take the survey

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