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Last week, I was glad to have the opportunity to speak at SHARE Charlotte’s Fifth Annual Nonprofit Summit, presenting a talk on building and leading social movements. It was a culminating topic following nearly two years of exploration of how generational change is disrupting so much about how our society functions.
It wasn’t until last year, during a staff meeting outside in our parking lot as we tried to find some sense of togetherness during the COVID pandemic, did I realize the toll that years of racial equity work was taking on my mental and physical health. I was exhausted. But it wasn’t the exhaustion induced by the pandemic alone. For the first time, I was physically feeling the toll of racial equity on my health, and it frightened me. I heard a speaker at a philanthropy conference describe that for BILPOC (Black, Indigenous, Latinx and People of Color) staff working in the space of racial equity, the work can be experienced as the equivalent of walking around with a low-grade fever.
What a time to be alive! With so much going on in the world, not only is this quite a time to be alive, but it is also quite a time to be a leader. As I’ve journeyed with leaders over the past two years as their coach and thought partner, I am reminded that so many leaders are having to learn different methods, dig deeper for resolve, and access a new level of resilience.
To Armstrong McGuire’s regular readers, hello and let me introduce myself! I’m Ann Powell—Founder and Director of Brand at Powell.
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