Consulting Came out of Survival, Not Ambition

I didn't set out to become a consultant. Like many women of colour in this sector, I felt compelled to create my own space after enduring racist harm at the hands of my manager. 
 
During my tenure at the organization, we had successfully increased our annual giving by over 50%. We’d secured new partnerships with private and corporate foundations, even gotten $100K of unrestricted funding, all under CCF principles. As an organization that had completed a large capital campaign and build, it was a feat to be able to grow and build our donor base as much as we did.  

We did so because we had co-created trust and autonomy amidst our work. We were able to do so because I had the trust of my staff and team. We were able to take bigger risks and do more because we all shared a vision. And the moment that new leader stepped into the helm, I realized just how quickly this foundation could crack. This changed quickly with the announcement that the Board had hired a new Executive Director.  

There’s too much to say about toxic leadership and what happens when racism is protected, hidden, or erased from the top-down. But to give you a sentence or two that summarizes what the culture was like, let me tell you this: 
 
This organization had four women of colour or leadership leave or be fired within 18 months of the new Executive Director’s tenure. At a point of tension where I called her out as a leader to take accountability and responsibility to fulfill her duties as the acting Program Director (since she had fired the previous one), she responded in kind by threatening my vacation time.  

Enduring this toxicity and racist harm, watching each of my leadership team leave or be fired took a toll that I am still healing from.  

After months of weaponized incompetence, overt racism directed to me, overt anti-Black racism to my coworkers, and inability or unwillingness to understand their role in fundraising, I had to leave. 

To watch all the incredible work and trust and culture we had co-created be systematically erased because of ONE leader- made me realize just how fragile this work of equity and justice really is. To have built so much trust internally and externally and immediately have this be eradicated was devastating. Having worked so hard to develop this fundraising program and team and have it immediately collapse from one bad apple, shook my faith in me as a fundraiser. 

Leaving a toxic role is a tale as old as the philanthropic sector as a woman of colour. I have no fear of leaving a place that doesn’t interest me. The new fear was realizing, I could not successfully determine what other organization would be better.  

• I looked for organizations led by people of colour- this is not as safe an indicator as one would think! 

• I looked for fundraisers who were vocal about their commitment to equity- I mean...the organization I was currently at had been vocal about their intersectional feminism and anti-racist values so...clearly being vocal isn’t everything.  

• I looked for organizations that didn’t have a predominantly white board- no luck there. 

That’s when I realized, there was no role or job I could take without carrying the risk of repeating the toxicity of the role I had just left. 

And this put me into a lot of grief. I realized that the story I was living was a story that so many generations of women of colour endure- are* enduring. And this was my breaking point.  

How can I operate within a system that preaches change but resisted it at every turn? What toll will it take on me to enter another organization and watch some version of what I’d witness play out again.  

It's a peculiar thing, to work in a sector dedicated to social change but still feel shackled and unable to speak freely about the toxicity within it. I began to wonder: How can we build movements when we're too afraid to move? Is it possible in this sector?  

 I realized then that true advocacy – the kind that shifts culture and builds lasting movements – requires a level of autonomy I couldn't find within traditional organizational confines. 

Consulting wasn't an escape. It was a deliberate choice to explore another path to commit to equity in this sector and maintain my autonomy. To challenge the nonprofit industrial complex that too often prioritizes its survival over the communities it serves. 
 
My philosophy as a fundraiser is this- our job is to mobilize money, resources, and power, to our communities. To be a principled fundraiser, we have to do this in a way that honours our community’s power and autonomy and prioritizes the collective over the individual. I don’t believe we can do this unless we truly feel we belong- our truth will emerge in a setting where we too can exercise our full autonomy and power.  

Now, I enter spaces as a consultant and external party – a position that grants me the freedom to ask uncomfortable questions and co-create radical solutions. I'm no longer constrained by office politics or internal hierarchies and catering to egos.  And in the past year and a half of consulting, it’s been liberating to really speak my truth AND raise money.  

This shift hasn't been without its challenges. The feast-or-famine cycle of consulting work echoes the scarcity mindset I've fought to overcome. But there's a profound difference between choosing uncertainty for the sake of authenticity and being forced into precarity by systems designed to keep us out.  

Becoming a consultant was never about escaping the hard work of movement building. It was about finding a way to do that work honestly and without apology. It's about having the courage to say what needs to be said, even when – especially when – it makes people uncomfortable.  

True cultural shift doesn't happen in board rooms or through carefully worded press releases. It happens when we dare to imagine a different way of doing things and have the autonomy to bring those visions to life. And I’m committed to this work as a consultant.  

So here I am, a consultant by choice and a movement builder by necessity.  

To those still working within the system: I see you. I see your struggle. I see you feeling trapped or having your voice stifled. Take care of yourself. For us, self-care may just look like surviving. We can and will imagine differently but don’t add to the stress of your daily life.  

Just know that the movements we need – the cultural shifts that will transform our world – they start with us. With our willingness to break free from what holds us back and boldly step into our power as agents of change.  
 
If you’re seeking a fundraiser who is committed only to the revenue goal, and the revenue goal only, I’m not your consultant. 

If you’re seeking someone who’ll quietly operationalize what has been done, or “best practices” of a sector that is renowned for harming people of colour, I’m not your consultant. 

But if you’re looking for a consultant that won’t waver on values of equity and justice- let's chat. 

If you want to chat building movements and holding this sector accountable and imagining a new way to fundraise- let's grab a coffee.