Liberatory Research in Action Webinar: The Movement-Defined Learning Project
OVERVIEW
Liberatory Research, the educational arm of Social Insights Research, hosted an educational webinar delving into the Movement-Defined Learning Project, a collaboration between Social Insights Research, Borealis Philanthropy, and grantee partners from the Communities Transforming Policing Fund and the Black-Led Movement Fund. The webinar explored insights from the design, implementation, and pilot of a liberatory evaluation project.
Panelists included:
Dr. Win Guan (Social Insights)
Jeree Thomas (Communities Transforming Policing Fund)
Julia Beatty (Black-Led Movement Fund)
Lola N’sangou (Mass Liberation Arizona)
RESOURCES
Overview of the Movement-Defined Learning Tool and Resource Hub
Fund Safe Futures: Lessons From Organizing Since the 2020 Uprisings
TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Welcome, welcome everyone! So great to have you all here. Welcome to our Liberatory Research webinar. We are so excited to delve into our topic today, but, before I get into that, let me just say that Liberatory Research is a community where we are examining power and liberation and research and evaluation. And, we offer an e-course, we offer free resources and public offerings, such as this webinar series, where we talk about how to do liberatory research work in real life. You can learn more about us at our website, LiberatoryResearch.com.
I'm your facilitator and host. My name is Dr. Zuri Tau and this is our second webinar, y'all. I'm super excited to have this group here. We are diving into liberatory research methodology and practice by talking about the Movement-Defined Learning Project, which was an amazing collaboration between Social Insights Research and Borealis Philanthropy and grantee partners from the Community Transforming Policing Fund and the Black-Led Movement Fund.
So, we're going to get right into it and let the panelists introduce themselves. But first, let me pass to my colleague, Miko Brown, with Liberatory Research.
Miko Brown | Miko/Miko's | Admin & Community Engagement Manager: Thank you, Zuri. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for coming. My name is Miko. I'll be here in the background providing tech support and helping out with any questions that are in the chat.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Thank you. Right. Pass to Win.
Dr. Win Guan | he/him | Social Insights Senior Researcher: Great. My name is Win Guan. I am with Social Insights Research as a Senior Evaluation and Research Manager. And I use he and him pronouns. My quote that I like is “Until the lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.”
Lola N'sangou | she/her | Grantee, Mass Liberation AZ: Thank you, Win. Hello, everyone! My name is Lola N’sangou. My pronouns are she and her. And, I am with an organization called Mass Liberation Arizona, located in South Phoenix, Arizona. My personal motto has been, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.” Frederick Douglass. And I will pass to…Oh, to Jeree.
Jeree Thomas | she/her | Director, Communities Transforming Policing Fund: Hey, y'all! Jeree Thomas. She/her pronouns. And, I'm the program director of the Communities Transforming Policing Fund at Borealis Philanthropy. And, one of my favorite things to read is adrienne maree brown's “Radical Gratitude Spell” which starts out with “You are a miracle walking.” And so, I always think about how we talk and relate with each other, and like that being what we bring to every conversation. Just being grateful for one another that way. And I will pass it to Julia.
Julia Beatty | she/her | Director, Black-Led Movement Fund: Thanks, Jeree. Hey, everyone! My name is Julia Beatty, and my pronouns are she and her, and I'm the director of the Black-Led Movement Fund at Borealis Philanthropy. I'm based in New York City on unceded Lenape land in Harlem World, U.S.A., and it's great to be here. I would offer my personal motto to be “Live the dash.” Some years ago, when my best friend's mom passed away, when the pastor was eulogizing her as she talked about how she lived her life so powerfully and fully, you know. So that date where you're born and the date where you transition, you know, to another plane, you know, there's a dash in between that, right. And so what you do with that time really matters. So something that I keep close to my heart.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Thank you. Thank you so much, everyone. We are so excited to talk about this project, and we are actually going to start with the team from Borealis. We are really curious about how you even started this project. What was really your initial goal and what was it about Social Insights’ approach that stood out to you?
Jeree Thomas | she/her | Director, Communities Transforming Policing Fund: You want me to kick it off, Julia? Alright, I will kick us off. So, we started developing the idea for the Movement-Defined Learning Project…it was probably a year after George Floyd was murdered and the uprisings, and our two funds held a donor briefing that we called Fund Safe Futures in collaboration with a number of our grantee partners and movement partners. And in that session, we began to talk about how, you know, movement created this portal, right, this like opportunity for philanthropy to do things differently, right, and to specifically fund black led movement work for safety and liberation at the scale to actually like meet the need and the really generational, historical challenge that that we face, right, with the realities of anti-blackness, criminalization, and chronic extraction from communities.
And so we, you know, we really wanted to figure out, how do we utilize that opportunity? How do we go through that portal and help support others in philanthropy? Because we recognized that it wasn't going to be open forever, and that folks were going to want to understand more about the impact of that movement work. And so, we wanted to develop a process to that really centered our grantees and their communities and helping to tell the story of what that impact was, right, instead of that being something that philanthropy imposed on those partners, we wanted to to say, “Okay, let's actually start with what with what our partners and their communities say is impact.”
And you know, Social Insights Research, y'all were already working with some of my partners, some of my grantee partners, and so I just loved seeing that y'all were already there and already in community with folks and so that made me feel really excited about what our project could look like. And I knew that y'all understood and appreciated where we were coming from. So, pass it to Julia.
Julia Beatty | she/her | Director, Black-Led Movement Fund: Thanks, Jeree. So, as Jeree named, we really wanted to center our grantee partners in this work, in this experiment, but we particularly wanted to center the wisdom and the ideas of Black organizers and really, through this experiment, and some of the storytelling that could come out of it, be able to lift up the enduring legacy of Black organizing for democracy and justice in this country. You know, we want to move more money to this work, it's under-resourced. Black organizers, their ideas, and strategies aren’t listened to in the same way. They are not prioritized by foundations in philanthropy and their grantmaking strategies. But, we believe it is, you know, Black organizers and Black movement that's been the cornerstone to some of the greatest achievements around democracy and justice in the history of this country.
So, it is organizers, you know, from Black communities that have created new experiments and new blueprints for transformative change for the past 400 years. We acknowledge that part of our theory of change is resourcing that work, even in the broader context of resourcing work around policing or abolition, and just sort of broader campaigns around transformative justice.
We hold up the fact that you know historically, right…we think about the very first labor movement in this country was enslaved Black people who won abolition, who created the labor movement in this country. We recognize, you know, the 14th Amendment that guaranteed birthright citizenship and equal protection under the law, that was Black organizers in the 1800s who fought those battles that lifted, you know, all boats right, the tide that lifts all boats. Equal rights, and to desegregation it was Black, queer, nonbinary legal folks like Pauli Murray who created the legal frameworks that ended school desegregation and helped to spark the Civil Rights movement. You know, she created the National Organization for Women, right. So, it's these institutions led by Black leaders that have always been really core and central to fundamental social change in this world. And, it's just so wild that somehow philanthropy doesn't understand that centering Black communities and organizers in their organizations, in their grantmaking strategies are core to our job of helping to impact this kind of change.
So, our job is to raise money for these organizations to do their work well and to be able to hire folks and move the work and build infrastructure while being able to also take care of themselves. So, we also wanted to, you know, through this project, make visible the work of Black-led organizations and the ways that they have been contributing to this enduring legacy, right, of struggles for democracy and justice. And, we also wanted to understand, most importantly, you know, what do movement organizers want to know about their own progress and impact of their organizations and movements and what do they need from us as far as resources, partnership, transparency and accountability?
And so, you know. getting a chance to connect with Social Insights was just very much aligned with a lot of Borealis' values. You know, we have been experimenting, ourselves, with participatory grantmaking and the idea of this approach, this very participatory approach, the idea of a liberatory learning lab sounded really, you know…very much aligned with where we were headed as an organization. You know, Borealis is fairly new. We're about to celebrate our 10th anniversary. So, some years ago, when Jeree and I are thinking about, you know, how we want to approach this, you know, we're also trying to create a new model for learning inside of our organization that didn't exist yet, right. And so, with that sort of ability to kind of create something new where nothing existed, we had some real, you know, leeway to be creative and to work with partners like Social Insights, who have a much more creative approach to evaluation and learning.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Oh, my goodness, thank you. This is… I mean, I love the keywords that are coming up like “experimentation,” “centering community”... like even taking us back to this long line of history, right. So, it's like, yes, this Movement-Defined Learning Project is an experiment, but it's built on centuries of work and knowledge, right. So, I'm also really excited to hear about…all right, what happened? So you all were like, “All right, we want to do this. Now is the time we're ready. We got our evaluation partner.” What was the experience of the actual journey implementing this approach? And anybody can start. Yeah, thanks, Jeree.
Jeree Thomas | she/her | Director, Communities Transforming Policing Fund: Yeah, I mean, it was incredibly exciting because, as Julia mentioned, like we were starting from...it was a brand new, you know, concept, and so that created this opportunity to be really innovative. And so, I appreciated the fact that the approach we took was really collaborative and we also recognized that, like…it wasn't just about getting to an outcome or getting to like the package, the thing, you know, that you could give out. The process was a big part, right, of the work we were doing, right, the relationships we were building, how we did it, the intention with which we did it was a part of the journey, of the work.
And so, you know, I really appreciated it and we got a lot of great feedback, as well, from our partners, like, “Oh, this is different.” Right. Like,when we kind of shared like “Here are the different ways in which you can engage in this work.” We really heard from folks that, you know, they appreciated there being, like, more opportunities. It wasn't just one specific way. And, more importantly, our focus on always doing the feedback loop, like always being very transparent about what we're doing, how we're doing it, and holding ourselves accountable to share that back and to be in conversation with our partners about it, was just something I really appreciated.
Julia Beatty | she/her | Director, Black-Led Movement Fund: Yeah, I'll add that, you know, we are…at Borealis, we are grantees, as well, right. We are grantmaking intermediaries. So, we have to raise money from other donors, and we have to, often, kind of go through the same arduous and extractive reporting processes–that don't really tell about what we're doing—with our donors, right. So, it was actually pretty cool to be able to experiment with an experience of what something different could look like and, hopefully, influence some of our partners to take on some of these new practices, as well.
I think, coming into this project, we, you know, had the sense that “Oh, we'll come out of this and we'll get some great new questions.” And what really blew our minds is how expansive this project became and what it can be, right. And that was really thanks to the grantee partners that we engaged to co-create, not just the tool, but help us to also envision how we would implement that tool, which then led us to actually raise some resources to pilot it, right. You know, we thought we're gonna get these great questions and “Yay, new questions!” and that'll do it. Our partners said, “Yeah, well, let's think about the ways that you can collect this information. You know, resource us to be able to hold space for organizers and members of our community to engage in conversation together around what impacts have been for them as members, or for them as staff, and doing this work out in the world and in their communities, in the political landscape.”
You know, we heard from folks, you know, “Allow us to be able to tell our stories with video. Allow us to, you know, tell the stories that not only that we want to tell…” But, you know, this is actually a hard process, sometimes, to be able to think back about the hard times and the challenges of organizing work. It's painful work, sometimes. We've heard our grantees talk about the experience of burnout and grief, so we were conscious about making available access to healers, if folks wanted. We have a partnership with Black Emotional And Mental support, BEAM, that, you know, we wanted to make available for folks.
So, ultimately, you know, it was pretty interesting to be able to experience, you know, through our grantee partners, a process that felt like it was more of an easeful one, right. There was less of a burden, right. This idea that you could report out to us in ways that felt natural to your organization. You're already organizing community meetings all the time. Why not use one of those as a way to extract some information from folks that could be useful not only to them, but also to us as funders around our grantmaking?
We incentivize folks’ time and labor through this process. Our grantee partners who are part of the Liberatory Learning Lab received $150 an hour over the course of 8 sessions that ran for about an hour to an hour and a half each. And you know, ultimately, we felt like, through this process, like, we developed even more trust with some of our partners. You know, Lola here is not only someone who was part of the Liberatory Learning Lab, she's now been part of participatory grantmaking processes for some of the funds at Borealis. And, you know, it's just been a really beautiful experience to be able to connect with and build with our grantee partners in a way, you know, that’s just so much less transactional. You know, philanthropy forces us into these relationships, often, that are very transactional around the dollars and the grant and we know that we as movement funders can actually provide, you know, better support and more aligned and accountable support to folks if we're actually in a better and deeper relationship with the partners on the ground.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Yes, accountable support. Thank you. So, you all have given us, like such a good foundation and context into why this project was started and what some of the highlights were. And, we are going to now talk to Win about the methods. We're gonna get under the hood a little bit in the evaluation process and planning and into the details. So, I'm gonna pass to you, Win, and we're gonna have…we're gonna share some slides so that we can, you know, provide even more detail and then he doesn't have to literally say everything, right. So, those slides are gonna come up in a moment, too.
Dr. Win Guan | he/him | Social Insights Senior Researcher: Great. Okay. So, yeah, I want to share a little bit about the approach of the work. So, I just want to add–I'm listening to Julia and Jeree talk about the inception of the project–I just really want to add that I think this project was particularly fascinating because of how beautiful the collaboration was with everyone that was involved in that, particularly, how willing everyone was to allow the project to grow in a really, really natural way. And so, I want to center that word that I think Julia and others have really used that this was really “experimental” and there's something really beautiful about philanthropy leaning into experiment. That was really fascinating for this project.
So, the big umbrella project is the Movement-Defined Learning Project, but we're going to focus particularly on one component of the project, which was the Liberatory Learning Lab. And so, to just get us kind of grounded: the movement defined learning projects is a liberatory learning and evaluation project designed to support movements and organizers in defining their own impact and success and reflect back their wisdom to resource and cultivate a culture of learning. And so, ultimately, this really, really boiled down to what Julia and others have shared, that this really really was an experiment, an experiment with how evaluation and research and learning can be a space where philanthropy can shift the power that they hold, the power that they hold unjustly. And, evaluation and research really can be a space where they can shift that power.
So, I do want to take the time, at this moment, just to really acknowledge all of the different people that were part of this project, that made this project what it became. So, in the Liberatory Learning Lab, we had all these folks from different organizations here. And I'm gonna read them out just to shout them out right here. Beatriz, from People's Advocacy Institute; Lukee from Hudson Catskill Housing Coalition; Bianca, from Freedom, Inc.; Reggie, from Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative; Robyn, from Women on the Rise, Demaris, from Troy for Black Lives; Lola, who we have here, from Mass Liberation Arizona; Markasa from African American Round Table; Elizabeth, Fund for empowerment; Shawnte, from Black Lives Matter Louisville; and Omodamola, from Young People for Progress. And, really wanted to spend the time to show those folks because the whole learning lab was completely guided and led by these folks on this page who really made it what it became.
So, to just…before we kind of like…before I share, sort of, the approach, I just want to say that this entire approach was grounded in liberatory research principles. I won't go through each of these, but if you have a chance, if you haven't seen these, check out the Liberatory Research website. These principles…I mean, each of these guided how we went about this project, how we designed the learning lab, how we designed the pilot, etc. It was just really, really, really foundational to this work.
And so, first thing we did, just like movement, this project centered relationships. We had to be intentional about how we went about building the relationships that were going to guide this project. And so, there were four primary ways that we made our introduction to our liberatory learning lab organizations. Jeree and Julia emailed their grantee partners, introducing Social Insights and the project itself, the Movement-Defined Learning Project. Following that email, we followed it up with a one-pager with some background information on the purpose of the project, what the goals of the project were, who SI (Social Insights) is–both myself, individually, my colleague, Maya, individually and Social Insights, as an organization. We included a survey to gather their level of interest, what their capacity was to be able to share, and some stories about our experiences with evaluation. And then, finally, we held a full informational session where we spent most of that time…some of it was spent with Q&A, but, a lot of it was just meeting each other, just introducing ourselves who we were, where we come from, and our perspective and everything.
And, I feel like that was really, really important in the relationship-building for this, for the learning lab. So, this slide shows the entire process of the learning lab. We held six sessions in total. Each of the sessions were about 90 minutes long, and you can see, in these yellow bubbles, the purpose of each session. And, I'll share a little bit more in the next slide, but there was, you know–coming back to this idea of experimental–there was so much pivoting and shifting that was done throughout the project and I hope we have a chance to talk to Lola a little bit about that. Lola, I would love to hear your perspective on that as a participant in the learning lab, but there was just, there was constant shifting. Each of these purposes in the bubble changed after every session. And so, this is what it finally became.
We spent the first 4 sessions kind of exploring evaluation, exploring different methods, exploring curiosity questions that we had and, ultimately, created this sort of evaluation tool that we were going to share back to orient us. But, using that draft, the first thing that happened was that each of the learning lab participants actually brought that tool back to their organizations and piloted that tool with each of their organizations to kind of get some tweaks, get some feedback, and we used the final two sessions to revise and finalize the tool to share with Julia and Jeree. And, ultimately, our next step, which was the pilot.
But, before we kind of, like, share the full pilot or project, I just wanna lift up a few things in the facilitation of these learning labs, really getting into the nitty gritty of like, what is it like to actually facilitate these learning labs. These were some of the things that really, really came up as learnings for myself and my colleague, Maya, as we were facilitating these. I'll go through these relatively quickly. But, the first one was, we spent so much more time, than we maybe prepared to or imagined, on cultivating the space, and we spent that much time because we knew it was important, and I don't mean just like coming up with space agreements. I mean, like really leaning into building relationships with each other, seeing how each person was doing, where we're coming from, what's the work that we're doing, what are we facing–so many organizations are facing campaigning, elections, etc.–like getting to know each other. And, we spent so much time on that because it was the foundation for the rest of the work.
And, part of that was co-creating the values of the space, values of generativity, relativity, you know, etc. And then, some other parts I want to lift up is this balancing guidance and collaboration. Because we had to really sort of adapt to what the space looks like each time we went into a learning lab, folks had different levels of capacity, which really determined whether we're going into a more discussion-based learning lab versus more of an experimental doing-space kind of learning lab. Every learning lab, I felt like we really needed to design alternative pathways for like plan Bs and plan Cs and plan Ds, depending on how many folks might be able to attend, how many folks might be able to attend like on-screen and participatory versus, you know, just maybe the only way they can participate on that day is just learning. So, we just really had to be able to pivot depending on what showed up in the learning lab. And so, I just really wanted to lift that up.
The final thing I want to share here is just our project timeline just so everyone can kind of get an idea of what Julia and Jeree had shared about this entire project. From the beginning, we did not know it was going to be, you know, as extensive as it was and a lot of credit goes to the learning lab folks, and also Jeree and Julia, who really just, I mean, they hustled. They just hustled because they believe in this project and hustled to gather, quite frankly, financial support to keep building this project and spreading the values of this project. And so, the first two bars here in the yellow are what we're talking about here: the project launch, the introductions, and the learning labs. But, since that, we've piloted the work that the learning lab created, piloted it the first year in the purple bars–with all the grantees–piloted a tool with all the grantees, used different methods, we used community listening sessions, we used video reporting, etc. And then we spent the fall and winter of 2023 learning from that pilot.
And then, Julia and Jeree went out and did, or are doing, a complete new second iteration of the pilot and so we're going to be spending this long winter doing analysis of that and seeing what comes from here. So again, just…this just keeps on growing, and it's been a real privilege for me to be a part of this project. The last slide here is…I just wanna kind of wrap this up with the slide that, if it’s okay, I'm gonna actually read these words directly because, Julia, Jeree and I, as well as Reggie, from one of the learning lab participants, we went to a conference and, actually, got all this feedback and perspectives from different folks: evaluators, funders, movement organizers. And coming out of that conference, we, like, had this huge kind of realization of, like, what this project actually is, like, what is the actual sort of real contribution or purpose or goal of this project. And so, I'll read it here:
“The Movement-Defined Learning Project shows what can happen when evaluation and learning centers the expertise, experience, and perspectives of movements, organizers, and communities. Success of the project was not defined by designing a new or perfect set of evaluation questions, nor finding the perfect method for data collection and synthesis. It was the process of the learning lab itself in and of itself that was the successful outcome. It's a model for how evaluation and learning can be done in a way that deepens trust in the relationship between movement and philanthropy. And perhaps more importantly, it's a call for funders to acknowledge the power they unjustly hold and to work towards shifting that power to communities.”
And, I feel like I'll speak for Jeree and Julia. I think I can speak for y'all that this realization was, I feel like, one of the grandest moments of the project. And, really appreciative of the feedback that we got in that moment. I’ll end there.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Thank you so much, Win. That was amazing. I think you can see in the chat people are feeling the same about it. We are…Yeah, I mean, there's so much here and we want to hear from Lola about her experience. And so, we're gonna jump right into it. Lola, I'm just super curious about, you know, this space…you know, of course, you've been working with Borealis. This is not your first rodeo, right. What is different? What was unique about being in this lab? And can you tell us a little bit about your experience?
Lola N'sangou | she/her | Grantee, Mass Liberation AZ: Yeah. Well, it's great to be with everyone again, too. I almost like, once we left the space, I felt kind of like “Ah! The people I've been working with! I want to still remain in relationship.” And so, it's really always great to be in space again. So, thanks for having me. I can say that my first impression was really that I was immediately relieved. The first email I got from Social Insights was like, “Don’t prep” and that's like…that's music to my ears. Don't prep, just show up as you are, be in the space.
I know that the space was a little different, because I knew no one in the space. I mean, that's not different, you know. You go into these kind of like collaborative spaces and, oftentimes, you don't know everyone in the space, but remembering, like, what we were working on, right, like we were talking about something that is…one, we're resourced for this work, so you want to make sure that you're going to provide a deliverable. You don't know everybody in the room. It's a big project when you hear what you're going to do and what you're setting out to do. It's a big project.
And, as Julia said, these relationships are usually transactional. So, the elephant in the room was that, you know, we're working on this project for a funder, we're looking to build out a process by collaborating with a funder, and we're grantees. And there's a power imbalance there, right, and that brings risk for us. So, when we're talking about, how do we actually be critical of current processes, how do we be honest about how we enhance and make those processes better…it was scary, and, especially, with people you don't know.
And so, one of the things I noticed, like, immediately was, first, the chill vibe of the space. So, when we got in, it was just like the pacing and the speed…so that nervousness just like falls off because you've got music, you've got this environment where folks are clearly, like, taking space and time to talk to you, find out who you are, put out breakout sessions so that you can talk to the other people who are part of this collaborative cohort and get to know them. And, I was just like, “How are we ever gonna get anything done if all we're doing is, like, relationship-building?” My brain said that, you know, because I'm so used to this transactional environment where it's like, “Gotta just get it done. Get it done! Get it done!” And the pacing was just so…And I remember just feeling like, “Okay, my nerves are settling. Like, my nervous system could actually handle what’s ahead of me.”
Because, I also very much love Borealis because of the support over the years, but I know that we need to be critical in this moment to be able to get to distill the right answer for what we needed to do. And so, I just, I remember feeling like “This space is so different because I get to, like, I get to know who I'm talking with, build the trust with not only the facilitators, Win and Maya, but also, like, with the collaborative team. And, I get to take the time to do that and I started immediately to feel safe, right. And I was really nervous. I would imagine…actually, I can say for sure that other, you know…our colleagues in that space were also nervous because we talked about it, like, openly and it was just a really…it was just really different.
I, also…Win mentioned this just a moment ago, about how things change pretty regularly in that space. I consider that to be like a really solid practice of agility. I thought, like “How incredible that we could have this idea, and then we could get new ideas that built upon them, and that we could just move and shift.” And, like…what we were building was fluid enough to actually be, not just an answer, but like the real answer, like we could get to the bottom of it. And the fact that our facilitators were just, like, ready to take this new direction without, like, any sort of, like, exasperation or frustration of this, like, creative space…because I know any of us who are creatives who go into these collaborative spaces, oftentimes, feel like, “Should I say what I'm actually thinking? Because, if I do, I don't want to derail anything but, like, it's a big flag, and I want to say something.” Like this space was, like, conducive for that level of thought.
And I really felt like “Wow!” Like…And I wanted so much…like, I want to facilitate like this. I want to make sure our organization is, like, providing its spaces and creating containers in this way. And the last thing I'll say about how this space was held was that it was super supportive. Because, you know, like, I said, this is daunting work. You know, when we're setting out to do something that is such a big and lofty goal, the way that container is held is super important. And I, actually, I have a couple of disabilities. I have, one, I have immune-compromised people in my home, so going in person would never have worked out for me. So, this virtual environment was so helpful, particularly at the time. It was the end of 2022…middle or end of 2022, if I remember. And so, it was really tough, because, you know, folks were getting sick. So, you know, being able to avoid the pandemic…but I also have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, and so it makes it difficult for me to sit and stand and be in any one position. And so, the accessibility was incredible because we used a bunch of different tools. I guess I should talk about that, too.
We used a bunch of different types of tools to be able to facilitate the space. And so, all of them were available, not only on my laptop, but they were also available on my phone. So, I was able to, like, lie down and stretch, and there were breaks. And it was just all of these, like. accommodations to make it so that I could actually, like, be myself, and not like muscle through, or have to force my body. It was really meaningful. And just to touch on the multimedia approach… like, just that we had multiple ways of getting our ideas on the… into the room, I thought it was really incredible, too, because, you know, those of us with different learning styles, some of us need to hear a thing, we need to see a thing, we need to draw about a thing, and, literally, all of those options were available to us in in the ideating phase and in the way that we were able to also bring those…our ways of of ideating back together.
And then, the facilitators were able to distill out, like, what we were actually trying to say in those spaces, and really like to…and also to confirm, like, right, like, that this is what we're trying to build, this is what you wanted to contribute, this is what this meant when you brought this. I couldn't really put my finger on what made the space so special, but I'm really grateful for this opportunity to kind of talk it through, because I…again, like, I want to replicate this. I want to be able to give this to our people.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Oh, gosh! This is so amazing. That is, like, a really great segue into my next question for you, because I'm really curious about how, maybe, being engaged in this process, was, like, meaningful or supportive to your work outside of an evaluation context.
Lola N'sangou | she/her | Grantee, Mass Liberation AZ: Yeah, it has been. I draw from it regularly. One of the things that I know I personally appreciated was being resourced for my time. Oftentimes, especially…I'm a community organizer. We are in, like, the frontline community organizing. And, oftentimes, we forget, like, people who come and they give their ideas, and they give their thought processes and they spend and they build together, like, what do they need?
One of the things that I learned from this experience was, like, right, to be more supportive, to create intentional and thoughtful containers, to spread, like, what I'd learned from the space. But also, it's also in the collaboration, like, how do I draw out or how do I create safe spaces for collaboration? What do I do to…And so, we've slowed down in our organizing and we've…and it's not that it was that this space was slow. It really wasn't. It was just really intentional, right. So, we just build in our practice now of, like, build relationships, slow down, and get to talk to one another, develop that trust, and also be worthy of that trust, right.
So, create opportunities then, also, for folks to have the privacy that they need to be able to to be critical, to be able to…and so, we've really like… in the process..And we've actually worked again with Social Insights like, I think we'd mentioned, or Julia and Jeree had mentioned about how we actually were able to practice what we'd learned in this container. We were able to actually take and, like, pilot, the process that we developed together in the collaboration. When we did that, we also used many of the tools that we had learned during the collaborative process around creating space, making sure that people have time. Because, effectively, we're asking our base to do the very same thing that Boreals was asking of us, which is, right, like, “Tell us the truth about how this experience was.” And so, it was like…it was really nice to be able to, like, try to implement those. So, we didn't do it as skillfully as Win and Maya did, but it was really awesome to be able to, like, take that opportunity of learning, and then try to then implement it on our own here, so.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Ugh, that's amazing. Thank you so much. I'm pretty sure you got Win blushing over here ‘cause this is some high praise, Lola, like. I know! I know, right?! This is…that's incredible, I think what's also standing out for me is that the Liberatory Research model and principles was really influenced by 10 years of work with Black organizers. And so, my development as a researcher was really connected to working with organizations like BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity) that had principles around somatics at their foundation, right. So that it is really all interconnected here.
I would really love to hear from the entire group just a little bit about, like, what you personally found valuable about this experience, and maybe even sharing, like, an example of what stood out to you. Just doing a little storytelling for us.
Julia Beatty | she/her | Director, Black-Led Movement Fund: I could kick us off, Jeree, did you...? Yeah, you know, everything about this process, really, I think, helped us fundamentally, you know…we'll just lean into what we'd already been doing, which is like really leaning into participatory processes and using that feedback to shift our approaches. So, our approaches to grantmaking…now we have more funds than we did three years ago who are doing participatory grantmaking. Other funds at Borealis are really curious about this process and how they can, you know, utilize this tool, as well.
You know, we're also thinking differently about resources that we offer to our partners, right. So you know, on the somatics tip, right. One of the things that we heard, you know, through the survey that we did–one of the ways that we piloted the tool–was that folks are experiencing tremendous grief and burnout, right. A lot of intense work. A lot of losses, right. And personal losses in community. And so, now, looking towards the election, right, and whatever the aftermath will be, there will be a lot of feelings, and there will be a lot to process. And so, one of the things that we'll be offering, thanks to Jeree’s leadership, is like a two-part series, right…a somatic series, right, where we're inviting somatic practitioners to come in and hold space for all of our grantee partners to be able to sort of sit in what's happening, how they're feeling, to connect with one another, and then be able to process what all of this means for, you know, the next year. So, you know, that's a totally new thing, right, that’s a new idea that has come out specifically from this feedback that we got from this process.
You know, we also, you know, heard from folks that you know, because evaluation tends to be so extractive and we sort of submit a report and it goes into the ether and folks don't hear anything back from us or don't even really know…like, we're sitting on a wealth of information from a lot of different organizations and, you know, our partners said, “You know, we'd love to hear what other folks are reporting out and saying are their accomplishments or their challenges.” So, that now has created, you know, a sort of new model for us where we are being even more committed than ever to creating more feedback loops with our grantee partners. So, when you give us information and share it with us, we want to share back with you all what we heard, and, also, how we are moving, perhaps, differently, and what we can offer as a result.
So now, part of our process, you know, around this learning is to offer feedback–meaning-making sessions is what we're calling them–as a way to continue to get more data from folks, but also to enable peers to engage with one another around the themes that are emerging around things that bring them joy, celebration, on the challenges. So, all of that, just personally, has been hugely impactful. Because, you know, I'm gonna keep it real. I feel like philanthropy dulls you, right. Like, given the power dynamic that Lola names, right. We are often funders, you know…used to coming into rooms and being the smartest people–even though we're not. Or, you know, get invited to speak at all the things, right, because of that power dynamic and being able to be in these meaning-making sessions and engage with our grantee partners helps get us sharper, right.
Because they're on a whole other level, y'all, you know, thinking about, you know, where we need to be going, you know. Really, you know, the assessments that they are making are incredibly sharp and strategic. So, it's just been so encouraging and inspiring to be in spaces and to, you know, to be trusted to be in those spaces with our partners to grapple with some of what's emerging, you know, across the ecosystem. So, that's just been…you know, and it's fun, you know, it's like, you know, way better than you know some grantmaking meeting that we might have to go to. So, those are a couple of things that I'd highlight.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Thank you so much. Let's go, joy! Okay! I hear it. Jeree, I think you were next up.
Jeree Thomas | she/her | Director, Communities Transforming Policing Fund: Yeah. So, what I really appreciated…and I'll just share one example of this. So, because Lola and others created the tool that we piloted, and they let us know when we met with them the following year, like, “Here's how we want you all to do it.” Right. Like, they gave us, like, clear instruction. So, when we went about sharing with our other grantee part, like, “Hey, here's this tool that was developed by some of your peers, right, the folks that you all work with in lots of different ways and then here's what we're hoping to do. There's gonna be an opportunity to, like, connect again…”. Right. So, we laid that out in piloting the process. And, what I thought was really beautiful was, because of that, many of our grantee partners who like, for example, responded to the incentivized survey, they commented on the tool prompts, right. So, they were like, “Oh, yeah! I never get asked this question.That's interesting!” or “Oh, this is something I hadn't thought about.”
So, it was cool to see them not only just respond to the prompts, but, because they knew it was their peers that developed them, they wanted to also provide input on like, “Oh, okay, this does, like, connect to work about mutual aid that I don't get to talk about,” or...Oh, you know. Oh, like, I think there's a question explicitly around like, how do you support Black communities, right. Like it was, like, very proactively offering folks that space to talk about it, right, and we got really really great feedback. And so, we were able to–in some one-on-one conversations with some of the folks who who piloted it through the community listening session and video and who were part of the learning lab–in the conversations with them, we got to share back, like, “Hey, here's the feedback that we've gotten from from folks that have used the tool.” And, seeing some folks, like, really light up. So it's like,”Oh, that's cool!” Like, “Okay, cool.” We got to, like, see the full circle of how it worked.
And then, in November of last year, we had that like meaning-making feedback session, and hearing from folks like, “Oh, yeah, we like, we want more space to, like, actually talk more about these things.” Because, it was such a different type of process, and because people were asking questions of their community that was different, right. Like, that experience was different. And so, because of that feedback from that conversation, our process this year looks different to reflect that. So, we do have now…some folks filled out the survey, but folks were also given the option to just be in conversation and space with each other to talk about the prompts and their experience. So, like, we have folks doing that. So, those things really stood out to me and I'm excited to continue just to learn from our folks, right, of what works for them, and what helps them to bring, you know…to bring what they're learning from this process into their work.
Like, we wanna make sure that...Well, I think the biggest thing that I've always noticed is that sometimes it feels like the learning is only one way, right. If you're just reporting, you're giving someone a report that you're never hearing back, it feels very one sided. And it's like, no, we wanted to create a process where everyone has the space to learn and to collaborate and to, like, you know, like challenge each other and leveling up, right. And so, yeah, I'll pause there.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Thank you so much. Any other personal reflections? Lola, I see you're off mute.
Lola N'sangou | she/her | Grantee, Mass Liberation AZ: Oh, I just wanted to share one quick one. Because, this has just been bringing things up for me. It was really, like, a valuable moment for me. What really stood out to me was when we were able to hear what this all came together to be, so the final product, right, when they presented back to us–the cohort–like, “This is what you said. Did we get it right?” And, I remember very distinctly all of us like in that group being like,”Oh, my God! You not only got it right, but like, now look at how beautiful this was.” Because you're just you're talking about it all the time. You don't get to see it on paper, in front of you, described back to you, fed back to you in the way that you…and when you hear it all at once, it's like, “Yeah, that's it. That's it.” And, you know, it was a little bit scary, too, because we ended up, right, having to go and actually do this thing we created later, right. We went and experimented, and that was, like, when it came to our team, I was like, “Oh, we wanted this, though. Like we asked for this.” And, we ended up actually doing it. It was like, really…it was a really, like, full circle, really awesome experience.
But it, also…I see like, when we experienced it, when we actually did it, you could see the intent. Like, we went through this process, and you could see the intention that was there from all of the collaborators who put in our ideas, we could feel those intentions as we were like actually doing the activity. So, it was just…for me, that whole thing was like a big standout. Like, this is, like, validation. It's, like…it was just very satisfying to see that our project ended up being this thing that we were able to carry out and do, and that we were able to see the intention in it. Kind of like Jeree said, like, folks are saying, “Hey, you know, I can see that you're being more thoughtful. I can see that our peers created this.” And, we felt that as we did it, also, and it felt really validating.
And, I just want to say one other thing. Like, I'm not…I'm very…if you knew me as a person, I'm extremely critical of philanthropy. I am critical of philanthropy. I don't give out flowers, like, unless they are due. But when they are due, I give out flowers. And, I just feel like this whole experience was just so different. And, like I had said, too, I'll be part of any of these again. There's a lot of these experiences I've been part of that I'm like “I don't think I'll be going back to that.” But not this. This was actually…this felt so generative and so creative, and so much opportunity came from it. Like, I would love to be part of a space like that again. And so, that…I just want to say, like, these aren't just flowers to be giving them. These folks really, really did that work.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Thank you so much, Lola. Win, did you have anything you wanted to add? We do have a little bit more time, and then we're going to open it up to the audience.
Dr. Win Guan | he/him | Social Insights Senior Researcher: Yeah, I'll add one thing and it is about that moment that I referred to earlier in that last slide in the slide deck. And so, Julia and Jeree and I got to present some of this work at a conference, which was amazing. And, in that room, in the presentation, was a collection of organizations, some grassroots organizations, some funders, some intermediaries, some evaluators, as well, etc. and that conference was the Grantmaking for Effective Organizations (GEO). I think that's the acronym. And, actually, really interesting, Lola, you made me think of this. It was so amazing because after we presented, you know, folks kind of, like, came up and shared some perspectives and thoughts and it was so fascinating because I would chat with someone from a funder, a large philanthropy, and they would be like, “Okay, so, I’m still trying to understand like, what's new with this tool, like these questions.”
And then, I would chat with someone who is either an organizer or in an organization and they would say, like “That process sounds amazing.” Like, just like everything you're saying, Lola. And, it was so validating to hear from those different perspectives because that's exactly what we were trying to do. We were trying to do something that centered those organizations and to hear that they felt it, even though they weren't part of it, but they felt it…so validating and it was so affirming. And, it also really affirmed, just like where you're saying, Lola, a philanthropist like “Yup! Not surprised that it doesn't really hit, you know, for you.” So. yeah.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Thank you. Thank you so much. Alright. So, we see that there are questions in the chat, and we are going to answer those, and if you have more that are coming up for you after hearing our panelists speak, please feel free to put them in the chat and we're going to get to them, and we have plenty of time to do so. Or, you can DM us, as well, if you want to ask an anonymous question.
So, I love this question from Nidal, which was right in line with something that we wanted to bring up, which is about how Jeree and Julia have used this project to advocate within the field of philanthropy. Because, as Lola pointed out, like, this is not business as usual. And I think, you know, it's clear that this has been enlivening for both of you. And so, we know that you put in a lot of energy. So, I just, you know, want to hear more, of course, beyond the GEO Conference and other things that you all are doing.
Julia Beatty | she/her | Director, Black-Led Movement Fund: Sure, I can start. I'll kick us off. You know, one of the things that we thought was important at the beginning of this project in early 2022 was to begin bringing our donor partners along for the ride. So, as we were building out this process, at, you know, at every milestone–you know, the culmination of the learning lab and the development of the tool and then, you know, launching the pilots and getting the feedback–at all of those points, we made it a point to gather our donor partners together to engage them along the way, right. We felt that, you know, if they could really sort of see the sausage making of all of this, and you know, understand the intentions and really sort of deeply understand this work–versus, you know, two years later, just throwing them a report–we felt that there might be a little bit more ownership, a little bit more interest and willingness to really try on these kinds of approaches inside of their own organizations.
So, the donor roundtable, you know, starting with our own donor partners, as we are collaborative funds. Those folks actually then helped us connect to evaluation staff and leaders inside of their institutions and then we started having one-on-one meetings with them, right. They, often, sit in different conversations than, you know, program and grants administration staff. So, we wanted to understand a little bit more about, you know, how they might see this working inside of their own institution, but also understand some of the challenges that they might have as a very different type of institution. Many of them were big private institutions…you know, the challenges that they would have in implementing something like this. And, we actually got a lot of valuable feedback.
You know, one of the things that I think Win lifted up earlier–and Jeree and I lifted up and Lola, too–is just the importance of relationships in all of this. And, we are a unique type of funder. You know, for many of our grantee partners, we may have been their first grant. And, you know, we heard from a funder who runs evaluation at a very large institution, they said, “You know, for us this would actually be really difficult.” Because, one, the vast number of grantee partners, and the capacity required to really sort of hold this process across, but, also, because the reality of their institution is that they really are just transactional, right. And so, to get the buy-in from some of these groups.
And, you know, we've had some success in, like, having some more conversations with folks who are really, I mean...just on Monday, right, we heard from a funder who runs…is a new program director at a family foundation that's doing abolition work around the child welfare system and was really curious about, you know, how we launched this project, what we want to, you know…some lessons for her as she's thinking about about this work in new ways. So, that's all been really fruitful. I think one of the links that we can drop is the micro-site that we develope at Borealis that really lays out our process, methodology, insight into the learning lab, and also shares recommendations for funders who might want to think about how they try this on in their own institution. So, we'll make sure to drop that in, but those are some things that I'd lift up.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Thank you. That was… that was a lot, actually. It's powerful, powerful stuff. Thank you for sharing. Nidal, hopefully, that gave you the answer that you needed, but feel free to follow up in the chat if you’d like.
We also had a question from Monona. Monona was curious if you could talk a little bit more about the facilitation methods. And so, I think that is a question for you, Win.
Dr. Win Guan | he/him | Social Insights Senior Researcher: I will start by just saying, first and foremost, I think, again, grounding ourselves in some of our values and, particularly, the one that is an understanding of what was me and Maya's–Maya, my co-facilitator–what was our role in the space. And, our role in the space was having experience as researchers and evaluators and that was it. And so, really grounding ourselves in the humility of that role and that the folks, the Liberatory Learning Lab participants, were really the experts in the work that they do, the work that their organization does, the communities that they serve, who they are, what they need, and all of that. And, continuing to ground ourselves in that value.
And so, moving from that, it made it a lot easier to be sort of adaptable and agile in how we facilitate the space. And so, some of those things was we built a facilitation guide down to each minute on a Google Doc for each session. We talked about what our guiding questions for each section of the facilitation would be, what tools we would use. That may be a slide deck, or we use tools like Padlet, Mentimeter, Animoto, Canva for slides, etc, etc. We, also, talked a lot about accessibility needs, about just, again, being agile. So, what would the session look like if we had four participants this time, compared with nine or ten? What would it look like if we are only able to talk with two to three people, compared to eight? Would we do breakout groups? Would we have perhaps one breakout room, that is, for folks who aren't able to do discussion, that they're more in a listening space.
We, also...I think my favorite thing–Lola, you had mentioned this–my favorite thing is, we would start every session with either a breakout group or just in the general room to just talk about what was up in each other's lives. And, I think that's a practice that, you know, I learned from Social Insights, as well as some other spaces, but just kind of like easing into a room is so, so important, especially some of the things that we were talking about. And, I'll say one thing that I really learned from the learning lab, as well as some recent reading from Priya Parker’s book (The Art of Gathering), about facilitation and engaging, is learning how to actually ease out of these rooms, and what closing looks like. And, I think that there was a lot of progress that we made in learning what that looked like, of not just like, “Oh, we're running out of time. We'll send you a follow up email. Okay. See y'all later.” It was like learning what…how to be intentional about leaving a session. And so, that's something I'm definitely still learning about, but it's something I'm thinking a lot about, particularly from these learning labs.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Thank you so much. So, I'm hearing so many highlights, right. What about the challenges of this process? Tell us a little bit about the challenges.
Jeree Thomas | she/her | Director, Communities Transforming Policing Fund: I can kick us off. I think, you know, going into this process, we knew that because of the intention that we wanted to put into it, in terms of the implementation, right…So, we got the incredible tool from our partners and then it's, like, “Okay, we got to implement this in the way that they shared with us, that they wanted to see it implemented.”And so, we knew going in, it’s going to be a lot more work, right. Like, it's gonna take a lot more capacity, right. And so, you know, that's always a challenge of recognizing, okay, we're stepping it up in a way that is going to mean that we're gonna need to do a lot more. We're gonna need to engage our colleagues for additional support. We're gonna, you know…we're gonna need to have to raise some resources in order to do it, we're gonna you know, like… And so, while it was a challenge, I think because we were so committed to, like, seeing through the vision that our partners had for the project, like, you know, we were, we were willing to say, like, “We're gonna work. We're gonna work really hard to get to…to see it through.”
And then, also, I will say, like, the other challenge is just the reality of the world that we live in, right. Like, stuff happens. I will not curse. Stuff happens, right, like, in the world. Like there are some really hard things, you know, along with the pandemic along with, you know, what's happening to folks in Palestine, right. Like, we knew that our folks were holding so much, and so, also, wanting to like, make sure that we extend everyone grace, including ourselves. Like, things are not always going to be perfect and you got to be okay with that because that's a part of the process, a part of learning, right. It's a part…like, being–I think we've kind of talked about– like, being adaptable and being responsive to what folks need is really important. And, like, when the world throws lots at all of us, right, being able to just hold each other and be like, “Hey, that's okay. Like, we're we're with you, whatever you need.” Right. Like, that is what…that's the whole point of this. And so, those are some of the things that come to mind for me.
Julia Beatty | she/her | Director, Black-Led Movement Fund: I could add, you know, it's really refreshing to see the comments in the chat. I know we are in a room of other liberatory evaluators who are in firms or in foundations. But, you know, some of the conversations with donors, you know, around flipping evaluation on its head has been interesting, right. So, it does feel like there's still too many donors that feel like the gold standard for evaluation is like “the quantitative, and the count the things.” and the…right. And, they also, many of them...there's a lot of education to do around what movement-building is and how movement-building happens, and that it's not linear. That there's ebbs and flows, and that it's long term, right. That's the nature of this work. And, I think they fail to really understand that you know a policy win in the 3rd quarter of one year, might be taken away in the 1st quarter of the next year, right. So, whatever a grantee may have submitted to the funder as far as what their metric was for this very specific objective, right, at the beginning of the grant period, that may not matter by mid-year or the end of the year, right.
And so, you know what we do is we hamstring a lot of our grantee partners and sort of force them around, you know, areas of work that may not necessarily be where they need to go, right. And so, we're not really resourcing them in the ways that we need to because we're not asking them the right things, and we're not really fully understanding the scope of what they do, right. And if they don't solve racial injustice, you know, over the course of the five year grant period then funders are gonna just write them off, right. So, I think that's just an enduring challenge, right. The, you know…trying to educate the field around, you know, how movements happen and what is required. And that there is real value in these stories in all the different ways that our partners want to tell them.
So, you know, and I think we're still grappling with the donor organizing and advocacy piece of it, right. We do want our partners in the field to adopt these kinds of approaches and practices. But, like, I was saying earlier, you know some “Well, we don't really have the relationships. Well, we don't know…” You know, so, we're still trying to figure that out. We are open to hearing thoughts and ideas, particularly from this kind of community who is working with funders in some very different ways around how we might do that.
And, also, again, another challenge is, we are an intermediary, right, that is raising money that we re-grant. That means that the resources for a project like this–which includes grantmaking, stipends for lab members, contracts with the evaluation team, our time, the time of other borealis staff, the time of our grantee partners…I mean, there's a lot of capacity and resources that go into it and we have to raise those dollars, right. So, you know, if there's, you know, a big daddy foundation on the call right now that wants to create a nice little endowment for us to really go hard on this that would be amazing. But again, just, you know, really open to continuing to collaborate and, you know, and ruminate with folks on, you know, how we can continue to get this out there and spread the gospel, if you will, amongst our funder peers.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Yes, thank you. Thank you so much. So this, this is going to be my last question, and I'll start with directing this to you, Win. Would you change anything about the research approach now? Like, what would you do differently, possibly?
Dr. Win Guan | he/him | Social Insights Senior Researcher: Yeah. I think the one thing I would change is a call back to…there was one item in the slide deck that talked about balance of collaboration and guidance, and I think we went into the process really, really centering and stressing co-creation and collaboration throughout the project because that is a value of ours. It's a liberatory research principle. It's how we wanted to build this relationship and that was amazing. And, there was also a time…or I guess, sometimes, it can get conflated with perhaps coming into a session not necessarily fully prepared, if that makes sense. Or, I guess what I'm saying is you can center co-creation and collaboration and come into a session over-prepared, as well, and that's something that I would love to do better at the next time we held something like… a project like this…would be to just keep thinking about all the different ways that I can come into a session prepared for different ways of facilitating, different content that I can share when there are questions, guidance for how we can go about experimenting with some of these evaluation methods, or having, for instance, when we did sort of just ideation of different curiosity learning questions, to come in with a long list of ones that I can propose to really, you know, direct the conversation, as well. And, I think that that balance is a difficult one, but a really, really important one.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Okay. Thank you. Lots of wisdom and learning, I think, on all sides of the partnership. And I think that is just something really unique and beautiful about this.
Wow! We are at 2:25…2:24/2:25. This has flown by. A lot of people…few people had to go off early and put in the chat like how grateful they were for this conversation and I just want to echo that. Thank you for spending your afternoon with us. And, I'm going to pass it back to Miko to help close us out, and we're going to share some things in the chat, and how we can stay in community with each other.
Miko Brown | Miko/Miko's | Admin & Community Engagement Manager: Yes, thank you all so much for joining us. We really appreciate it. And we would love to hear more from you about your experience of the webinar, as well as to hear more about what topics you might be interested in the future. So, I have a link here for a feedback form that I'm going to drop into the chat. I'll also put into the chat the link to the Liberatory Research website, so that way you all have access to that. We're going to follow up via email to share the recording with you but it'll also be available on the website. Additionally, if you missed the first Liberatory Research in Action webinar that we did earlier in the year, you can find it there as well, in addition to registration for our upcoming Liberatory Research E-Course that will be starting next month. And then, I'll put in the chat, too, we have information on the Movement-Defined Learning Project, the website for that, as well as contact information for staying connected with Julia and Jeree, too. So, I'll put that in the chat for you.
Dr. Zuri Tau | she/her | Social Insights & LR Founder: Yes, thank you. We like to actually ask people to stay in the meeting with us while you fill out your form, because I mean it wouldn't be right to have a research and evaluation call without a little survey at the end, right. So hang in here with us. Click on that link. We're gonna bring up our curated playlist, our Liberatory Research cohort in our last session curated this beautiful playlist. We're gonna put that on. Vibe out together while you share your thoughts with us, and feel free to log out at your leisure. Again, thank you so much, and we'll see you again soon.
