GV in June

Written By Genevieve Smith

Happy almost Summer! It’s been sunny and beautiful here in Brooklyn—this photo is from a walk we took this weekend.

I know many folks are wrapping up their fiscal year - if that’s you, I hope you’re able to breathe soon and that you’re delegating what you can.

GV FACILITATION GUIDE

The 2024 Facilitation Guide is ready! It’s evolved quite a bit since the first version, developed in 2022. I’m doing my best to document my learnings and where I’ve changed my mind over the years (for instance, I used to use ground rules, now I co-develop Community Agreements) - and I imagine that the guide will look different in another couple of years!

Feel free to comment and leave suggestions or questions! I only know what I know, and I’d love for this to become a collaborative document. Just be sure to comment with your info for attribution or reach out to me to chat about further collaboration.

LEARNING

I’m taking Monique Melton’s Money Work class through the Shine Bright School, where I get to work in community with other white folks to build out my own lifelong wealth redistribution plan in service of Black liberation. It’s already so generative and nourishing - it’s got me thinking about not only material wealth, but also networks, time, energy, and opportunities - expecially working in Philanthropy! So, I’ve planted this seed in the back of my head, and maybe it’s helpful for some of you, too:

As my career moves forward and I navigate client work, speaking opportunities, and other collaboration, where will I accept, share, and decline opportunities? Which doors can I hold open and which doors are not mine to begin with?

One of my big learnings so far is that I have a pretty ingrained belief that for other folks to thrive and succeed, I need to suffer - there’s that zero/sum thinking so inherent to white supremacy! I’m excited to see how this work evolves in me and my work over time.

QUESTION

Something that comes up in consulting and change work a lot is the conversation about readiness. If you’re a change practicitioner/consultant, how do you assess a client’s readiness? If you work in an organization, how do you assess and communicate your organization’s readiness? Send me your thoughts!

Genevieve Smith

Genevieve Smith (they/she) is the Founder of GV Advisory, where they work as a Consultant and Strategic Advisor to social impact organizations looking to get in right relationship with data and organizational learning. Genevieve is known for bringing empathy, joy, and humanity to work that can not only feel lifeless and robotic, but has real potential to cause harm to communities and social justice movements.

In early 2019, after five years of working inside of organizations in the social sector, Genevieve founded GV Advisory to work across issue areas to support practitioners to not only design for their data and learning more effectively, but to do so in ways that align with organizational values, missions, and principles of equity & justice. Since then, Genevieve has supported organizations across focus areas (immigration justice, education reform, reproductive justice, health equity, international development, and trust-based philanthropy) to develop community-centric and values-aligned data and learning practices.

The ever-growing lineage of Genevieve's work includes Black feminist thought (bell hooks, the Combahee River Collective, adrienne maree brown (especially Emergent Strategy & Holding Change)), Crass (the band), time spent playing music on sidewalks and makeshift stages across the United States, histories of the archive(s) (Michel-Rolph Trulliot, Lorgia Garcia Peña), and colleagues who have become dear friends and co-conspirators.

Genevieve's favorite description of what can happen when we commit to this work together comes from a past client: "we wrote a love letter to the work and to the communities that sustain it." Genevieve loves how enlightening this work can be - we can gain clarity together while we build new ways to think, dream, and work.

When they're not working, you can find Genevieve playing music and laughing with their friends, loving on their people, bicycling around NYC, and cuddling with their cat, dog, and husband.

Genevieve wants to live in a world where we're all free - where no-one needs to rely on nonprofits and philanthropy to get what they need. But they do - so let's get to work.

https://gv-advisory.com
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GV in July
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GV in May