Speaker: Maisha Simmons, Assistant VP for Equity & Social Justice, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Introduce yourself by sharing your name, organization, and title.
Maisha Simmons: My name is Myesha Simmons and I'm the Assistant Vice President for Equity and Social Justice at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Why did you engage Tracey and Indigo Innovation Group, and what were the critical areas that I helped you focus on?
Maisha Simmons: I learned about Tracey and the Indigo Innovation Group from a mutual colleague and friend. I was looking for a firm or an organization to help us think about our strategies around place based grant making and integrating equity and social justice into our work for our New Jersey grant making, and our colleague introduced me and once I had my first conversation with Tracey, she began to talk to me about frameworks that she's used for grant making in the past, the way she's related and lifted up place based work, and the way she's been able to share that with her board and other colleagues and partners in the work that she's done with other funders and as a grant maker, and from that moment, I knew we were destined to have a great partnership in thinking about how the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and our work in New Jersey can learn from some of those lessons that Tracey's already done in the work that she's done, in particular in the South.
What expertise did I bring, and what was unique about working with me?
Maisha Simmons: One of the things that were unique about working with Tracey was the fact that I really felt like I had a co-conspirator in the work. She took the time to listen and understand the challenges that I was facing, and there wasn't a challenge that she didn't have a solution. So, one of the things that Tracey did was introduce me to Liberator consciousness, a way of seeing and framing racial justice and racial equity work, and what I was able to do, just the introduction of that frame in particular was an opportunity for me to kick start my narrative about how I'm working with our team, how we're working with community, and how we're integrating racial equity into the work that we're doing, and in particular, the work around allyship, and solidarity, and to our work as a philanthropy, and what that means for power sharing as an organization that has a lot of opportunities for power, is situated within privilege, and what does that mean to be a co-conspirator or a partner with our community allies and our friends working on issues in in the community. The other aspect that was different with working with Tracey in particular, as we did our coaching relationship is we had time, we built in time to rehearse. I took my presentations to her. She provided really honest and critical feedback as I was elevating this work to other areas within the foundation and other senior leadership. And so when you have that type of partnership where there was reinforced learning, she learned about the organization as she was giving guidance, she continued to give me tools. She continued to want me to provide feedback on how I use those tools. Oftentimes you work with someone, they introduce tools, but they don't really want to understand how does that then get integrated into your work? How does it get integrated into your theory of change? Into your lexicon? And that was the part with working in particular with Tracey that had me go deeper into the frameworks how it related to strategy and really being able to leverage our coaching sessions for me as a transformative excuse me, as a transformative leader, doing place based work.
Highlight specific achievements, challenges overcome, and our collaboration's value to you and your organization.
Maisha Simmons: I truly believe that the coaching that I received from Tracey was a catalyst to other work that Tracey and her colleagues have been able to do with Indigo rooted together across the foundation. It was through our initial coaching relationship that I shared the experiences, the new ways of thinking, the tools and techniques that Tracey was sharing with me, and I began to share with our staff development department as an opportunity for Tracey and her team to work on a variety of issues that the foundation is currently working on as we are understanding our position and the strategies that align to addressing structural racism and systemic racism as it aligns with health and well being. And so I feel like one of my greatest accomplishments when I think about myself as a grant maker, as a funder, as a connector, as a collaborator is when I'm working with somebody and I have the opportunity and, folks see the evidence of that work together and they want to bring that person into their work as well, and so, I'm truly excited to see the relationship that Tracey and I have with just our individual coaching, grow beyond that engagement into other engagements and opportunities in partnership with different teams and themes and departments at the Robert, at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Provide inspirational words you would like to share to invite others to work with me and Indigo Innovation Group.
Maisha Simmons: What I would say to anyone who is interested in working with the Indigo Innovation Group is to invest in that first conversation. It is through that first conversation where I really realized and recognized the different challenges that I was having and the ways that through the tools and techniques that Tracey has in her toolbox were going to help me in what I was trying to build with our work in New Jersey. So when I think about a couple of key words in working with Tracey, these are some that come to mind: Transformative. Revolutionary. Relational. Inspiring in the beloved community. All of those elements were a part of our coaching sessions on a regular basis, and if you're looking for that type of...if you're looking for that type of transformative work, Indigo Innovation Group is definitely a group that I would consider every time when thinking about doing this type of work in the community.
