National Season Access to Opportunity Panel Recap

What is access to opportunity?

“Sending the elevator down” -- to get access to a resource, a person, an event, etc. and how those opportunities can really change someone’s life.” - Will Matthews, Moderator

We had a great conversation with the season’s nonprofit beneficiaries last week to help build some context on this season’s cause area - access to opportunity. Below are some highlight sentiments from each nonprofit partner. We encourage you to watch the webinar if you missed it to learn how you and your company can send the elevator down for others.

Moderator: Will Matthews

Panelists

What 3 areas of your organization would you like another organization to “send the elevator down for”, or would like to see as increased access to opportunity?

Matt @ C2C: Looking for orgs to grant access points via our Vision2024 Initiative (explicit goal of placing 2024 Black or LatinX women into technology roles by 2024) -- each is paired with an executive mentor, a CEO or C-suite leader who can open doors for these young women. 

Carl @ E4Youth: I made my living in technology but had nobody indulged my creativity, I never would have made my living and my impact today. The biggest issue for students of color is that they don’t feel seen; so we work with our sister organizations to be able to do that, but we know that you can’t eat a warm and fuzzy feeling. Our students have to know an economic pathway where young people of color can exist as who they are in their full creative capacity. How can we leverage what we do together to create even more impact?

Nichole @ APC: It takes a village to raise a child. We serve children that already have the cards stacked against them and refer them out to partner organizations to address needs across the board so the child is served holistically. Where are we missing the gap with the students that we serve? How can we connect them further beyond our own programming?

What does access to opportunity mean for you in your organization?

Saul Paul @ SPF: I had the opportunity to graduate from UT where only 1500 of 55k students were Black; I grew up in foster care after my mom died when I was 3 and was raised in extreme poverty. I dealt with childhood and adult imprisonment and while I was sitting in prison realized that life is your sum total of decisions. So enrolled in UT, got a 4.0, and my first job out of school was with a TV studio. I was given an opportunity by someone who  judged me on my current body of work instead of my past. That’s when I really saw the power of relationships and opportunity. I was given the opportunity to show what I’m capable of. Now I do that through my platform to open doors for others.

Rena @ CMforUSA: What am I going to do differently at the Computer Museum of America? Someone needs to tell all the stories of the hidden figures . . . of Ava Lovelegs . . . Jerry Lawson. We run across folks every day that need to be recognized and as a museum people trust the information that they receive . . more so than the info that they get from their teachers, education, and grandparents even -- so we have a real responsibility to make sure that information is known. This is a circle that we all live in, and the role that CMOA can play in offering more knowledge about the access points that we’ve had during our history.

Stephen @ YOR: I like to look at the idea of “down” in “sending the elevator down” -- the school to prison pipeline is something we’re all addressing  but what are the pipelines that are positive that we’re not thinking about yet? What about the folks who do make it, come up to a new floor, but are there in isolation? Now they have a Herculean effort to survive and thrive. What would Detroit be like if the music industry hadn’t been set up to rob Black musicians of their creativity  -- Create alternate pipelines to make it possible for people like our students to see people like them that are thriving and not just the exception to the rule. 

Will: It is a back-and-forth -- we’re coming to the table with what we’re bringing to each other. 

When you have an access point or a relationship (mentorship, colleague, donorship, etc.), how do you manage that relationship well? And what does it mean to be connected to your organization?

Carl @ E4Youth: Engage, Educate, Employ, Empower, -- those relationships start at an early age and are meant to be ongoing for years and years later. We call it an Employability curriculum, but it’s really a relationship curriculum to do work for a real company for our partners throughout the creative and tech industries so that  -- how do we continue the scale for the spheres of influences…

Rena @ CMforUSA: We’re a history museum who doesn't have much history yet since we’ve opened last year. Currently working with 100 Black men to start their mentorship in the ATL area and with the Girl Scouts of ATL to provide STEM career exploration; excited to start helping these groups. We have volunteers that range from 15-82, and there is a range of energies for their engagement with the visitors. What would it have meant if we had declined one of their offers to volunteer? There’s an oral transfer of history from some of our older volunteers with their memory of how technology was part of the voting process early on (punching cards) and comparing that to now. The relationships between everyone engaging with our history, on the volunteer or visitor side, are all important.

Saul Paul @ SPF: Relationships with other programming partners (AISD, etc.) have been important to create opportunities with other organizations and CSR roles. 

Stephen @ YOR: I love what Carl said about “love” -- we’re trying to do more than just survive, a method of abolitionist teaching to truly try to free our students. If you don't have a true sense of care with your students, there’s no true relationship there. . . We spend a lot of time cultivating relationships with people who get it or those that don’t but want to learn how; we all need to be trained about how to take care of students. We have to be honest here, corporations are not trained to take care of Black children; unless we interrupt that; business as usual means that those voices that have been invisibilized won’t be seen. An alternative can be one where “all ships rise” truly.

Nichole @ APC: We invested in an evaluation manager who evaluated our programming; we realized that families that we serve need to be onsite to work with our programming and it takes at least 3 times in 9 months in order to build that relationship into one of trust and real change can start to happen. We have a ton of volunteers who have privilege, have access that the community that we serve don’t have, and they open their eyes. . .  The relationship of youth helping youth and peer to peer access is hugely valuable and important. 

We are excited to have kicked off the season with such a meaningful discussion. If you want to stay in the know for this year’s National Season happenings, make sure to sign up for the Catalyst Games newsletter!

Nicole Gandy