Becoming A Diverse Leader w/ Sam Collier
Episode Summary: In this episode of The Diversity Gap Podcast, Bethaney sits down with entrepreneur and communicator Sam Collier. In this fun conversation, they talk about tokenism, leadership, the cost of social impact, and what it takes to stay in organizations that are slow to change.
Sam Collier is a speaker and host at Northpoint Ministries (founded by Andy Stanley) as well as the Director of City Strategy for The reThink Group (founded by Reggie Joiner). He is the host of nationally syndicated radio-podcasts “A Greater Story w/ Sam Collier” and “The Countdown w/ Sam Collier”. Lastly, Sam is a top 20 Gospel Billboard producer, founder of No Losing, Inc. and co-founder of The Resource Group Global: A faith based consulting firm.
The Diversity Gap is a two-year exploration into the gap between good intentions and good impact. You can learn more at www.thediversitygap.com. You can also follow along on Instagram @thediversitygap or on Facebook!
Need help processing today’s podcast? Head over to www.theDiversityGap.com to find a conversation guide with definitions and questions for reflection.
Transcript
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, organization, church, diversity, white, tokenism, black, minority, question, strategy, hire, diversify, leaders, reconciliation, northpoint, stay, feel, space, friend, gap
SPEAKERS
Bethaney Wilkinson, Sam Collier
Bethaney Wilkinson 00:00
I often find myself wondering, should I stay? Or should I go? Is this actually going to get better? Are we going to figure out this racial equity thing? Or is it all just a continual repeated disaster? I find myself jumping between believing that we can really make a difference and progress is happening. And also feeling like we should really just burn this entire thing down because it's not going to change. I don't have a quick answer or solution to this tension between believing that change is possible. And also feeling like Change is never going to happen unless we start from scratch. Should I Stay or Should I Go? Is this my job? Somebody else's job? Am I getting paid enough to do this? Racial Equity work is no joke. Welcome to The Diversity Gap podcast where we are exploring the gap between good intentions and good impact as it relates to diversity, equity and inclusion. My name is Bethaney Wilkinson and I am your host. Hey, glad you're here. Welcome to another episode of The Diversity Gap podcast, you are about to experience a real treat. And this episode I interview Sam Collier, who is easily one of the most energizing thoughtful and hilarious people I've ever talked to. He is a communicator at North Point Ministries, as well as the director of city strategy for the Rethink group. He's also a radio host, a gospel producer, and founder of many creative projects and ventures. Now I know that not everyone who listens to this podcast is a person of faith or even a person of the Christian faith, but I hope you'll listen in. What I appreciate about this interview is that since Sam and I both have a background and church and faith based diversity efforts, we were able to have what felt like an Off the record conversation. So it was super honest and vulnerable. And I think it will be a real gift to those of you who are leading diversity work in your organization. Also, Sam is super engaging and I don't want you to miss out. So without further ado, here is my conversation with Sam Collier. I'll see you are what do you do?
Sam Collier 02:25
Wow
Bethaney Wilkinson 02:26
What brings you to life.
Sam Collier 02:27
Um, I'd say for context sake, how say it in a specific way. Overview. I'm a speaker host some things, I consult on different things. And I have a TV show and radio platform where we talk about issues of race, but that's maybe 10% of it. We interview Christian leaders and I recently started an organization that has not gone public a little bit. It's called the diversity leader. We're vanderbloemen. And so it'll go up to 50,000 churches, keynotes, consulting, products, books, all of that. I have another company called the resource group, where we we consult different organizations on partnerships and so on and so forth. And we also have leaders that we help grow and so Bernice King is a client of ours, won a few with reach records to hdaci We've done some things so that's kind of me I started off in the in the black church, Naumann amount at NorthPoint with Andy Stanley, which is which was, I mean, 90 probably 95%. White when I got there, and now it's probably more 80% 70. Okay, so it's changed. I'm on staff at Orange, and this is a lot
Bethaney Wilkinson 03:47
Do you sleep?
Sam Collier 03:51
Retaining wood, I'm the director of city strategy. The goal at Orange was to help them turn the ship Okay, with diversity specifically. So that's me.
Bethaney Wilkinson 04:03
Okay. Okay. We'll get into some of that. So I love asking people my real first whether first question I like to ask is, when did you first know that you had a race or ethnic identity?
Sam Collier 04:15
Probably since day one. I'll say that and day one being when I could think so maybe in remember for maybe, but it's because I grew up in all black neighborhood black culture period. Sundays were TD Jakes and sometimes y'all stay but TD Jakes Richard Smallwood, black gospel choir in the house and then we will go to black church and experience the narrative to that was something else that was interesting is we also went to I think a predominantly was a predominantly black. It at least was 70% Black church as well, but it was led by a white pastor, Arrow Park, which cathedral the Holy Spirit which is a which is where House of Hope is now Okay, so it's interesting because he was waiting. I don't know if But to answer the question, I remember being black or realizing it just because it was I mean, I watch BT all the time. So it was Black Entertainment Television, black narrative black for black, with the cane. And for me, it was always, I guess, just I was always, I was always celebrated. I knew that there was a race issue in America. But that probably didn't come until I was about seven or eight. Okay. And, you know, you know, really, you kind of have white teachers, that's really when you kind of see the first white or if you're, if you grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood, usually your experience with the opposite races like it's your teacher, okay. And then black schools. And so you're like this white guy. So but you really don't know how to process it. So you get in trouble. And then you're like, what's happening? And then you find your parents saying things like talking to you about race? And you're like, is that a thing part of this? And then, but you can't let it go. Because all your friends are black, and like, whatever. So it's this thing, I think always playing in the background, that I'm black. And we've got some and then we mean, when you learn about slavery, it's just like, there it is. Yeah. So and now is probably second grade. So I was jumping around, but it's a great question. Yeah, you're good at this. Oh.
Bethaney Wilkinson 06:20
No, I feel like because I feel like that's such informs how we show up to this work and how we show up and community like, aware of our intraday or raise? Some people are some people aren't some people have intentionally turned it off. And people intentionally amplify it. And so I'm just curious about that for leaders. Yeah. So how did you move from being in this really, like all black childhood space? Like, did you was that through adulthood? And then you made a very intentional move into how can you not appoint me? That's I'm asking.
Sam Collier 06:51
Well, I'll tell you more, because that's such a great question. What's interesting is I had white teachers, but I was in an all black space. I went to churches that were probably predominantly minority that had white pastors, I went to performing arts high school, which was 3030 30 of all ethnicities, but still lived a black experience. And then I still don't feel like I had my first white friend till I was 21. So what's interesting for me is the fact that I was around multi ethnic communities, but did not feel like I was living a multi ethnic life. You don't I'm saying? Yeah, until I got to North Point. It was so funny to me, because I knew white folks, but it's just, I think, to your point little bit earlier, just about us being in the same spaces, but but being in separate worlds is a real thing. And it's part of my work now to get really black leaders to understand as they're doing this work, that, hey, if you just have all black friends, it's going to be very difficult to help bridge the gap. Because you won't understand the other side. And a white friend is not the same as a white colleague, or even somebody who's down the street, or even your neighbor, such as you know, I mean, you can live in a multi ethnic neighborhood, but live a black experience and not even understand what it is. And so that's why one of my newest statements as the closer we get together, the further we realize we are apart. It was so that was such an interesting thing for me, because I thought the closer we got, the more I would go, Oh, well, we're more alike. And the more we relate, but the closer we got them, I was like, Whoa, we are we like think so different. You know what I'm saying? And that was apparent that night Trump was elected, you know, that made it so let me go back to the question. So, yeah, NorthPoint. I was at New Birth Bishop Eddie long. For a long time. I was young and I was college high school down the pre Middle School, pricings, choirs, bands, environments, youth strategy, some new strategy. We went through the scandal. We dropped 25,000 out of 3000 a year, I left the ministry it was really difficult for me, took me a while to believe in the church again. And a friend of mine started talking to me about North one because there was a woman pastor actually, who hired me to be an associate pastor slash music minister, music Minister first and then it kind of turned into that and she mothered me back into the faith. guy get through your day and relicense there. And a friend of mine again, he said, Hey, if you're trying to see what's next in ministry, you need to go see what NorthPoint is doing. It's a black guy and I say well, what is what's North Point? Because again, black experience, life Decatur, Georgia, the black side of the caters I call it and so I stumbled in Buckhead, Church 6pm service. It was like the Christian gap. It was white people everywhere you don't say and I was like, Good lord. I had never seen anything like this. I was like, this is where they are, you know. And so I was like, wow, what is this? But after I got over that I was I was blown away at the lights, the cameras, the action, the intentionality of ministry, and how you could do it and everything be so polished and the sound is so good. And I'm like, this is competing with like, a Justin Bieber concert, right? Where they getting the money to do all this? You don't say so. And so it was really intriguing to me because it hit the other side of me which the ministers I was just like, man we can, we can actually do great things for God, if we have the right resources, and the right strategies. And I mean, I found that the lighting director, they hired us to work for the Hawks, you know, their technical director used to came from MTV, and I'm just like, wow, were you How can you even afford these folks? But this is what it looks like. So I was so blown away, because they opened up with Marvin Gaye, what's going on? And I was like, Whoa, what is happening right you know, cuz coming from the black church, you've been not sing r&b singer song. And so random volunteer asked him. How do you do this? I was blown away. He sent me to the sound engineer who sent me to Chris Green, the music director who was my first white Trent ever in life. For a year, almost two years. We went to lunch every two weeks. And we talked about everything about white people and black people. He asked me every I said Ask me anything you want to know. But I gotta be able to ask you the same. He taught me about like culture, white thought White Church, white theology, and I taught him about black thought Black Culture, Black Theology. I started a nonprofit working in the inner city of Atlanta during that time, still like green pastures that the ministry I was at, I mean, Chris Greenwood friends. During that time, he gets elevated to be SPD director, which is pretty much right next to the campus pastor. So the two of them kind of ran bucket which is the 8000 member church and invited him to be on my board of directors at the time. I was also doing work with the King family, Bernice King. He said I should bring Andy Stanley down to hear about what you're doing the inner city because we reached about 80,000 kids in a year and these impoverished dark areas. I said, Well, if you bring Andy down, I should bring Bernice down. Let's not waste the meeting just on me. So I met Andy two weeks later introducing him to the King family and his family. And I've been at North Point ever since
Bethaney Wilkinson 12:20
Wow. Okay. Yeah.
Sam Collier 12:22
I got an awful
Bethaney Wilkinson 12:23
lot. Wonderful story. So why do you stay at North Point?
Sam Collier 12:34
The diversity gap, the diversity gap, man, you're good at this man. Let's when we when we in this we need to go. He had to work together. Goodness gracious. What a question. Wow, I gotta get over the question. It was just such a great question. Why do you stay um, every black leader or minority leader that talks to me, before they decide to work at North Point, or any white organization for that matter in the South. That's predominantly faith based. I tell them the same thing. This is not a job. This is a calling it if you think it's a job, you're gonna be frustrated and run out. Because it's kind of moving slower than you think it is. You're going to have moments where you're tempted to be more upset than you probably should be to get the work done. And it's not for the faint of heart. And I tell them that all upfront, they never believe me. And then six months later, they call me man: Such and Such said this on the platform and how good he they play this. They did this. And I'm like, Well, I taught. And so I stay, you know, and we can drill down you can ask me as many questions as possible. I stay because I feel called to the word. I stay. Because these are organizations and leaders, orange NorthPoint, and I'm using names on purpose, catalysts, that actually plywood that actually want to do something about it. Now, the process of them doing it may not be the best, you'd have said, or it may move slower, or maybe like a little ball a little faster. But I find it hard to find white leaders that actually want to do something, as opposed to reacting to what they have to react to. Right? If you're reacting. I'm probably not gonna set up shop and sit down, right? Because that means you you haven't made the decision to that you want to do it. You just know you have to do it. And that's a rocky road. But if you actually want to do it, then cool. So I blame it on Chris Green. Right? Yeah, because he was at bucket church trying to figure out how to crack the code, and I was the first of them kind in North Point that came from a black Pentecostal Baptist experience to being on the stage at you know, I know I said like I say like this all time you got white churches, you got black churches, you got multicultural churches, then you got NorthPoint, it's just not only is was it predominantly white for a long time, raised in that built for those areas, and are now changing, but it's got its own ethos philosophy, it's just, it's a whole nother game. And Chris Green was going, Sam, how do we, how do we make somebody like you work here. And that was a long journey.
Bethaney Wilkinson 15:40
I find that in the evangelical or white church spaces, Christian spaces, even though a lot of the language around diversity inclusion is racial reconciliation, or that so that's kind of how it's framed and that reconciliation is theological term. But then as I'm working in like, these nonprofit spaces, that's all diversity inclusion, that this is d i like a different different language, right. And one of my challenges and working with faith based spaces is that we would have this beautiful language and vision for unity and reconciliation, all these things, but like zero strategy, like, like, like, we might need to call the consultant to like, put some metrics to this and an evaluation process. And we might get, you know, we might need to create the same structure for diversity or reconciliation that we do for our budget and hiring for all the other things that we do. Because the church is an organization, especially the bigger ones. So my question to you is, and maybe this even speaks to like the diverse leader in the project that you're launching? How are you helping churches move from reconciliation to strategic cultural change?
Sam Collier 16:46
I do more work in the paid pay space, but also do a lot of work in the corporate space, too. So I understand completely, what you're saying. It's tends to be very much easier in the corporate space, at least haven't you agree?
Bethaney Wilkinson 17:00
Okay, some of the data got it. Yeah. Well, we do now.
Sam Collier 17:03
I so it's always, you know, it's my old adage that churches always 20 years behind the world, like the culture, which is always 20 years mine and our music and preachers, like, Come on, guys, come on, guys, I have found white leaders in the faith based space, because of their faith, have a difficult time facing what they may have in them that they're not proud of. And so they'll they may never say it, it happens a lot of different ways. You know, it happens in ways of arrogance, sometimes, like, oh, we need to we find we doing this, or it happens in avoidance it happens in. And so if I were to just answer your question, very direct, the hardest part is the strategy. Because it means now I actually got to change. And I got to face some things I don't want to face. And I don't know what that means about me and my faith, and my God and my end, it just it gets really messy. Really fast. And, and it gets it gets, you know, it gets a little ugly, you know, to be honest, and ugly band emotions are everywhere. And so that's usually why organizations won't move in that direction. Because there's still a level of like, growth that's like, by go in this area, I gotta face this. And if I face this, then that means that I'm not as far as I want to be. And what does that mean about love and who I say I am. So it impacts their identity, so they don't go in that direction. Yeah, so somebody has to become an enemy. The only way to get it done is to be okay with being the enemy, which means you're gonna lose. And I learned that the hallway. Friend of mine called me I was an organization I was working with, we increase in diversity by 70%. In three years, it was crazy. I lost a lot though. And a friend called me because he was benefiting from my sacrifice. And he said, nobody will ever know what you lost. For us to stand on that stage. For us to be in this organization. The story will never be told, but I'll tell it in the way that I can. And it was just it was I'm getting my I'm over. I was getting them. I was so emotional of them because I did not realize how much I was gonna have to lose for somebody else to win. And it's, it's for me, we go back to can we go back to Malcolm X, we go back to all these other freedom fighters, Rosa Parks, they had to lose a lot for us to win. And unfortunately, if we're going to make moves in this area in the faith based space and abroad and out and outside, but we the mediators have to lose, you have to be okay with losing somebody and now you're when God will come back and heal. I mean, look at Kane. I mean he's like legacies everywhere he can go. I mean, his family, he won, but but he lost his life, you know? And so you have to be okay with saying, all right, I know you don't want to go in that area, but you keep hiring all white people, and you don't want to do tokenism. You don't want to do quotas, but what's the alternative? I mean, like not tokenism in terms of that being what you're doing. But right, that being always that tends to get in the way, well, we don't want to hire somebody because we don't make them a token. So we don't want to put a percentage I cannot give you a I got to view this exam. I'm in a meeting the other day. And well known organization, if I told you, you'd be like, well, they had a conference and the conference was some of the leading voices in a specific area from all around the country. It was all white folks. And it's and it shouldn't have been, by me, it's just like, big influence employee. So they, we I'm in the planning Beat, I'm on the own. I'm the only black person to me. And so, you know, we're going around the room and they're saying, you know, we what should we be focused on? And obviously, I put diversity on the board. So the whole room is i Yes, we needed a personify. It was like, you know, how did we end up? It was, I mean, at the time, my wife when it was, oh, it was a we were the only minorities, there's only like four out of like, 400 Wow, it was it was Wow. And so I said, as we started getting more and more and more and more vital screening advisor grants, or to your point advisor, green advisor, Grant were excited. Yes, yes. God is about this. Yes. I said, Okay. So just before I go, what's our plan?
Bethaney Wilkinson 21:36
Right
Sam Collier 21:38
to make this happen? And they said, Well, we're just gonna, I said, Okay, can we put a percentage on it? And that started a power game, you know, that it was like a percentage, what? I said, Well, here's what I found. If you don't put a percentage on it, or a number, you will naturally drift towards what's most comfortable. And it doesn't mean you're racist. It just means it's easier to invite people that look like you because they all in your phone. I said, so. So then we get into a, I wouldn't say heated debate, a debate. I was okay with because I'm okay with this space. Right. And he was okay. Because I'm an eight on the Enneagram. I think he's in a, so we would just go in there and probably the whole room. And he was, you know, I don't I don't you know something about it makes me feel icky. Like, well, you know, we're not inviting the right people. Are we just doing it for based on color? And I said, No, I think we could qualify people I said, but I think the alternative is if you don't put a number on it. I said last year, you didn't put a number on it. But you but it was a value of yours. And only 4k. So when we invited, but they didn't confirm I said okay, well, again, it goes back, we did not have a number so we settled. And then oh, well, you can find you can find you can find me you can find them. And we spent 30 minutes on this conversation about intentionality, around percentages around so on and so forth. But it triggered something in him. That was like, whoa. And that was some work that he did. And then when he got to me, he was like, Man, I'm so sorry that I feel I'm coming out and he apologized to me the entire meeting because he was after we get out of it. It was like this thing of like, well, what was happening? Why did I have an issue with that? And what was Who am I trying to protect? You know, I'm saying imagine this, can I give you a statement and a great friend of mine, this was incredible. I'm gonna I'm gonna get the statement wrong. He married a black woman, which I am like, if you want to solve the problem, just go marry my daughter. That'll solve everything. That's my wish. Go marry minority, or have a kid that matters want like, then everything will change you.
Bethaney Wilkinson 23:50
We love everybody. Until then you really? Yes. Yeah,
Sam Collier 23:55
I had a friend. I'll give you a friend who had a kid who married a minority then it was like, okay, Black Lives Matter. Like we need to figure out. There's like, that's my kid like he is black now. So it's a friend of mine. He married a black woman. He has obviously mixed kids. So he I mean, he went deep on this race stuff. And he said, It's David, to me, that blew my mind. I loved it. He said progress feels like oppression to the privileged. Oh, that was so because what he was saying is is that I mean, in order for it, to let to level the playing field. Like you've got to put a percentage on it. But that's going to feel to you if you've always been the one getting the opportunity that Oh, no, we're taking something away from It's like no, no, we're not taking away we were creating space so that it can be even it was already in a deficit. Totally. You had too much. Yeah, you know,
Bethaney Wilkinson 24:54
if you think about it in terms of like, really practically, if you're only five people who can be on this team because only have five roles within the budget of five people. Yeah, and you fill the team with your four best friends. Reality is if you're going to have a more diverse, racially diverse team, you're going to have to make space, your best friends might not be able to be on the team, right? That might be a personally really, that might, that would probably feel really challenging.
Sam Collier 25:17
Now we're getting into the muddiness and the mess of what happens in faith based organizations because they want to love everybody. And it's like, well, what does that look like? And it means now it means we've got to challenge our views on things and figure it out. Because it's like, okay, well wait, I have to put a policy in places I want to happen. I can't invite my friends what I gotta do I have to let people go, do I need to have to make more space? And usually people are not letting people go. Usually what I find is they wait until somebody lets go. And then it's like, I let's feel this, which I'm fine with, or they make more space, or they do this. Yeah, this Yeah. You have to
Bethaney Wilkinson 25:55
put a number on it to start and I had to ask me that. Where are you saying? How do I begin moving in this direction without tokenizing people? And I was like, Well, to some extent, you might be tokenizing people, but it helps if you practice having making a regular conversation. Yeah, like I think when Jeff hired me, he was like, I need to diversify my team. So this is a part of why are you there all these other reasons, but this is a priority for organization. I like great. Let's talk
Sam Collier 26:21
No, and I loved it, because I was the same way. Unfortunately, a lot of white leaders don't know how to have that conversation. So they get weird about it. And they only say we want to diversify. I'll just had this conversation yesterday was I don't think they meant that. I think but you got to start somewhere. You got to start with one. Oh, I did a post on Instagram yesterday was talking about tokenism. And my in my posts was if if you hire one or two minorities and don't have a plan to hire more, you're in tokenism. Yeah, wow, that's good. If you plan to hire more, and you do hire more than you that's not tokenism. That's the beginning of something new. But if you only stay with just one, and you thought you were gonna do what you didn't, you ended up tokenizing you know what I'm saying.
Bethaney Wilkinson 27:10
yeah. So hey, so I want to jump in here. Because I think that Sam's reflections on tokenism are super interesting and really helpful. This is one of those questions that I get all the time that other people are thinking about, even if they don't say it, it's like, okay, I want to diversify my team. But I don't want to tokenize someone, and I get that I've been that person that's been used to just kind of check off a box and an organization. And it's not fun. But I think there are a few things here that Sam points to that are super helpful. Number one, talk openly about your organization's diversity goals, so that when you are hiring people, and it is tied to diversity, you can have an honest and open conversation about it. Number two, it's tokenism if you hire one or two people of color without any plan or strategy to hire more, however, if you have a long term plan or strategy to truly diversify the culture of your team and organization, then it's not just tokenism. It's actually the beginning of something new. I think this is really interesting. And I wanted to take a second to shine some extra light on what Sam shared here. How are you hoping to help people and like, yeah, we plan? I'm guessing you want to make plans. Tell us more about like what you're building and how people can get involved hire you. I don't know what he told me more about the diverse leader.
Sam Collier 28:35
I mean, one you know I'll say on air, I want you to help
Bethaney Wilkinson 28:40
me stay on the air. Oh, yes, yes.
Sam Collier 28:43
It's a thing I just haven't done like a large marketing thing. Yeah, we just, and I'm building out the site, people can go there now and register and get a part and join the email list. So we do four things off the keynotes, consulting, he courses, and products or books and all that. So it's just it'll be your one stop shop to come and get all the information you need, or personnel that you need, or consultants that you need to help you turn your organization on its head. In terms of diversity, it's everything I've learned from helping organizations go from zero to 60, from zero to 70%, from zero to 10%. I mean, it's everything I've learned on both sides. And so I could bore you with a ton of stuff. But I'll I'll just from a strategy perspective, what we try to do is my first call is always always start with two or three questions when I'm talking to organizations, faith based and corporate. What do you want? What are you willing to do to get there? Those are my two questions. What do you want? What do you want to do to get there? And then the third one would be how do we get there and so, which is a strategy, but I find that most organizations have not answered the first two in the way that they probably need to and When I go, What do you want? I'm going, what does it mean for you to have a diverse organization? Well, usually they just say, oh, I want a diverse organization. Okay, but what does that mean? Yeah. And most folks don't do that. And most organizations don't do that. And so what happens is a couple things, they end up not hitting whatever goal they didn't set, you know, and they're like, Oh, we're not what's happening. We're not doing it like you didn't set a goal. You did not clarify what you want it. And or what happens is they get in a messy situation that they didn't plan for. Because they just said, Let's just try stuff. And I'm like, You didn't clarify this? Right. Right. Me? Don't I'm saying you you just said you wanted. I'm like, What did what is that really? Was that mean? Like, you could say, I want to diversify my church was okay. Is that the staff? Is that also the audience? Is that both? Or is that one? Hopefully, it should be both. If you if you're gonna diversify the audit, you have the first five steps, right? But I wasn't mean for your audience. What kind of diversity do you want in your audience? Do you just want black people Hispanics? Or do you want black people that make an average of $100,000? Income? Do you? What is that? Oh, yeah. Because if you don't get down to that, you got boats coming from the inner city, sitting with folks that are making a million dollars. I'm not saying that shouldn't happen. But if you didn't clarify that, and they're still in the same row, there's the small group is gonna look a little different. And what does that mean for the small group? Are you training?
Bethaney Wilkinson 31:30
Oh, they those differences?
Sam Collier 31:32
Yeah, because you got one, one person that's saying, Well, you know, our bottom line, we can hit up on line this year. So I'm a little bit upset. You got another person that saying, you know, last night I almost got shot, and, and it was like, Whoa, and now they don't know what to do. And then they're looking crazy. And now you're minority leaves and go down feel welcome. And I don't, and so get clarity on it. You don't I'm saying Oh, yeah. So what do you want? Get really detailed around that? Do you want to just which this is we know the answer this, but do you want to just diversify the stage? Or do you want to diversify the culture? Which I find most organizations right now. So we, we diversify the stage? I'm gonna Yeah, but the culture, the culture didn't change? Oh, so then after that, I'm gonna What do you want to do to get if you want a diverse culture, a diverse organization, a multicultural audience that is inner city and all or just upper middle class, which is fine with me, because that everybody needs some different? What are you willing to do to get there? Because that's where we lose people. Are you willing to train your whole staff? Are you willing to have hard conversations on Sunday morning? Are you willing to not hire someone until you get a diverse? Pool?
Bethaney Wilkinson 32:51
Right? Are you willing to change your budget a little bit?
Sam Collier 32:54
Are you willing to change your budget? I had an organization I'll tell you, are you wanting your process, I had an organization, they were doing internships. And they the way they structured their internships where they would get college students to come they wanted to learn how to do ministry, well, that means massive church. And by a certain amount set, but most of their interns were white. And so they built it based on what the white family structure was average income in America for white families. 100,000 average for black families 30,000. And so it was great for the white kids, because their families could support them. But when they kept getting internship candidates from the opposite race that they wanted, they can't they said the opposite. I can't do this, it's not enough money. And it wasn't the money because I gotta take care of mom, I gotta take care of this. I gotta take care of that. And so they were going, Well, women, we we often job, I just didn't take it. And I said, Okay, so what are you gonna do you? Like, right? They can't take it right? Their mom cannot support them. So how are you going to support them, so that they can support their family or even them themselves, so that you can get them in your organization? And they were like, Oh, my gosh, we, we never, so maybe there's some partnerships that we can maybe there's some housing thing there, there's some stipends, like you said, adjusting the budget. So that because we don't have the luxury of of working for $100 or working for this, because I got to take care of this. I got to pay for food. I got to do this. I gotta do that. Yeah, I actually have to get an apartment on my own. And so what are you willing, you know, what are you willing to do to get there? I find that people answer those two questions. Well, they kind of solve 60% of their issues, for sure. Yeah. You know, and then the strategy just falls in place. So that's what we're doing awesome. That's what I want to do. I want you to help people need it. I need you to help us. Okay. Sorry, Jeff. Want to donate 10% of our work goes to you.
Bethaney Wilkinson 35:06
That's amazing, isn't it? Last question, I asked this to everyone. So you have a breadth of experience or all kinds of organizations and people, what diversity gaps Do you see? And how do we close them? Let's do organizations first. And then I want big picture. But we look at organizations, team structures, what diversity gaps are most prevalent in your mind.
Sam Collier 35:33
From the corporate perspective, it is, and I think this is corporate and faith based how just start here. I think that we are choosing convenience, over love, convenience, over Destiny part. I mean, what however, we want to say it, cultural shifts, we're just, we've just gotten so comfortable in our country, in our organizations, we've gotten so focused on the bottom line, and getting things done, that we have overlooked our opportunity to right the wrongs of history, and to leverage our influence for the sake of someone else, and for the sake of the betterment of our world today. And I would venture to say, which is why this was hard for me to answer, I would venture to say, we've chosen convenience over the opportunity to serve our clients better. And to really identify what our clients are. If I were to talk about the church, we have confused our convenience with the mission of Christ, for the local church being the hope of the community, always say you can't out diversify your demographics. So that's one. But that's usually not the problem. The problem is, and I love Derwin Gray, I love what he says that your church, she looked like the closest public school, it should match that that's how you figure out because people are willing to my diversity, well go to public school, look at the demographics, your church should be serving that community. We've missed opportunity, because we just want to be comfortable. We don't want to have the hard conversations, because we're afraid that what it might mean about us, and we're afraid to make people uncomfortable, but Jesus was always making people uncomfortable. And, and, and what's really more important, is is it more important that we're comfortable? Or is it more important that we are fulfilling the mission that Christ has given us? God blessed you with that church? So because I believe that he believed that you would do what you were supposed to do with it. And many of us have it. And I'll say it on both sides, you know, if you obviously if you're a black church, and I mean, you should, the black church should be reaching the community, the white church should be reaching the community. And so that's a gap, I think we just we just get too comfortable. And we choose that over, over change in and over and over our purpose, because we're afraid of doing whatever I think society Wow. Dr. King had a kind of saying it's his last principle of Qingyun non violence, that the universe is on the side of justice, I love the statement he makes the moral arc of the universe is long, and it bends towards justice. You know, he talks about this idea of having cosmic companionship, which is really his mainstream way of saying God has called us all, and creation to be a certain thing. But also God has set up the universe in a way that it would lean towards good. He's he's and he's created us to be a part of that agency to bring good to the earth. And so at the end of the day, he had hope in the movement, and he would teach, he taught minorities to be non violent, based on the premise that this thing will get better. If we invest in love, then we'll see a return of love. And so that was rooted in his strategy, he leveraged media, to expose the darkness in our nation, and to expose the idea of us being loving to those that are hating us to hopefully pierced the conscience of America. And it did, and laws changed. And here we are, but we had to plant the seed of love. And so I think what we're missing the diversity gap in society that we're missing is that America's greatest sin is racism. This country was built on the backs of those that were forced into oppression that was slaughtered that were killed. I mean, we don't like to talk about it, but we have to talk about it. There is there's you know, any quality because of where we've come from historically. And so it is our responsibility in this generation to right the wrongs of history. And we're missing that. Because again, some of us don't feel like it's our responsibility. We're like, no, no, that was then this is now. But I would argue that that is the luxury of opportunity. If you are living in the result of oppression in terms of on the privilege side, in other words, yes, your family is able to have wealth because your granddad had wealth and because your great granddad and and because yes, your family has been exposed to more knowledge, because they were reading before we were reading. And yes, you have this because society, if you're living in that, it's very easy to say what's not my response to that was then I didn't do it. Yeah. But we don't have the luxury of doing that as African Americans in as minorities, because we are struggling to pull ourselves from the result of that oppression every day, we struggle. And so I feel it's easy, easier for us to take on the responsibility. And what I am wanting to invite my white friends and the privileged into summer white, someone I put whatever you want to call it, people hate the term white privilege. And so why demands I call it white opportunity is what I call it, what I would, what I what I want to invite them into is, is into a greater narrative that you've been created to love. And so the question is, what does love require of us, and it requires everything. It cost us everything you can, and this is even me, because in America, I'm privileged over what's happening in the rest of the world. I don't get to go home, turn on my air condition. watch Netflix and forget about Africa. And forget about South America and in other places around the world, third world countries, I don't get to do that. I don't get to act like it does not there. No, I have what I have. So I can leverage what I have for someone else. And then in this diversity conversation, we're missing that gap. Because we want to love everybody else, but not focus on our greatest sin, because it causes us too much pain. But we got to face the pain. Yeah. It's our responsibility. Yeah. You got to make me preach, but
Bethaney Wilkinson 42:33
So good. Yeah. Facing the pain. I think what's so interesting, too, about, at least from the Christian tradition, we have spiritual tools and resources to face pain. That's all. It can be another conversation. But yeah, that's really powerful.
Sam Collier 42:50
The Diversity Gap, man, this is huge.
Bethaney Wilkinson 42:53
Thank you. All right. So take away time, I want you to take a second to capture one idea or phrase or insight that is resonating with you. I do this because rather than me telling you what's most important or most relevant, I trust that you are the expert of your life, and that your story knows what you need next. So take a moment to capture that one thing. Got it? Good. Now, I want you to think about a person in your life that you can share this one thing with, I think it's super important that we find a way to make sure that we are involving other people in our learning process. So as you listen to Sam, what did you learn? And then who can you share that new finding with in your real life? Thank you for listening to The Diversity Gap podcast. If you've been challenged or inspired by what you've heard, please rate and review the show. You can also subscribe to make sure you never miss an episode. If you have thoughts or questions I'd love to hear from you connect with me at thediversitygap.com or on Instagram at The Diversity Gap. This episode was produced by DJ opdiggy for Soul Graffiti Productions.