“The stand I took against leadership who tokenized me…”

0:08

Hi everyone. Welcome back to The Nonprofit Diaries, where we share the stories that don't make the newsletter.

0:14

I'm your host, Kimberly Bottom. I have such a treat for you guys this week. Our guest is a firecracker in human form. With over a decade of nonprofit and fundraising experience, she has taken copious notes about the culture of philanthropy, and she is not shy about sharing those takeaways.

0:32

You may have heard me say previously that "audacity" is my word for 2026. She has it in spades. She is fierce and kind, unafraid to say what needs to be said, and compassionate while challenging others to level up their compassion. The reason all of this works for her is because she is unapologetically real.

0:51

She is the founder and CEO of Further Together, a fundraising firm that helps bold, justice-driven nonprofits and executive directors grow and diversify their fundraising revenue. She's also a fellow podcaster—she hosts the popular Small Nonprofit Podcast, which shares actionable steps to raise funds and lead with courage.

1:11

Welcome, my friend, Maria Rio. Thank you for being here, Maria.

1:14

That was the nicest intro ever! Oh my gosh.

1:16

It's all true! I had to cut it down—it was a full page! I was like, "Okay, we've got to get to the episode."

1:22

So sweet. Thank you.

1:24

Absolutely. I'm so, so glad you're here. First and foremost, tell us about Further Together, because I want to make sure that everybody listening today understands what you do.

1:33

Yeah. So Further Together is my fundraising firm. It's been around for three years, and basically, it's the only fractional fundraising firm in Canada that specializes in community-centric fundraising.

1:44

I really like to bring my lived experience as a service user—someone who has used food banks and stayed in a World Vision refugee shelter—to my fundraising work. I think that is something really missing in nonprofit leadership positions: that lived experience. This is my way of bringing it into fundraising, because I believe fundraising can be a tool for justice.

2:07

We work with really amazing leaders who are serving people directly, making real change, and who are not afraid to innovate and say the quiet part out loud—having those tough conversations with donors that turn into really beautiful partnerships rather than just transactional relationships.

2:26

I just love that approach. For all of you listening, if you aren't already following Maria on LinkedIn, please go do so—it's going to make your day!

2:34

Speaking of your lived experiences, Maria, let's set the stage for your diary entry. You've learned through some less-than-positive experiences what should and shouldn't be happening in the philanthropy and fundraising sector. Today, we're going to talk about an experience where you felt tokenized by the people who were supposed to be supporting you, your employer, and your support system.

3:00

Set the story for us. You don't have to mention any names if you don't want to, but tell us a little bit about where you were and what you were doing.

3:08

Happy to. I've been a consultant for three years now, but before that, I was an in-house fundraiser. This was around 2018 or 2019, when I was working at an organization that handles civil liberties and human rights stuff—the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

3:26

The executive director at the time was a white man kind of "failing upwards." He had a prolific career, but had been blacklisted from his industry before moving into the nonprofit sector to become executive director.

3:43

When we worked together, it was pretty interesting. I came into the organization thinking, "Oh, if any organization 'gets' it, it's going to be this one. If they don't understand social justice, racial justice, and economic justice, then there's literally no hope." And... they didn't.

4:01

Oh no! Oh my gosh. So when was the first time you realized that they didn't?

4:06

The first time I really realized it was about two months into my role. One of the lawyers, as part of their programmatic role, had issued a letter in support of the Toronto Public Library because the library had not canceled a venue booking for a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) to give a speech.

4:33

We wrote a letter of support for the library saying free speech is good and should be maintained. But my problem at that organization was that freedoms and rights often collide with each other. Sometimes you have freedom of speech, but it infringes on anti-discrimination, for example.

4:54

When that happened, the organization often chose the white version of what that was—prioritizing absolute freedom of speech over addressing hate speech, for instance. You could have made the case in either direction based on which right you pulled from, but they would usually pick the white perspective.

5:15

Having this conversation with the lawyer and seeing that the letter had already been posted... you know, I'm the person managing communications and fundraising. I'm expected to sell this to people, and it was completely misaligned with my values. I was sick to my stomach.

5:35

I ended up writing a really long note on my phone because I was worried about how I was going to tell my executive director. I said, "Hello Executive Director, I'm sorry that I have to read this off my phone, but there's an age gap, a power gap, a whole bunch of things happening here." He's a white man; I'm a racialized immigrant woman.

5:57

So I had my Google notes and said, "I'm going to read it straight from my phone because this is not comfortable for me." He said, "Okay, yeah, no problem."

6:05

I told him, "Look, this kind of rhetoric is harmful. People literally end their lives because they don't feel belonging, because they feel excluded by the things this person is saying at the library. We, as an organization that stands for people's rights, shouldn't be standing for people's rights to say hateful things. It is a right we believe in, but we could have also written a letter supporting the cancellation because we believe in equality, too—a quarter of our programming is based on equality! So what is the issue here?"

6:49

His answer was: "Are you alive to the fact that you've been here for two months?"

6:55

I'm sorry, what? What did you say to that?

7:07

I'm pretty hard to scare or intimidate, honestly, and that's because of my lived experience. I came here as a refugee. I've given up my whole culture, my family, my language, and my traditions to be safe. You are making this unsafe for me, and I don't care about you as much as I care about all of that—so don't think you're going to have a bigger impact on me.

7:37

How did that conversation end, then? I'm assuming he did not see things your way.

7:43

I don't think he saw things my way, but I think he definitely heard me—which I appreciated, not because he changed our public position, but as he was walking out of my office, he said, "Well, I guess because we have you—this Mexican refugee queer woman—and we're writing that in grant applications as part of our team to talk about our diversity, on the website and stuff... I think we should listen to your opinion sometimes."

8:15

"Because your situation benefits my bottom line, I'm going to take advantage of you"—that's what that means.

8:22

Yeah, and that was just the first time it was very obvious at that organization that this was not really what I wanted to be doing.

8:31

What a disappointment to believe so firmly in the mission of an organization, only to find that bad leadership is making it the opposite of what it should be.

8:41

Unfortunately, he's an executive director who is one of many. I know I'm kind of like, "He sucks, whatever," but there are so many people like that who just don't have the lived experience and haven't taken the time to understand issues that haven't personally affected them.

9:00

I remember telling him, "Hey, BIPOC people..." and he said, "What is BIPOC? Stop using acronyms." If you don't even know that as the head of this organization, why would I expect someone running a food bank, a homeless shelter, or a reading program to understand these things? You literally live and breathe this work—not in a physical sense, because you're not a racialized person, but in a work sense, it's something you look at every day, and you still don't know enough to do the basics.

9:34

First of all, I'm sorry you had to go through that experience. The fact that you had to read from a note to talk to your leadership is indicative of a sector-wide problem—that we aren't comfortable enough to say, "I know what I'm doing and I want to share this with you," because we're scared to do it.

9:51

Thank you for the bravery of doing that and sharing it. For people listening to this podcast who have been in a situation where they feel misaligned with the mission or leadership, or where something like this has happened to them... we don't always want to step away, though sometimes that's the answer.

10:12

Do you have a suggestion for engaging with leadership in a way that helps them see their own gaps and work toward a solution? What would you recommend now as a consultant for starting that conversation productively?

10:31

It can be quite difficult if people refuse to be brought along, but sometimes you can bring them along if you talk about systemic issues from the perspective of your service users. For example: "People are experiencing racism within our service user base—what do you know about that?" Then, slowly provide education if they have none.

10:56

Ideally, you don't wait to bring people along—you start taking action immediately. A lot of people think, "I have to get board permission to do community-centric fundraising," or "I have to redo my entire fundraising strategy for it to work." That's not the case. You can start doing fundraising in an ethical manner immediately.

11:21

You could say, "Hey, instead of using deficit-based language, I'm going to use asset-based language. Instead of showing a picture of someone crying at their worst, I'm going to show a dignified picture of them—one I would want of myself."

11:34

There are things you can do right away to start baking equity into the model without needing to explain it to others, because you're the person most responsible for it. Whatever your role—even if you're not in fundraising—there are little things you can start implementing that build up to those larger conversations.

11:58

I really appreciate your perspective, as always, Maria. I wait for your LinkedIn content like a fan girl! I'm so glad you're here today telling the real side of the story, how you grew from it, and what you've learned. That's all we can do with situations like this: understand that it sucks in the moment, and then make something out of it moving forward. Sharing it helps other people navigate or hopefully avoid it altogether.

12:26

It's hard, because at the time, it's painful and hurtful when you go through it, but I know it's systemic. It's not just that ED or that board—it's the sector as a whole. We're not doing well enough when it comes to educating our EDs or boards on the lived experience of our service users. We're not making lived experience a requirement in leadership, which is a huge issue.

12:53

There are a lot of challenges here. It's easy to dunk on boards and call them losers, but they are trying to help, and we're just not giving them the tools they need to be successful.

13:06

Doing this today is one small step in the right direction: saying something. The more people who say something, the more change happens. We're here for our own collective realism and the sigh of relief we can take together, but it's also about elevating the voices that need to be heard.

13:27

I'm so thankful you did that here today. Thank you for coming on the podcast!

13:31

For everybody listening, this is your reminder to hydrate and practice self-care. If you want to be on the podcast to share your own diary entry, there's a link to a form in the description—we would love to have you.

13:45

A little teaser: I think we might have Maria back for another episode, because she has another really great story I'm excited to share. Stay tuned for that!

13:56

All right guys, thanks for listening, and we'll see you all next time!