Splendid Spotlight with Jenn Graham of Inclusivv

Inclusivv is on a mission to design a more inclusive world. An activist, designer and civic tech entrepreneur, Jenn Graham is the Founder and CEO of Inclusivv, bringing diverse voices together for conversations that matter.

I’m so excited to talk with my good friend, Jen Graham, this week to discuss her incredible nonprofit work with Inclusivv.

Give us your company and about the recent name change.

For those of you who are from Atlanta, you may be familiar with ‘Civic Dinners’. We started as a social experiment trying to bring people together to discuss the issues we care about and providing a format so people can have their voice heard. I’d worked with TedX Atlanta, bringing these incredible speakers, but the audience never had a chance to participate. This small group structured format really showed that that is where meaningful change can happen. We started back in 2015, and after about 6 months we nearly a dozen run for office. From city council to state level government, to people starting their own nonprofits. It became a way for people to find a sense of community and find their people. 

The name change happened because we outgrew the “civic” space. We started as a way for people to rally around their city, but it blossomed into nonprofits reaching out from all over to discuss their focuses. 2019 came along and Facebook came knocking and all these other companies wanted lunches during work time for discussions. 

We realized it wasn’t just dinner, it was how can we bring people together around any meal, and how can we support communities that have long been left out of the discussion. Especially around social issues, like Black Lives Matter. We decided to make our own table, where everyone is invited to join the conversation. 

And the fact that this rebrand happened when everything was moving to the online space is perfect timing and effortless with the name change.

And it’s so easy to become combative when it comes to some of these issues, so we’re really focused on peace and coming together for a discussion around these topics.

I love that Abraham Lincoln quote “I don’t like that man very much. I should get to know him better.”

So it’s about understanding and being open to these discussions. 

I love that! These are conversations where people may share a different point of view from the person next to them. And that’s ok!

We’ve been taught all our lives, “Oh, don’t talk about politics.” But that’s why we have so much of a divide now, because we don’t know how to talk about it without it becoming a conflict. 

Ok, so now that we have a baseline, let’s dive into the five questions by telling us your favorite thing about your role. You wear a lot of hats, so what’s your favorite hat?

Definitely the marketing and branding side of things. The whole rebrand and the website is being redone for the first time in 5~ years. I have a lot of fun with that. We’ve struggled to be very clear about what we do, who we are, and we aim to provide more clarification for our supporters. We are the only ones doing this, so there’s no path to follow. We’re forging our own path.

What does growth look like for Inclusivv for the next 5 years?

We’re going global! Woo! Starting in 2020, we converted our website to support 11 languages. 

Wow!

So we are ready for that next step. We have our conversation content that will now need to be converted but we are headed in that direction. We’re really starting to build out what we’re calling “Journeys”. We have 9-12 different packages that we’ve built that take our 50+ topics and repackage them that makes it easy for a company or a school to just adopt. We give them the playbook so they can host these conversations regularly.

Keeping these topics alive after the initial DEI discussions that these companies had after 2020 is very important and this is a way to do that. How do we give people a sense of ownership when the world feels out of control? Digging deep into these topics and providing tools for self reflection and actions for the future is a way to provide that. 

That reminds me of the concept behind consumption learning and experiential learning. That’s how I learn! I learn by doing. And I love that more and more companies are taking action for change, but may not have the infrastructure. Inclusivv is providing that, which is amazing.

We’re actually launching a professional membership very soon, for these companies that want to keep the conversation going. They do it on a trial basis, and it’s an annual membership. It’s like the Peloton membership for empathy. Just joining is an act in itself.

Let’s talk about the social space. What is an online movement or social post you witnessed or experienced that really hit home for you?

You know, pre-Civic Dinners, I was always an avid biker. And I was in a bike accident that propelled me into community advocacy. I was on a mission to turn Atlanta into a more bike friendly city. That’s how I really cut my teeth on community organizing. And I realized if you give people a chance to participate in the change they are more excited and they’ll pull others along with them. Inviting people to think differently to experience a whole new world. 

We have to think of movements not just as protests, but as community gatherings where people feel a sense of power. Personal power, human power, and community power with each other. 

Give us a pro-tip. What’s one thing that makes your goals easier to achieve? This could be an app, or a mindset. Anything.

I’m going old-school. List-making! I can’t get anything done if it’s not on my list. When I feel overwhelmed, first thing I need to do it just brain dump everything I need to do into a list. Once I can see it all it makes it feel more achievable. Being a founder, everything is on fire, everything is a priority. So deciding which fires to put out and which ones can keep burning for a while. And learning to delegate! I need to get better at that.

I always look at my list and think “is this a revenue generating activity?” or “Is this going to move me closer to my goal?” or is this just something I think I need to be doing? That can help. “Hire your weaknesses”. Hire them out. 

Finish this sentence for me. “More nonprofits or social impact businesses should be….?” What do you wish more people in your sector did?

I would say “trust the process”. I just think it can be really frustrating, especially in a nonprofit space, to want to see change and want to see it NOW. There’s a process that has to be built. Know that you’re doing the good work. Sometimes it just takes longer. Building the relationships and being consistent and just staying true to your mission. 

And another thing I thought of, going back to my days at TedX, one of the speakers was talking about riding horses. Sometimes we have lofty goals. In order to get your horse to jump over a tall obstacle, in order to achieve those lofty goals, we have to throw our heart over the fence and the horse will follow. So just having that inner confidence and to believe that it’s possible. 

It’s like, you may not know the road to get there, but you know your desired destination. So trial and error is the only way forward, but to keep moving forward. And it can be frustrating! But radical self-belief. That’s the way. 

Tell us how people can get involved! 

We’d love for you to attend one of our inclusive conversations and we have many new series we just launched. One of our new ones is with the Department of Family and Children Services and we build a whole family and child wellbeing series with six new conversations. All of them at listed on our website, inclusivv.co. Keep an eye on our website for all the ways to become a part of our empathy community. Keep the conversation alive. 

We had a question come in, “Do you have any facilitators?”

Yes! We just launched the beta program for this and we have 20 facilitators go through our facilitator training. For those sort of high intensity conversations we have facilitators to ensure the equal voice and time for the conversations that are harder to have. We rolling out an official training program soon. As part of our professional membership you can take part in that training too!

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I love your energy and loved talking with you. Be sure to check out their Instagram @Inclusivv.co 

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