Three ways to increase safety in this moment

Dear Community,

At Brava we’ve been hard at work thinking about what changes we could make to be more accessible to more people in a time of incredible duress for multiracial and multicultural institutions. I know that I’m not alone in observing that the federal government is actively making it legally difficult for multiracial and multicultural organizations and businesses to exist and thrive. We’ll be doing three things to support you and anyone who joins our subscriber community. We’ve also identified three ways you can increase safety for your team members, organization, and broader community.

Three Ways to Increase Safety In This Moment:

1. Financial Safety

You may or may not have seen that the FBI put in a request to Citibank to freeze the bank accounts of several non-profit organizations. To minimize the risk of potential account disruption, our recommendation is that you have accounts with at least two different banks. It allows you to move money quickly should that become necessary. Choosing banks that are values aligned is also helpful because any delay or warning can be helpful and a values aligned bank fighting an order in court matters.

2. Community Safety

Organizations incur reputational damage for a variety of reasons. Sometimes earned, sometimes not. One of the things we are noticing is the way that right wing publications will publish an exposé on a multiracial multicultural organization and our movements will spread the news. There is very little control we have over that but we do think every multiracial multicultural organization, especially organizations with a high profile and social aims should be ready with a plan for that happening.

3. Digital and Physical Safety

We believe that it doesn’t take much more than getting on the radar of the wrong segregationist for the organization to be swamped with hate that makes day to day work very difficult. We recommend, at the very least, every public person in your organization ensure they are on a service like DeleteMe or Norton Lifelock. Having your address and phone information scrubbed from the vast amount of places on the web they appear can help your physical safety by digitally protecting you.

Three Brava Resources:

One, we are lowering the cost for all of our public training sessions from $250 to $80 per seat. You may also use the code REPEATBRAVA to get a 15% discount if you purchase two or more training sessions ($68/each!). We are hopeful that by bringing down the price point, we make it possible for more people to gain the skills we see as critical to leading at this moment in time. Click here to access our 2025 training calendar, our next session is on Relationship to Power on April 4th. 

Two, I’ll be sending a weekly newsletter in order to help with the management of power - we’ll talk about having a power analysis, management tools, organization systems, and the things we are tangling with and building. We want this to be a conversation, so please feel free to email us or reach out to us on LinkedIn with questions or difficult tradeoffs you are tangling with and we will do our best to answer. Feel free to share with folks you feel would benefit.

Three, we will be having a free Free Virtual Grief & Hope session for anyone who wants to join. This is community time where you can rage, be sad, admit worries and then build the discipline to give yourself space for these feelings. We will also practice hope as a discipline, as the incredible Mariame Kaba tells us. The first virtual gathering date will be April 24th at 8pm EDT/5pmPDT.