January 25, 2005

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT:
Winnifred Levy, Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy Program, The Aspen Institute

 

Truth-Telling with a Passion for Change

By Brigette Rouson

 

 

LevyWinnifred Levy is a powerful communicator whose work at the Aspen Institute's Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy Program (NSPP) is a study in contrasts.  Aspen's NSPP program seeks to improve the sector and philanthropy through research, leadership education and communication initiatives focused on critical nonprofit issues.
 
As communications manager, at any given time, Winnifred may be immersed in the detail-intensive task of maintaining one of the nonprofit sector's largest and most current databases of contacts.  At another point, she could be working to translate new research on complicated issues and get it before the public through major media. And another moment may find her editing a Snapshots information brief for nonprofit leaders to increase understanding and stimulate thinking—often on leading-edge issues in giving, evaluation, and other aspects of nonprofit capacity.

A Jamaican immigrant to the United States from the age of 9, she realized early and often the magnitude of nonprofits in changing lives for the better.  She had the good fortune of observing firsthand very distinct cultural experiences, from a nation with a Black majority and leadership to the US, were non-European accents and darker hues have often been deemed invitations to exclusion or exploitation. "It's very different growing up where race is not a burden. Nobody ever said to me, 'You can't do it because you're Black,' " she notes, adding that socioeconomic class is a key issue.

Not that she is ever exempt from the currents in American culture. Even these days, she says, "Some people are surprised when I show up that I'm Black. But I have a stack of letters, all these groups I have done work with, thanking me."  Much of that service involves not only providing information, but promoting conferences, events, or published work that might not otherwise reach as wide a network. "The first thing I did," on arriving at Aspen Institute, "was to clean up the database," she recalls. Now it is a 10,000-count list that is sought after by other well-known organizations.

Winnifred has never been one to stop at the closed doors or limited thinking of others—not in making her way previously as a newspaper reporter, magazine editor, and lawyer and not as single mother of a teen-age son. She is quick to point out that she took her son with her to law school and they both endured three years of poverty as she pursued her studies full-time. She has also refused to allow a multiple sclerosis diagnosis three years ago to limit her. Her credo: "Life is hard. Life is good. Live it."

She shares that her life has been positively influenced by nonprofits—through housing and immigrant services, education, religious activity, legal aid, and health.  Catholic Charities helped her family when they crossed the border from Canada, including legalization and obtaining housing in New York City. Winnifred credits the Catholic Church with teaching her how to stand under pressure. "When I came to this country, I had a lisp, a stutter, and a thick Jamaican accent." She found success with the nuns' approach to speech therapy—engaging her on the oratorical and debate teams, often presenting long speeches to all-white audiences in suburban New York.  In addition to first-place awards, she won competitive scholarships through the nonprofit A Better Chance to preparatory school and Dartmouth College, where she spent a summer working in legal aid at Riker's Island.

She relates the story of a kindly patron who would help her at the Schomburg Center in Harlem when it was a one-room library rather than the impressive structure and research repository that it has become. Only later did she learn that the woman was Maya Angelou.  She recalls teachers who encouraged her so that she became an advanced student, the nuns who not only paid fees for standardized tests but would even drive her to test sites. (Years later, she worked at Educational Testing Service.)

Today, in addition to her role at Aspen, Winnifred is active in Dartmouth College alumni activities, mindful that the scholarship-funded education she received and the connections she made have benefited her, and wanting others to share in that benefit.  Two years ago, she began hiring paid interns from DC public high school. "I felt that here we were surrounded by all this need but catering exclusively to the elite. We have to remember that leaders come from all walks of life.  Some of our most powerful leaders have come from economically impoverished backgrounds." While in law school her work as a legal aid advocate allowed her to take on a level of responsibility unheard of for new lawyers in private firms, even in government agencies.

On the for-profit side, Winnifred cherished being a media executive in a Black-owned corporation—as an editor of YSB [Young Sisters & Brothers] magazine at Black Entertainment Television (BET). "Working for BET was one of the best working experiences of my life," she pronounces, one where she enjoyed "a lot of freedom" and the stimulating effect of being surrounded by creative people. "It's a place full of mavericks.  I'm a maverick. I'm a risk-taker."  Lessons she carries forward: how to make matters accessible for a broad audience, and the importance of materials being visually attractive. Translation skills have made her equally valued whether she is covering hip hop culture or making sure that research findings are not expressed in a way that shuts people out.  Her trademark question, "What do you mean?" —as posed to others and anticipated in her own communication—has helped raise Aspen's visibility in high-circulation newspapers.

Winnifred brings honesty and passion for change to all her endeavors. "In every family, there's always a truth-teller. I'm going to always tell the truth no matter what." It is a quality that she feels is valued at Aspen. "I am certainly grateful to our [NSPP] Director Alan Abramson, for giving me the opportunity to spread my wings in the nonprofit direction. I've learned a great deal about the value of research in changing the world and making things better for all of us."

As a champion of the sector, Winnifred also reflects on what needs to change in the nonprofit world. Indeed, she says natural disasters like hurricanes remind her that the sector needs to get at core issues and real-life situations—and begin now to adopt practices that will increase its strength and effectiveness.  A major issue is that of nonprofits having a role in "policy decisions around the economy and money.  Instead of spending on weapons, we need to spend it on building better relationships around the world, she declares. Also, "I think nonprofits can serve their constituents better" by not only paying attention to research or experts, but also bringing lay people's voices in—especially to boards of directors.

The issue of inclusiveness (one of three Alliance core principles, along with quality and collaboration) is one she finds deserving of a far higher priority than usually accorded.  At Aspen, the story has a brighter side.  With her involvement at the Institute, " We're diversifying our committees—not just racially but in terms of mindset.  You need a couple rabble rousers who are not going to agree with you." The Institute's committees decide its research direction and allocate resources.

"The nonprofit sector could benefit from all nonprofits being mandated to participate in diversity programs. I say that because nonprofits recruit [people of color] and often they really don't know how to treat them at all levels. Nonprofits are so used to dealing with needy clients who are going to get their services. I am not interested in thinking of myself or minorities as needy. I do think we need a chance to get in the door.  I'm a Black woman, single parent and I have MS. That's not to say I won't take help, but . . . nonprofits are so used to seeing need that sometimes they forget to treat people as equals."

Given the enormous consequences of structural and institutional racism, she contends, "if you don't do something about it or correct it, you're contributing to it."  She cites the popular quote by Martin Niemöller about moral failure in the face of threats identified with particular groups:  "First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then they came for the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me."  This awareness fuels her professional service as a member of the Alliance People of Color Affinity Group, an exhibitor at our annual conference and numerous professional gatherings, and in the continuous role of ensuring that information—and thus power—is in the hands of the public when it comes to understanding and shaping the nonprofit sector.

"I've never had the desire to change the world," she explains, "but I knew from experience that one person's action can change the course of another person's life.  At every point, God had put someone in front of me to show me that. Nonprofits have worked for me in my life."  Now, she feels, is the time for giving back—which means making the value of nonprofits known, while also calling the question, urging and participating in transformation.

To contact Winnifred Levy, e-mail: winnifred.levy@aspeninst.org.

 


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