Can we talk about...? A podcast on leading for racial equity in philanthropy · Philanthropy Northwest

Carmen James Randolf on championing our unsung heroes with Women’s Foundation of the South

May 21, 2025·51 min·4 clips

Abbey opens by naming the moment as a crisis for the sector and for the community. She frames the show as a place to make room for the messiness of leading for racial equity in philanthropy and to ask how values can be lived clearly and without apology. Carmen James Randolph joins from the Women's Foundation of the South, a place-based, community-centered funder whose work centers on health, wealth, and power. Carmen talks about a statewide retreat for women leaders. One leader asks why she was chosen, even though she has been doing the work through a pandemic and a natural disaster. Carmen replies, simply, why not you. The exchange lands on a hard truth: people doing the work are often the same people who feel least seen by philanthropy. Carmen says some of the women thought the invitation might be a hoax. Before the retreat, the team had traveled across the state and brought love boxes to the leaders. Those boxes held tea, hand cream, eye masks, candles, and journals. They were meant to encourage rest and create space for people to claim time and room for themselves. The retreat then opened into story-sharing. Carmen says that listening to those stories is how the foundation decided to learn from the women it was trying to support. That practice became the basis for Woke at Rest. She presents it as the foundation's flagship way of entering states. The program is not meant to replace grantmaking. It is a starting place for how the foundation wants to show up. The episode closes with a practical picture of equity work as recognition, relationship, and a willingness to begin by listening.

As heard by us

A grounded look at racial equity in philanthropy, with rest, recognition, and story-sharing at the center.

Abbey Sarmack and Carmen James Randolph spend this episode on the practical, uneven work of racial equity in philanthropy. The conversation feels most grounded when it moves from general sector language to the Women’s Foundation of the South and its Woke at Rest retreat, where…

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For when you want a sector-specific conversation about racial equity in philanthropy that stays close to the messy, practical details.

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