Decolonizing the Bylaws (EP.72)
Updated
October 26, 2023
Why and how do you decolonize an organization's bylaws?
In this episode, host Tim Cynova connects with three leaders from the U.S.-based nonprofit Dance/USA about their recent and ongoing work to decolonize their organization. Joining the discussion are Kellee Edusei, Executive Director of Dance/USA, and Holly Bass and Jim Leija, two members of the Board of Directors who co-lead the process to decolonize their organizational bylaws.
We discussed the what, why, and how of the process Dance/USA engaged in over the past couple of years.
Episode Highlights:
The importance of decolonizing organizational structures: The conversation highlights the need to critically examine and reimagine organizational structures that are often rooted in racism and oppression. Decolonizing these structures is essential for fostering inclusivity and equity in the workplace.
The significance of continuous reflection and learning: The leaders of Dance/USA emphasize the importance of an ongoing process of reflection and learning in the journey of decolonization. This includes acknowledging challenges, celebrating successes, and adapting strategies as necessary.
Core values as guiding principles: Dance/USA operates based on core values – creativity, connectivity, equity, and integrity – that serve as guiding principles for their work in decolonizing their bylaws and developing inclusive practices.
Collective responsibility in creating change: The conversation underscores the collective responsibility of individuals and organizations in creating an anti-racist, inclusive, and equitable dance field. This necessitates collaboration, sharing of resources, and actively challenging systemic barriers.
Guests: Holly Bass, Kellee Edusei, and Jim Leija
Host: Tim Cynova
Guests
Holly Bass is a multidisciplinary performance and visual artist, writer, and director. Her work explores the unspoken and invisible social codes surrounding gender, class, and race. She was a 2020–2022 Live Feed Resident Artist at New York Live Arts and a 2021–22 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow. She is the recipient of Dance/USA's Engaging Dance Audiences grant and part of their inaugural class of Dance/USA Fellowships for Artists. She studied modern dance (under Viola Farber) and creative writing at Sarah Lawrence College before earning her Master’s degree from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. Her work has been presented at spaces such as the National Portrait Gallery, the Seattle Art Museum, Art Basel Miami Beach (Project Miami Fair), and the 2022 Venice Biennale as part of Simone Leigh's Loophole of Retreat. Her visual artwork includes photography, installation, video, and performance. A Cave Canem Fellow, she has published poems in numerous journals and anthologies. She is currently the National Director for Turnaround Arts at the Kennedy Center, a program which uses the arts strategically to transform public schools facing severe inequities.
Kellee Edusei (she/her) is the first BIPOC Executive Director of Dance/USA, a forty-one year old, historically and predominately white led organization. After over a decade of serving in multiple capacities (first as the Office Manager and soon after as the Board Liaison and Director of Member Services), Edusei currently has the privilege of sitting at the helm of Dance/USA during this moment of change. Edusei embodies an ethos of “being in humble service to the dance ecosystem.” Through her leadership, she is committed to cultivating a practice of bringing to life the organization’s stated core values of Creativity, Connectivity, Equity and Integrity. Under her leadership, Edusei is leading Dance/USA in building an environment that embodies equity, centers inclusionary practices, and cultivates a profound sense of belonging for all parts of the dance ecosystem.
In the two and half years that she has served as the Executive Director, Edusei has incorporated a shared leadership structure for Dance/USA’s eighteen peer networks (Councils and Affinity Groups) thereby dismantling a singular leadership structure; embedded the organization’s core value of equity in its most foundational document – its Bylaws – ensuring a singular, equitable pathway to Trusteeship; transitioned its Conference to a biennial cycle with a commitment to offering virtual programming throughout the year; and introduced Impact Groups, a more inclusive framework for collaboration and input from members and leaders from the broader dance ecosystem. These initiatives have flourished all the while ensuring the financial stability of the organization during one of the most economically uncertain times in the last decade. As a commitment to bolster the organization’s financial health, Edusei rolled out a 12 month individual giving campaign, 40 x 40, that celebrated the organization’s 40 years of service. The culmination of the 40 x 40 ended with Dance/USA’s inaugural Day of Giving.
With curiosity and intentionality, Edusei will launch a Strategic Reframing process to examine the connections between being a member based association, operational sustainability, and increased influence within the performing arts sector. In her prior role as Director of Member Services and Board Liaison, Edusei designed the Membership Fellowship, for early career arts administrators to deepen their administrative skills and expand their leadership acumen. She implemented the “Special Membership Package,” recruitment campaign that surpassed set goals and engaged the entire Dance/USA Board and team. Edusei created a new revenue stream by maximizing Dance/USA’s monthly Bulletin. Additionally, she was part of the initial design of Dance/USA’s Dance Business Bootcamp, a program for dance artists working with budgets of less than $200,000. Edusei leveraged her Board experience to develop a website portal for Dance/USA’s Board of Trustees giving them access to one another and Board materials on-demand. In addition, she standardized the on-boarding process for new Trustees.
Edusei is an experienced grants panelist, having served on panels for the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (MD), Alternate Roots (GA), and the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (IL). She currently serves on the Advisory Council for Women of Color in the Arts (WOCA) and on the Board of Directors for the Performing Arts Alliance (both national in scope). She is a former Board member of See Chicago Dance (IL) and Dance Exchange (MD), where she served as the Chair of their Governance Committees. Edusei has connections to Jacob’s Pillow (MA), Bates Dance Festival (ME), and Movement Research’s (NY) dance communities.
Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Edusei was first introduced to dance when her grandmother took her to The Washington Ballet (TWB) where she auditioned for Mary Day. Being accepted into TWB’s School is where Edusei’s love for dance took root and blossomed. After several years of ballet training, Edusei transitioned to contemporary dance, training at Maryland Youth Ballet, Dance Place, and the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange.
As a double-major graduate from The College of Wooster (OH) with degrees in Dance and Black Studies, Edusei studied in New York City and Yaoundé, Cameroon. Though worlds apart, she immersed herself in each city’s eclectic dance and arts communities. As a reflection of these experiences, she devised an evening length performance exclusively of her work – the first of any Dance major at Wooster – as part of her Independent Study thesis, titled Singularly Women/Collectively Woman. The piece focused on the mask dances of the Yoruba, Voltaic, and Mende (three distinct West African ethnic groups).
Edusei considers herself a lifelong learner, and is always seeking opportunities to stretch, grow, learn, reflect and refine. To that end, she is an alumna of Acumen’s 2022 Leadership Accelerator cohort; a 2021 participant of the New Strategies Forum at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, supported by American Express; artEquity’s 2020 BIPOC Leadership Circle; and an alumna of American Express’ 2014 Leadership Academy. Edusei relocated to Chicago, IL in 2014 with her husband and their children.
Jim Leija has served as Deputy Director for Public Experience and Learning at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) since September 2019. He leads the team that builds UMMA's partnerships across the university and community and that designs and implements educational and public programming. During his tenure at UMMA, Jim has launched innovative public programming, like the Vote2020/22/24 Project with the Ann Arbor City Clerk’s Office and the campus-wide "Arts and Resistance" theme semester, in addition to initiating new partnerships with the Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership Program (Canada) and Monument Lab. Before UMMA, Leija served on the senior executive leadership team of the University Musical Society (UMS) as Vice President, Education & Community Engagement for 8 years (former title Director of Education & Community Engagement). He was instrumental in designing and implementing two major educational and performance residencies with the New York Philharmonic; served as project director for UMS’s two “Engaging Dance Audience” grants (through Dance/USA and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation); launched an arts-academic integration program with the U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation); co-curated UMS’s theater series "No Safety Net" focused on contemporary social issues; and produced a "Day of Action" with Yo-Yo Ma in Flint, Michigan, in 2019. In 2022, Jim was publicly elected to his third four-year term as a trustee of the Ann Arbor District Library. Additionally, he is a trustee of Dance/USA (the national service organization for professional dance) and board member of the Detroit-based InsideOut Literary Arts. Jim holds three degrees from the University of Michigan: a master of fine arts in art and design, bachelor of arts in sociology, and a bachelor of fine arts in musical theatre. As a queer Latinx person, Jim draws great inspiration from BIPOC and queer artists who are forging creative pathways in the arts.
Host
Tim Cynova, SPHR (he/him) is the Principal of Work. Shouldn’t. Suck., an HR and org design consultancy helping to reimagine workplaces where everyone can thrive. He is a certified Senior Professional in Human Resources (SPHR) and a trained mediator, and has served on the faculty of Minneapolis College of Art & Design, the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity (Banff, Canada) and The New School (New York City) teaching courses in People-Centric Organizational Design, and Strategic HR. In 2021, he concluded a 12-year tenure leading Fractured Atlas, a $30M, entirely virtual non-profit technology company and the largest association of independent artists in the U.S., where he served in both the Chief Operating Officer and Co-CEO roles (part of a four-person, shared, non-hierarchical leadership team), and was deeply involved in its work to become an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization since they made that commitment in 2013. Earlier in his career, Tim was the Executive Director of The Parsons Dance Company and of High 5 Tickets to the Arts in New York City, had a memorable stint with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, was a one-time classical trombonist, musicologist, and for five years in his youth he delivered newspapers for the Evansville, Indiana Courier-Press. Learn more on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work Shouldn't Suck, a podcast about, well, that. In this episode, decolonizing organizations. In particular, we're connecting with three of the leaders of the national organization Dance/USA, who have been deeply involved in their work to decolonize their organizational bylaws. I'm joined by Kellee Edusei, Dance/USA's executive director and Holly Bass and Jim Leija, two members of their board of directors who are involved in this work.
If Dance/USA is new to you, it is a terrific organization that's championing an inclusive and equitable dance field by leading, convening, advocating and supporting individuals and organizations. And as frequent listeners of this podcast know, we spend a lot of our time exploring various aspects of the how of creating anti-racist, inclusive, and equitable workplaces.
So I'm excited to be in conversation with another organization that is actively re-imagining organizational structures and systems that are so often rooted in racism and oppression. In this conversation we'll be discussing the what, why, and how have the process Dance/USA engaged in over the past couple of years and inviting reflections from that group on things that might've gone sideways, if you will, along the way, if you want to learn more about DanceUSA, you can find information linked in the episode description. So let's get going. Holly, Jim, and Kellee, welcome to the podcast.
Jim Leija:
Thanks so much.
Kellee Edusei:
Thanks for having us, Tim.
Holly Bass:
Yeah, happy to be here.
Tim Cynova:
As a way of grounding us in the conversation, might I ask you each to introduce yourself and the work you do. And also Kellee maybe invite you to include a sketch of Dance/USA, especially for those who might not have checked in recently about what the organization has been up to.
Kellee Edusei:
This is Kellee Edusei here, executive director of Dance/USA. When you ask for us to describe ourselves, that's what I want to lead with, like my title, executive director of Dance/USA. But I'm also a former dancer. I never danced professionally but I have that dance blood running through my veins very strongly. I've been at Dance/USA for about 15 years now. I have moved through the organization, so I've seen this organization grow from various vantage points. I'm also a wife and a mother and a daughter and a sister and a loyal friend. So I bring all of who I am and my lived experiences to this role, into this organization. I do use she/her pronouns and for access needs, I am a butterscotch skinned woman. I've got some beautiful wire earrings on today. I'm wearing a pink sweater and a green necklace and my hair is pulled up.
Dance/USA, for those who don't know, as Tim just mentioned, we are a member-based organization that is the National Association for the Dance Ecosystem. We do champion an inclusive and equitable dance community that amplifies the power of dance to inform and inspire a nation where creativity in the field thrive. We serve the ecosystem through our core services and those are four of them. It's leadership and learning, research, advocacy, which we do in a bipartisan federal way, and then also archiving and preservation. And we do have a number of special initiatives that support the ecosystem.
So while those special initiatives may connect with and or support a select few, the learnings and the impact of them are field wide. Currently active right now is our dance [inaudible 00:04:01] fellowships to artists program, which is one of our largest regranting programs that we have. It's about $30,000 unrestricted funds that go directly to artists, and actually in this cohort we have 30 artists fellows and we're grateful to the [inaudible 00:04:16] Foundation for supporting that.
We also have our task force and dancer health, which is very important as we use our bodies as instruments to do the work that we do. We have an archiving and preservation fellows which pairs organizations or artists with the archiving fellow who is interested in learning about and honing their skills within the archiving field. Talk about a way to decolonize a field. Our artists fellows are primarily BIPOC and it's just incredible how we truly are changing the archiving field.
And then our Dance/USA Institute for Leadership Training, which is a one-on-one mentorship program with a mentee, so an early career artist or administrator with someone who's more seasoned in the field. We have a vast membership. We host member calls regularly actually, so we're constantly connecting the field. I should also say because it's important in this conversation, that we're an organization that also does its work through core values. And those core values are creativity, connectivity, equity and integrity. And I think that I'm saying that because important to the work that we do just in general, but it's also important to the why of the work around decolonizing our bylaw. I'll pass it to either of my wonderful board of directors members.
Jim Leija:
I'm Jim Leija. I'm the Deputy director for Public Experience and Learning at the University of Michigan of Art where I lead the team that organizes public programs and all the educational activities of the museum. I came into Dance/USA specifically through my previous work at University Musical Society, UMS here in Ann Arbor, which is one of the major university performing arts centers in the US. And there I was vice president for education and engagement. I was there for about 12 years, and I first came into Dance/USA as an engaging dance audiences grantee and then continued on my path to become the chair of the Dance/USA presenters council and then into my pathway here as a trustee for the Dance/USA board of directors. I was leading the trustees committee of Dance/USA when we began this work. The trustees committee is set up to essentially look after governance and bylaws and then also organize a slate for nomination of new board officers.
This work with the bylaws that we're talking about today grew out of that committee into a working group that Holly and I chaired. This has been a process that we began probably back in 2020 as the pandemic was unfolding before us. I've worked in big institutions for most of my career, almost all of it, and it's been interesting to observe and watch the transition of Dance/USA over these past probably 10 years or so that I've been involved and to see how Dance/USA has really sort of re-imagining who gets to participate in the dance ecosystem or who is participating and who isn't included in Dance/USA.
That's been the major transformation. I was thinking today about some work that Christie Bolingbrook did in her research. She's at the University of Akron with the National Choreography Center talking about how 80% of work in the dance ecosystem is project-based work, and what that says about inequality and about a national service organization that's set up initially primarily for administrators and large institutions, which is now really flexing and moving into a different space.
Holly Bass:
I'm Holly Bass. I use she/her pronouns. I am an independent artist. My practice largely focuses on dance, theater and visual art. It's a multidisciplinary practice. I'm also the national director of turnaround arts at the Kennedy Center, which is an education program that works with Title I public schools around the country that have historically lacked access to arts resources, teachers materials, things such as that. I am on the board of trustees for Dance/USA and on the trustees committee that, as Jim was saying, helps select who the next slate of trustees will be. Jim and I were the leads revising the bylaws.
Tim Cynova:
Thank you all for those introductions and starting already to weave into the work and project that we'll discuss today. Can someone explain what this was that you all undertook?
Jim Leija:
Rewinding to the pandemic starting, we're in the midst of our work of electing a new slate of trustees. We're wondering what going to happen in terms of the arts landscape and our work. And ultimately we arrived at this idea that instead of continuing to bring on new trustees, that the committee ought to take a look at our governance structures for the board, especially in light of everything that was happening in the ecosystem in terms of our social and political realities and our 2018 strategic plan. How could we align our own governing structures to lean more into our values and really recognize what was, I think, a kind of change in practice behavior and organizational culture that was already happening within Dance/USA that really needed to be embodied in these governing documents.
And so bylaws of course are first and foremost a legal set of circumstances for how a board and how a nonprofit organization operates. But we also believe in our work, that they are sort of the heart and soul of the way that we act and behave. And they communicate a lot about what we believe is good governance and good structure and good culture within the organization. So we spent a year doing an informal review within the trustees committee, which led us to realize that there was quite a lot more work that would need to be done.
That was when we activated this ad hoc board group that could be pulled together of different board members so there was sort of representation across a spectrum of voices, and I think it's interesting to say that in that group we intentionally had folks that were sort of big organization folks, folks that represented kind of history with the organization and kind of a long view as well as folks that were newer to the organization, individual artists, and that was about trying to really get at what needed to change in the governance that would better reflect our culture. So that's sort of the starting spot was a revision.
Holly Bass:
I think for many people with organizations, particularly if the organizations are smaller, independent, there's this idea that bylaws or Robert's rules of order, that they're just the way things are done. Well, this is just how it's done, so we have to keep doing it that way. And what we have the opportunity to do is say we don't have to do it the way it's been done for decades or perhaps even centuries. We can take a look at this, pull it apart, and really interrogate are these words, most members of Dance/USA are not going to go and read the bylaws. That's not the point of this. The point is understanding that your governance structure, where you put your money, are much more of a reflection of your true values than any sort of mission statement or anti-racism statement that you could put out on Twitter or X or whatever.
Kellee Edusei:
While it started in 2020 with the informal review and then a more codified review, and then recommendations that went to the board and were voted on, the final vote for these bylaws happened in November 2022, we're still in process with implementing and kind of seeing how things function in practice. We've written it down, but now we've got to live it. And I think that that's a really important piece in all of this is that yes, these are static words on a piece of paper and what we did was revise them so that we can actually put them into practice, and now we're in this process of actually living the practice. There's definitely evolution. You have to give it time to let things unfold in the most beautiful ways possible.
Tim Cynova:
Having run organizations, two things are really dry. Employee handbook and organizational bylaws, yet they sort of form the foundation for how that thing is, you pointed out, work. And while most are in a Google doc that's easily changeable. It's not just the language. How do you actually live into these? And when the written word meets reality and the organization and the ecosystem, I'm really curious about those conversations that he had, from the initial ones where he took that year, read the bylaws, reflect on the bylaws. What were some of the things where this really is problematic and needs to change?
Jim Leija:
Going back to something that Holly said earlier, if you're not sort of experienced on being on boards and you don't understand this sort of culture of how motions get passed and needing a second in a quorum and all of this stuff, you really can feel held captive by kind of the rules and regulations. So part of the effort here is to sort of demystify the fact that we are agents of our own destiny as board members, and demystifying sort of how the board works. And how bylaws works is a really important part of any organization's culture. I think as we started to parse through, there were some functional issues that are sort of less controversial. Aligning all of our board year to match up with the fiscal year to match up with the member year, which we're all on different cycles.
So just to bring everything functionally together to make sense of that. But it's like doing bylaws is like pull one thread on a sweater, like the whole sweater unravels. Because then it sort of has this domino effect in a lot of other functions in the bylaws. Another topic of conversation was what does exofficio mean? Exofficio can mean that you have a vote or you don't. It really has to be explicit in the context of your own organizational laws. Exofficio means essentially you're not elected through a sort of normal process. You're appointed by the nature of your role, but whether you do or don't have a vote on the board is often specific to the organization, and that was very specific to Kelly's role. And there was a desire really to make sure that Kelly as an exofficio board member had a voice and a vote within our board because we believe our executive director is our colleague peer and leader.
I think that there were also functional things like how many board committees do you need? And then just a raft of questions about inclusive language around gender, around who is in the field, around how we address accessibility for an ever diversifying board. And then probably the most button cultural issue that we tackled was a singular pathway to the election of board members, which really meant addressing our council groups, which were built into the board bylaws, had been long-standing groups within the context of Dance/USA, and had been automatically assigned a seat on the board just by nature of being a leader of a council, which is actually how I came to the board. That was a long held tradition and practice that was embedded in our bylaws that was really pointing to some deep questions of inequality.
Some people get a pass to the board by nature of a sort of membership affiliation group and other people have to go through a very intensive process of being nominated, elected, interviewed, vetted, and voted upon. It was really important to us that we standardized so that board members, trustees, all came to the board in the same way, that it was an equitable process.
Therein was the sort of Pandora's box of relationships, cultural practice, all of the things that you start to step in when you are dismantling a system that is beloved by many and also really problematic.
Tim Cynova:
Think about the work that I do around people, operations, organizational design, and often joke, it would be far easier if you didn't have people involved. Writing policies. Oh my gosh, this is so easy and fun and creative, and then the people get introduced and you're like, oh, that's so thorny, and you're dealing with the reaction to the change, but not necessarily the thing that's changing and people's relationship to power and all those other things that are at play that I imagine just increases the time that it takes to reimagine this.
Jim Leija:
Oh yes.
Holly Bass:
There is also an element that I would compare to when you pick up a package of food and you look at the label, can you understand what's on it? Is it milk, sugar, eggs or is it carbo poly hexa titrate something or other? And one of the things we also strive to do is make sure we could understand what the bylaws were saying. There's certain technical legal language that we couldn't change, but in every other instance we tried to put it into plain English. What is this saying? What does this mean? What is the impact of this choice or decision? That was also really, really important.
Tim Cynova:
There's a colleague of ours that is an employment attorney HR background, and also talks about how do you decolonize your employee handbook or bylaws without decolonizing yourself into a lawsuit? And I think that's one of those areas where Holly, you were mentioning, there's some things that might need to be legally in there, but also how do you know the things that need to be versus that's just the way people phrase it?
Kellee Edusei:
That's actually a beautiful segue to something I wanted to highlight, was the process. The process was very organic and iterative. What I'll hone in on is what Holly is saying. Can we understand what this language is saying and what it's intending to do and what it means? We had multiple versions of our bylaws and we're going through and reading every single part of it and saying, no, take this out or change this here because what does this actually mean? I mean, the side column or the comments that we three had during the process was enormous. And as we got to a place where we felt really comfortable with the language or it was clear to us, we started involving others into the process. So we did have one or two current board members review the bylaws and ask their own questions and comments throughout the document, and then we did have a lawyer review once everything was in a place that we were like, yep, this is clear.
Yes, this language is aligned. Yes, this is aligned with our values. Now lawyer please review it to ensure that we've not missed anything and or not taken something out that really does from a legal standpoint need to be included. That was an important aspect of the process to have that final filter. As we also talk about decolonizing the document, it's really important to also talk about how decolonization was a part of the actual process. It was very, very intentional to have Holly and Jim be co-leads on this work because it would be impossible for one person and should not be expected that one person could drive this work forward. The way in which we involved other folks from the board and our member community was really vital, and how we engaged them at different points in the process to say, hey, we've had a lot of conversations, small group conversations, this is where we're going.
We're offering it up to you for your comments and your feedback and any additional thoughts. Where are there points of ease in this process or the way in which we're going and where are there points of real tension that we now need to go back into our small group and kind of tussle with and work through? Again, periodic points in bringing the progress and where we were in the process to the full board was not a part of the entire process, but it was critical to have them aware and engaged. And then the full rewrite and then of course engaging the lawyer, and then doing the final vote. And actually again, I'm going to go back to where we are in process around this. We just voted on them this year, so in April 2023.
So again, I'm giving scope of time and intention and care and noting we need to slow this process down, or the three of us are too close to it, let's now give it to someone else, review it and give us feedback. Maybe we're not noticing something that we need to really notice. It's just so important to name as being a part of the process, even how you go about it. You really have to be intentional and think about it.
Jim Leija:
If I can rewind back to this whole transition that we undertook with the presenter's council, manager's, council, agents council, so these are all of our major affinity groups that are written into the bylaws. And they give you kind of a blueprint of how the organization was formed, sort of its history. What we were really trying to work around was this question of these groups are centered in our governance structures, and then there are all these other affinity groups that have formed in the past 10, 15 years that are not in the bylaws that function like these affinity groups that do not have a seat on the board. What we were trying to do is kind of untangle what of these sort of legacy structures are still valuable and meaningful and they have a lot of equity, cultural capital and equity built up in them and which are emerging?
Do they need to be a part of the governance structure? Are they a program of Dance/USA, are they a kind of member project of Dance/USA, or are they a part of how the organization is governed? We ended up taking all the councils out of the governance structure, and I think this is where we get into the nitty gritty, which was really uncomfortable for people because we're also doing this work in the current structure where there's a number of council chairs that are board members that are essentially involved in a conversation about losing their seat on the board. As the work unfolded, there were so many individual and group conversations with current council chairs, past council chairs, individuals who really could read the ecosystem both in a sort of forward-looking and kind of legacy perspective. Where were we going to step in it?
Who was going to be resistant? Because it's not just about like, okay, we make the change in the document. Then we have to live into it. One of the truisms also of board work for most people is that it is episodic. You walk into a meeting four times a year or six times a year or whatever. Maybe you're not paying attention, there's not a whole lot of continuity necessarily in between unless you're doing intensive work like this, that we had to do a lot of intensive communicating outside of the structure of those board meetings. So calling meetings with folks, and even then folks forgetting or not remembering, or having a different recollection of what we discussed and really coming to the realization that, oh yeah, if this moves forward, I'm not on the board anymore. And that's happening in real time.
And so there is sort of no amount of over-communicating when it comes to doing work like this. Memos on our progress, check-ins, all these phone calls, Zoom meetings, really productive, important. And also sometimes they don't land or people don't remember or people just aren't necessarily connected to the idea right in that moment, and that means that there are lots of fits and starts along the way and we make adjustments as we go.
Holly Bass:
There's such a kind of discrepancy between what we as the folks we're leading the process we're experiencing versus some of those board members who might have been invited. We invite you to learn more, but unless it's mandatory, and I understand we're all busy people, so folks wouldn't necessarily show up along the way. And in my mind I'm like, we have explained this over and over. It's so clear in my mind that we've done this, and then you get to the moment where it's time to vote and people are like, this is the very first time I'm hearing this [inaudible 00:25:22]. You're like, what? I was like, Kellee, what? Are we having another call? Another call? Yes, Holly, another call.
Jim Leija:
When that happened and it did, it was another moment of just sort like, okay, if we're living into our values, we're sort of pressing pause to address what's happening, giving people the space to absorb and digest, and then kind of moving on from there.
Tim Cynova:
And that's not unique. It's all theoretical until, oh, it's actually right there and it's going to mean something, and then how do you design into those values and hold those values? And also it's not work in the world stop. It's not like you had two years off to do this. Wondering where the friction existed as you're trying to do this work and realizing the more you get into it, oh, there's some problematic stuff here, and also that's governing the organization. That's what the legal document. Are there any examples that as you reflect on, resonate for you at that intersection? Or maybe where your expectations of this work met with reality.
Holly Bass:
One of the things for me as we stated, bylaws are dry. It was difficult for me to motivate to get in there and like, oh yeah, that's what I want to do. After working eight hours at my regular job, I now want to go dive into these bylaws. But one of the things that really helped was being able to co-work. Jim and I would say, okay, we're going to get on Zoom for 45 minutes or for 90 minutes and we're going to plug away, and then you get a little momentum and you could do your independent work and come back to it.
Jim Leija:
The way that we finished was we had our first in-person board meeting last spring and I went to DC where Holly lives and we sat around her table and just literally went line by line to finish the work together. So it is kind of labor-intensive. I'm a bit of a policy wonk. I'm the board member who's the first question I ask is give me the budget and give me the bylaws so that I understand what's going on. So I kind of love bylaws, and also have a real very more than full-time job. And I think that in the context of the work too, over those years, those pandemic years, you just feel people's overload.
I know you've talked about this before on the podcast. It's sort of that idea of how do you hold on and not sort of retreat from the need for change, but many of us felt very acutely in that pandemic moment or was maybe catalyzed or crystallized in those moments. And to keep going back to the idea that the reason that we needed to do this had to do with justice and had to do with equity. It had to do with our great love of dance just period, and the idea that we want to give people the best circumstances for creating, touring, presenting dance in their communities nationally, internationally, all of them. This is not just hypothetical. These are the building blocks upon which we actually change our sector.
Kellee Edusei:
I'm reflecting because I'm also realizing that yes, it was in April 2023 that the two of you started the body doubling on the finalization of the bylaws, like really go line by line. Which means that we voted on those bylaws in June 2023. So I think for me, I did not realize how important it would be to be honest in the work. And what I mean by that is the three of us had to be really honest in what our capacity was at that time, what our energy level was at that time, what were our needs in order to get to the next stage in the work, and being really attuned, being attuned to each other's needs, but also noting when we needed to say, okay, we're going to set this down for a month because we have other things that we need to tend to, whether in our personal lives or in our work lives. And perhaps we now need to pull in X, Y, Z board member to now offer some feedback and help see whatever we've just worked on in a different way, which I think was really important.
One of the things that I do want to say that as we sort of think about perfectionism, noting that that was also a big piece of this process, we needed to own the fact that every part of it wasn't going to be fully perfect, and yet it was still vital and important to share with the board to have those many calls with them, or individuals from our member community. Jim earlier on talked about as a part of this process, we thought about the functionality of our board committees and what board committees do we actually need in order to run and govern the organization. And so we did remove a number of board committees noting that the work of those former board committees could be done in a different kind of way within the organization. One of those board committees that was removed from the bylaws was our programming committee.
In conversation with folks from the community, one idea that arose was this notion of impact groups, and so these impact groups now have a place to grow and be nourished within our organization. Impact groups are meant to make an impact on Dance/USA's operation. They're meant to be very specific on whatever it is that they need to be impacting in that moment. Again, a co-chair model for these impact groups, at least one Dance/USA trustee needs to be on the impact group, and the impact group really needs to be an inclusive space and representative of the larger, wider dance ecosystem. So an example of that was our conference. While we're doing this bylaws process, we're also planning for our first in-person conference since 2019. Typically the programming committee would do that work, but we launched and we really tested what an impact group could be with our conference programming impact group. And the outcome that, in my opinion, I thought was really beautiful.
It had a co-chair model. It was very inclusive of individuals from the dance ecosystem that maybe would never perhaps if we stuck with the same bylaws ever have a place on the Dance/USA board and being able to have a leadership role. And because of that, it gave us an opportunity to build new relationships with folks in the ecosystem that we didn't have before. And that relationship building was really rooted in trust. We are trusting you to help us and collaborate with us and partner with us on building and curating the conference container for the field.
I continually reflect on how important the impact groups were in that moment for our conference, and how important they will continue to be as we as an organization continue to transform and really create a space and a container that is Dance/USA in the dance ecosystem that really is rooted in inclusive, equitable practices where folks who have historically not had a place within the organization or "a seat at the table" can access that and be fully present. And that the relationship is not one-sided, but it's very reciprocal.
Holly Bass:
Another key element to the process that I think would be helpful for other organizations, is Dance/USA hired an outside facilitator, particularly for those initial small group meetings, which we call tiny task forces. And that's something really important. Oftentimes you need someone who is familiar with your work but isn't enmeshed in the work to help you create that framework to help you set the values, the timeline. And our board chair Anne Wong, have to give her a great shout out. She was really immensely helpful in just keeping everyone calm and keeping us on track. And Anne would be like, where are we with the such and such that has this deadline? I'm like, oh God, okay, Anne, I'm on it.
Jim Leija:
Yeah, there was a bit of a relay race at the end in terms of accountability and getting others involved to get us across the finish line. I will shout out Lisa Mount of Artistic Logistics, who was our facilitator in those early days, just a great facilitator, strategic mind, and we loved working with Lisa. And our board chair at the time was just tremendously supportive and I think also setting a tone for the conversation so that we could hear and listen to concerns, but also move towards the change, which is so important. I think another lesson learned, if I'm synthesizing too, is that sort of help with facilitation takes a little bit of the edge off the burden of staffs in terms of having to drive all of the activity all the time, and then on the other hand, I think where the rubber meets the road is we took a bunch of member activities out of the governance structure, put them firmly back into the program management portfolio for staff.
And definitely that is a conversation you want to be having is how does a process like this impact the operational day-to-day work that the staff has to do while the process is unfolding and then afterwards in terms of it's easy for us to say, okay, we've made this change and we're moving them out of governance, but they still exist and expect a sort of high level of service as member affiliates. And they're important constituents of the organization, so that's a important message, which is to say, you're not over here anymore, but you're over here and you're still important. It's sort of just like opening the center or there's just more in the center, I guess, as we think about where the organization's efforts are focused.
Tim Cynova:
Our time has flown by on the conversation. As we land the plan on our conversation today, where do you each want to land it?
Kellee Edusei:
This is not, I guess, really revolutionary, but I think it's important to acknowledge that change is hard and it's difficult, and yet it's necessary and it's something that we must do in order to evolve and transform, and if you are an organization that is values centered, at some point you made a choice to be value centered, so you either got to make sure that your practices are aligned with it, or reestablish what those values are. I would say change is hard, but you got to stay committed to it and really, really own the practices of those values.
Jim Leija:
It's like even though it's a piece of paper, it's not about the piece of paper, it's about the community and it's about the relationships, and I think that's probably 99% of our work is that sort of interpersonal work, and this process was no different. We're rewriting a document, but we're actually rewriting the community and we're rewriting our patterns and our behaviors. And even though bylaws are dry, we must resist our boredom and remember that we have to lean into these structures to get to where we want to be, ultimately.
Holly Bass:
A really robust community has to be able to hold and contain conflict and disagreement, and sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking we want everyone to be happy to the extent that we're actually not living out our values. It is difficult work to align your values, your actions, your words, your finances, and your bylaws, but it can create so much fertile, generative space for the community to develop and grow.
Tim Cynova:
Holly, Jim and Kelly, thank you so much for your openness and transparency and this ongoing process for sharing the details of this really inspiring work that you've been doing. And thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Jim Leija:
Thanks for having us. It's been great.
Kellee Edusei:
Especially on a topic that's as sexy as bylaws.
Tim Cynova:
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