Frontline's Sweet 16 Podcast Series

In Season 2, Episode 2 of the Helping Change podcast, Micah Gilmer, Frontline Co-Founder, and Marcus Walton, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) President and CEO in conversation on the state of the philanthropic field and the relationships and accountability that are required to carry us into a new era.  At Frontline, we aim to work with valued-aligned clients whose work in rooted in liberation and is deploying strategies that are grounded in what communities most need to get there. Our work and partnership with GEO is a wonderful example of what it looks like when we're able to work with mission aligned partners in the field who are willing to be open to new ways of working, interrogate the norms and processes that have led us to this moment in time and reimagine a way forward.

Welcome to Season 2 of our "Helping Change" Podcast! This season we're focusing on showcasing our practice areas and offering insight into our approach to supporting organizations to achieve their missions and build strategies that are values aligned. In the first episode of the season, Consultants, Jouapag Lee, Claire Downing and Hafizah Omar talk about Frontline's approach to Learning & Evaluation including lessons we've learned with our clients and peers about this work.

As you know, in 2021, Frontline Solutions turned Sweet 16, and we decided to mark the milestone with a year’s worth of reflection—about our past, present, and future.. Now, to capstone our Sweet 16 campaign, we’re thrilled to share a very special episode of our podcast featuring our founder, Marcus Littles; Founder, President and CEO of the Power Coalition, Ashley Shelton; co-founder of Black Men Build and Frontline’s Organizer in Residence, Phillip Agnew; and famed visual artist, activist, and mentor, Brandan “BMike” Odums. They discuss creating and nurturing Black institutions, the past and future of organizing, the role of art and care in movement-building, how we can make a liberated Black future inevitable, and so much more. You’re going to want to tune into this one!

We celebrate Black brilliance all year. So, we're flashing back to Voice. Vision. Value's #WCW sessions. This one features our very own Dr. Jessica Barron, lead researcher on “Centering Ourselves,” a report about the leadership impact of Black Women in #Philanthropy.  Read the full report: https://voicevisionvalue.org/about/centeringourselves Watch the full Voice Vision Value WCW session. https://voicevisionvalue.org/listen

In this episode of our Sweet 16 podcast, Frontline’s Senior Director Aiko Bethea, Senior Consultants Jessica Barron and Marion Johnson, and Director of Storytelling Nadia Owusu discuss the current state of the philanthropic sector, barriers to progress related to accountability, oppressive power practices, and harmful white institutional culture. And, they imagine radical new possibilities drawn from their own experiences and from the firm’s 16-year history of working with foundations.

Recently, we were thrilled to announce that our good friend Phillip Agnew has joined the Frontline team as our inaugural Organizer in Residence. You might know Phillip is an educator, strategist, writer, trainer, speaker and cultural critic. With Black Men Build, he is organizing Black men to love and serve communities, to be critical thinkers, truth-tellers and teachers, and to transform to meet this moment. Recently, we hosted a conversation between Philip and our Founder and Senior Partner, Marcus Littles on Instagram Live, where they reflected on: What it means to build movement, Black institutions, and our best and whole Black selves in a moment of relative social isolation. And; What it means to belong, to Black communities, Black institutions, and Black causes in this moment. To view the full IG Live session, visit the @helpingchange Instagram account and watch it on IGTV.

Picking up from where the second episode of our Sweet 16 podcast left off, this month our founder Marcus Littles and senior partner Ryan Bowers discuss how we came into our own. That has meant rejecting the very white consulting firm model that says focus on yourself and be about that paper. Instead, we wanted to build a Black organization, rooted in our values and community. And, even beyond what our clients will pay us to do, we bet on our own big ideas toward racial justice and liberation.

Picking up from where the first episode of our Sweet 16 podcast left off, this month our co-founder and senior partner Micah Gilmer and CEO Melissa DeShields take us back to some of Frontline Solutions’ earliest work. We cut our teeth doing vital research on how the social sector could support boys and men of color. We helped grow that field of practice, and we’re proud of our contributions. But, we also recognized that, despite being central to our analysis, critical conversations about intersectionality, gender, and toxic masculinity often got lost. Now, we have the language and the confidence to make those issues central to everything we do.

In this inaugural episode of Frontline Solutions' podcast celebrating its Sweet 16, you'll hear about the past, present, and future of a Black-owned and led consulting firm. Founder Marcus Littles and CEO Melissa DeShields dispel pipeline myths around Black talent. Black scholars, consultants, evaluators, analysts, and facilitators are not endangered species. That truth was at the heart of the firm's founding. And, 16 years on, Frontline Solutions is still recognizing, nurturing, and showcasing Black genius in the work we do for our diverse clients.