The Giving Black Podcast
The Giving Black Podcast promotes Black philanthropy and spotlights generosity in all its forms in the global Black community.
Listen to interviews that honour the culture and tradition of giving among Black people from the African continent, to the Caribbean, Europe, the Americas and across the globe.
I am your host, Olumide Akerewusi. Here's a bit about me: I am Founder and CEO of agentsC Inc., an international company delivering fundraising, philanthropy, and social change solutions to organizations across the world. I've spent 30 years working with major philanthropists, corporations, and grant-making foundations as well as charities to grow their impact. I am also a Black philanthropist.
I hope you enjoy this podcast, which will serve as an archive of wonderful and inspiring stories about Black generosity.
You can learn more about Giving Black by visiting our website at: www.givingblack.ca.
Philanthropy Is The Heartbeat Of The World!
The Giving Black Podcast
The Producers Gleaux and Tell Series: Empathy as Strategy - How Centering Empathy Unlocks Innovation, Equity, and Sustainable Impact. MIchael Tennant
Hi Giving Black Family,
We are glad to share another brilliant episode of The Giving Black Podcast, with Queen Jade, your Host of The Producers Series: Gleaux & Tell.
In this Episode, Queen Jade speaks with Michael Tennant, the founder of Curiosity Lab and creator of the card game Actually Curious™ and The Five Phases of Empathy™, an award-winning brand strategist, he has worked with P&G, Coca-Cola, Google, Oatly, and Delta, and has spoken on empathy at NASA, IDEO, Johns Hopkins, and Lincoln Financial Group.
Michael is also the author of The Power of Empathy (named one of Inc.’s Best Business Books of 2024) and a contributing writer for Oprah Daily and Inc. Magazine. Through his frameworks, Michael helps teams build trust, uncover opportunities, and reframe challenges as roadmaps for innovation.
This is a deep conversation about the importance of knowing ourselves, shifting power, reframing challenges, and building trust as the foundation for generational wealth. People who pride themselves on working hard often sacrifice their own well-being. Yet offering ourselves grace and meaningful self-care can sharpen our awareness of what is truly happening around us. As Michael notes, fundraising requires lowering our egos enough to really see and hear others.
Michael shares his observation that there are genuine gaps in how philanthropy and fundraising pursue their missions and how they relate to the people they aim to support. We must take time to understand what sits behind the numbers, the hesitation, or the silence built into systems of counting and measuring fundraising and philanthropy.
This is a conversation that all social change agents must listen to.