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.