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From its post in America’s heartland, the 95-year-old W.K. Kellogg Foundation has achieved a diversity in grant making that has eluded many foundations: In the past decade, more than 40 percent of its grant dollars go to organizations led by people of color.
“Our work is about creating conditions in communities for children to thrive,” said La June Montgomery Tabron, CEO of the Battle Creek, Mich., grant maker, one of the country’s largest. “We didn’t start out with a quota. We didn’t start out with this going to be this or that. We started out in earnest saying, ‘Who do we need to lift up as leaders to sustain the changes that we want to achieve?’”
Montgomery Tabron — a 38-year Kellogg veteran and its leader since 2014 — joined Chronicle of Philanthropy CEO Stacy Palmer for a conversation about racial healing as part of the Chronicle’s Commons in Conversation interview series. She discussed her new book, How We Heal: A Journey Toward Truth, Racial Healing, and Community Transformation From the Inside Out, a personal reflection on her life and the foundation’s racial reconciliation work.
Montgomery Tabron has also written a new children’s book, Our Differences Make Us Stronger: How We Heal Together.
In the interview, Montgomery Tabron outlined how nonprofit leaders can pursue racial healing within their organizations and discussed the benefits that Kellogg has reaped from its work. “This journey is a very powerful journey,” she said. “Our engagement scores amongst our staff are the highest that they’ve ever been in this foundation. Our work and our productivity has increased. Our dialogue is rich, and we’re learning from one another.”
She also discussed Kellogg’s racial healing efforts in Flint, Mich., after its water crisis in the 2010s, and Buffalo, N.Y., before and after the 2022 mass shooting at a grocery store by a white supremacist. “The community came together like glue,” she said of Buffalo. “Their response was one filled with passion and healing.”
Montgomery Tabron also pushed back against the idea that support for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs is waning. “I think the narrative speaks to people moving away,” she said. “But we are working with a significant cohort of businesses, Fortune 500 businesses, and none of them are moving back.”
Watch the discussion on the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s YouTube channel or on LinkedIn with free registration. Below is a lightly edited A.I.-generated interview transcript.
A Place for All to Thrive
Stacy Palmer: Welcome everyone to The Commons in Conversation. I’m so excited all of you are able to join us for what is going to be a fascinating discussion and one that you can take action on. My guest today is La June Montgomery Tabron. I think many of you know her as head of the Kellogg Foundation, where she’s worked for many decades.
And she has been an incredible leader, really transforming the foundation in multiple ways. Today, we’re going to talk about the book she has written, not just one book, actually two books. She’s written a tale about her life and her journey and her focus on what she’s learned about racial healing. But she’s also written a children’s book, which is quite an accomplishment to be able to do while leading an entire foundation in an incredibly tumultuous period.
So I’m thrilled to have her here today. Kellogg has been a leader, really far ahead of what many other foundations have done, in trying to close divides. And so I’m very excited to talk to her about the specifics, the concrete actions that all of us can take to make a difference. But first of all, I’d love to make sure that she has a chance to tell you a little bit more about the foundation, because not all of you may know it, and about her personal history as well. So, La June, thank you for doing this. Welcome to The Commons. Let’s hear more about you and about Kellogg. For those who haven’t had a chance to meet you.
La June Montgomery Tabron: Well, thank you, Stacy, for having me in this conversation today. And I’ll just start out by saying my heart, and I’m sure all of our hearts, go out to all of the people in Los Angeles. We are with you in solidarity, and our prayers are there as well. Now to your question: The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, almost 95 years old now, was created by Will Keith Kellogg to improve the lives of children.
Our mission is to ensure that all children thrive, regardless of race, creed, nationality, etc. All children. And our work has spanned over these nine decades looking at how to create families, communities and nations and world where all children have equal opportunities to pursue their dreams, and their families can support them. So all of our work has been about looking at how to create conditions for children.
And unfortunately, as we’ve done this work, we understand that some systems are not working for our children. So our work is to promote the transformation that we as people can make so that we can create systems for children to thrive. My personal journey is woven within this context. Growing up in the city of Detroit, actually being the ninth child in my family of ten children, but seeing firsthand how systems worked well for myself, I was a part of an era where there were programs available for me to be exposed beyond my own understanding and for me to have opportunities to pursue a career.
But lately, I don’t see those same opportunities for others. And so my work is also very personal. It’s about knowing that we as people can create a place for all of us to thrive. I understand the concept of shared fate, and that is what is driving how we think about our work. It builds all of us up.
A Narrative of Division
Palmer: And I think in the book that you’ve written, you really do mix a lot about your personal life as well as all of the work the foundation has done, and that’s what makes it so interesting. I’m curious, what made you decide to write this book now? It’s called How We Heal. And I’d love to know a little bit more about what you were thinking when you got started on it and what you hope that people will take away from it.
Montgomery Tabron: Well, our nation has needed to heal for decades. Our work has been about healing. And what I’ve seen is that when this work is pursued in earnest, it works. It brings people together. And I believe that now more than ever, we need to bring people together. We need to move away from the divisive narrative and actually build our own connections.
And we know, I know, that this can be done through this work, and I wanted this story to be about the power of healing, but to tell it through my own story, the story of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the journey that we took as an organization, both internally as well as externally. And then I wanted people to see themselves in this story to begin to resonate with their own story and see the commonality across all of our humanity.
Everyone wants to be affirmed. And healing is about affirming everyone and connecting us in our fundamental truths and through our stories. And this book is just a demonstration of how healing can be so powerful, yet so simple.
Palmer: And it’s simple. But you mention also that it’s very hard, and I think you’ve gotten frustrated sometimes when people will say that’s just the soft stuff, that word “healing” feels like that. What is it that makes this approach work? Could you explain what the approach is and then why it’s so powerful?
Montgomery Tabron: Yeah, and first, I do think it’s hard, but the hardest part is taking the first step. The hardest part is realizing that we can create a new level of understanding with one another If we just take the time to create a space for us, each to be affirmed in that space, to understand one another, and to bridge what I believe is an empathy gap that we’ve developed across the nation.
And in part of that impact, the gap is there because we’ve lived such separated lives in many respects. And I speak a little bit about that in the book, how that happened through policy and practice. But yes, we have been separated in a way where conversation across differences isn’t natural anymore. I was reading something recently that said most of us do not like to have a conflict.
We avoid it, and we believe that there’s some level of threat underneath those types of conversation. And what the book shares is that the simple part is: You start with your own story. You start by affirming and telling the story that makes you who you are, and that’s uplifting. And as the conversation ensues, what you find is through this methodology, there’s commonality. There are points of interest. And there are ways to move forward, not by, you know, trying to convince the other person to absolutely take on your point of view. It is about: Where is the commonality across difference, and how do we synergize both of our truths in a way that we can build better conditions for children and families to thrive.
Takeaways for Nonprofits
Palmer: And we’ll get into a little bit more of the specifics about it as we continue this conversation. But a lot of the people who are probably listening to this conversation are people who work at nonprofits. And I’m curious, especially, what would you like them to take away from what you’ve learned from the books and then after that will tackle what foundations can learn, because they obviously have different roles.
Montgomery Tabron: The first thing I want foundations and philanthropy to take away is: We’re not espousing anything that we haven’t done ourselves at the Kellogg Foundation. And that’s part of the story in this story that I think is very important. And that is: I believe it works because I’ve done it, and our organization has taken the journey to consider changes that we needed to make internally to live this aspiration.
And what I would say to other foundations is: This journey is a very powerful journey. The result of the journey is our engagement scores amongst our staff are the highest that they’ve ever been in this foundation. Our work and our productivity has increased. Our dialog is rich, and we’re learning from one another. And that empathy gap that we speak about in the book has gotten to a place where we’re conscious and we understand that there are moments when we need to just pause and have a conversation and exercise the methodology that we’ve been supporting all over the nation and the world.
It works, and it’s about conversations. It’s about conversations that build trust, that connect people and allow them to have mutual understandings and shared understandings. And then it goes to what transformation could be for both of us, and how do we act collectively to create a different outcome in the work that we’re doing. And, you know, that’s what we want people to take from the book, that we all should engage in this space and do this hard work.
Palmer: I think one of the things that’s striking to me in terms of the results is how much the foundation has increased its grant making to organizations led by people of color. That’s been something many foundations have struggled with. And is it something like three out of four grants are going to those kinds of [groups]?. Do I have that statistic right?
Montgomery Tabron: Yes. And what if you take that back? Our work is about creating conditions in communities for children to thrive. And when you think about who are the leaders in the communities doing this work that needs support, that need reinforcement, it happens to be those that we are funding. We didn’t start out with a quota. We didn’t start out with this going to be this or that.
We started out in earnest saying: Who do we need to lift up as leaders to sustain the changes that we want to achieve? Because sustainability happens through people, and our work is about strengthening the people, the leaders, and building their networks and allowing them to build solidarity within their communities so that what we create for children can be lasting. And children benefit from these changes for a long period of time. We say at least a generation.
First Steps
Palmer: And how do you think nonprofit leaders can put some of the lessons you have in here to work? What might be some of the first steps they might take?
Montgomery Tabron: Yeah, I think the first step for a nonprofit leader would be to have a conversation with your board. And to begin to use some of the methodology of healing in telling the story to the board of who you are, how your leadership will enhance the work, and then what collective leadership could look like amongst your board. My board has actually conducted their own healing circles, where we have come together and we’ve discussed all of our stories and how each of our stories can play a part in a future for our children.
And the more diverse we are, the more we have to share these stories. Because the real result of healing is not because we’ve gathered people of many differences, it’s because we’ve learned how to work with people of many differences. And we’ve learned how to affirm them. And we’ve learned how to take their talents and blend their talents with others to create the kind of outcomes that our nation and the world needs for children and families to thrive.
Palmer: And then after the board, what’s the next step?
Montgomery Tabron: So after the board, what you’ve done when you start with the board, is you create what we call an authorizing environment. So once you have that authorizing environment, where you’re aligned and together, you know the path forward, and you’ve created shared understanding, then you can move. And I’m giving you our process there. Of course there could be others.
But for me, it went from the board to my leadership team, and I had the very same productive conversations with the leadership team. Because sometimes in foundations we work together, and yet the alignment isn’t as clear as it needs to be for staff underneath our leaders. So I used to say there were many foundations, and within my one foundation and I wanted one foundation.
So I started with my leadership team. We conducted many healing circles. We talked about what aligned leadership looks like and how it could be inspiring for our staff. And then we created agreements amongst us on how we would show up for the rest of the organization and how within that everyone is affirmed, everyone is acknowledged and rewarded for their contributions.
But the biggest contribution is what we can do together and how we can truly make impact for children and families. So we have taken that on as a very distinct part of any onboarding or any orientation for any new person, because it is the foundation by which we do our work. And so once you’ve gotten your leadership fully there and ready to execute, then we started to look for leadership throughout the entire organization.
We call ourselves a leader-full organization: Many people can make good decisions that allow for the work to progress, and that agility that we had to build within the organization and and allow for leadership to show up at every level was again, a part of what we needed to build so that we would have credibility and communities, because we were asking our community leaders to do the exact same thing, and my mantra is: Don’t ask people to do anything that you aren’t willing to do yourself. So we’re doing this work internally, and it is not perfect, but it gives us the credibility and the ability to see and have empathy for others in this space to do this work and to support them because of that.
Palmer: That term authorizing environment is really important. There’s a wonderful part in the book where you talk about a strategic meeting you had of your staff, and they expected you to just declare: These are all of the things that we’re going to do. And you said: Uh-uh. We are all part of this.
Montgomery Tabron: Absolutely. And again, you know, I’m almost four decades at the W.K. Keller Foundation. It’ll be 38 years soon. So I’ve seen that journey before. And that wasn’t the journey that I wanted us to take. It’s a journey of mutuality. This is a journey of true connections and understanding the interdependencies of all of us and our shared fate. We do this together. We reap the benefits together and children and families ultimately throughout.
Entering Communities in Crisis
Palmer: That’s who truly matters. And that’s what I’d like to turn to next. If you could talk a little bit about some of the communities. Are there one or two examples of communities where you’ve seen this work and can you tell us a little bit about what actually happened, how the transformation took place?
Montgomery Tabron: Yes, there are a couple. There are many, actually. But the one that I thought of was the work that we did in Flint. Remember, the work started out about the water crisis, and we supported the leadership in the city as they were thinking through the consequences of that crisis and understanding how to move forward and protect the children and families of Flint.
And we had healing circles. We supported the work. They were part of our truth, racial healing and transformation efforts, where they were having healing circles. They were a part of this journey. The leaders were learning the work, and that was great. And, of course, they came up with great solutions. But where it really paid off was several years later, when COVID hit, they were prepared.
They had come together. There was no blame or shame. And that moment it was: How do we rise to this new crisis, and how do we work together to achieve the best outcome for all of our families? And it worked. And it was because of the work they had done to truly connect all of the leaders together. And instead of years of blaming and pointing fingers, they learned how to work together and to create the kind of transformation that’s needed during these very tough moments.
So that’s an example. And as I say, that one, because of the endurance of this work, once you do it, and you understand how to have a conversation that’s meaningful but yet affirming, you don’t forget you constantly are leaning into these conversations and wanting to gain a shared understanding and decrease what could be an empathy gap across differences.
So that’s one. And another one that I like to share is again, the work that we were doing in Buffalo. If you remember, there was the terrible shooting at the grocery store. But our work with Buffalo started many years before that incident. And actually Buffalo had started the work even before the foundation supported their work. But they were really beginning to think about how do we create systems so that everyone in Buffalo has an opportunity to a quality work environment.
And they were bringing business leaders to the table and trying to think through: How do we open doors for everyone in Buffalo? And part of that was our truth, racial healing, and transformation work, bringing them together, bringing in healing facilitators for their conversation so they could begin to, you know, layers deep as far as understanding go deeper, where is that shared understanding? How do we develop empathy for the systems that we’re trying to address? And then there was this terrible shooting. Again, the community came together like glue. Their response was one filled with passion and healing. And in fact, when we reached out, they said: The best thing you could do is send more healing practitioners. Our people need to come together.
Our people need to dialogue. And we have a sense that we’ve begun to promote supporting the practice of professionalizing healing practitioners so that they can be everywhere in these tense moments and provide the dialogue that moves us forward. That doesn’t create more tension, but affirms one another in a way that allows us to work together.
A Retreat From DEI?
Palmer: That really shows the power of the results, that’s what they wanted, that they knew that that’s what they needed. And also the fact that you have businesses and others involved, that it’s not just on the nonprofit is absolutely crucial. We’re in this period in which there are incredible challenges, especially at policy levels. There’s been Supreme Court decisions, businesses have been pulling back on some of their commitments, and indeed, some of the foundations are pulling back. What do you see ahead, and what would you like to see in this difficult period? How can people push through it?
Montgomery Tabron: Yeah, and that’s what we have to do. We have to push through it. We are not retreating. I see that our work is making a difference. I see progress. I think the narrative speaks to people moving away. But we are working with a significant cohort of businesses, Fortune 500 businesses, and none of them are moving back. They have indicated that they see the business case of this work.
They see the growth, and their ability to be distinctive and advance and perform better than others. And they’re not going to stop from this work. All of our partners are saying: You know, we don’t want to break the law, but there’s work here that is just about good business. And we are going to continue. I see that in every part of corporate America.
It’s interesting, you hear the narrative that people are retreating, but an interesting study conducted by Harvard. There were 15 anti-DEI shareholder proposals in 2023, and then they doubled to 30 anti-DEI proposals to shareholders in 2024. So, yes, there was this movement of people wanting to push the legal language and to stop companies from doing this work.
But no one ever talks about the fact that all of those proposals failed to receive majority vote. They all failed. So what we’re not speaking about, which we need to highlight, is that this work is making a difference, is improving lives. And while there is this narrative that people are retreating, what I’m finding actually is that people are learning to embed this work within their actual fiber and thought process in a way where it doesn’t have to be a program, it’s how we run good business. That’s how we work. Yep. And that’s what people are doing.
Palmer: And I think one of the things that’s interesting, I’m not sure if everybody knows, that you came up in the foundations through the finance side, so you had a special credibility when you talked about the impact on business, on process. It wasn’t just the programs that you saw it.
Montgomery Tabron: That’s exactly right. And, you know, again, we are learning, and what I do think you have to learn is your audience and how do you share these messages in different audiences. And that language is critical. And it was part of our journey to learn. How do you have a conversation with a business executive? And today, you know, we have over 800 such executives, part of our expanding equity cohort.
We work with them on a regular basis, but that was part of our journey of learning. How do you do that and resonate in a way that they care and they see that it matters?
Palmer: You’ve used the word “learning” a lot throughout this conversation, which I really appreciate. You’re starting the learning at a really young age with your other book, which is for children. Could you talk a little bit about what that book is intended to do, and how you hope it will be spread across the country?
Montgomery Tabron: Absolutely. The story of the children’s book is a story that I wish every child had heard. I hadn’t heard that story as a young person. I experienced what for me was a traumatic experience where I was separated from my best friend who happened to be a white girl and didn’t know how to process that. And I have shared, as I’ve gone through this process of writing the books.
It was as if I took my life’s journey over in a very analytical way. And I say: Everyone should have to do this and have to go through their life’s journey in a way that’s even more powerful and impactful than living it out. And so this book is really sharing that experience in a very powerful way, that embeds healing into how young people at a very early age can process differences and see that differences are powerful factors that make us all stronger.
And the name of the book is Our Differences Make Us Stronger. And it’s the story that I wish all children can hear and resonate with. And it was written in a way where it can be read to very young children even before they are reading. But I want this book to be read to children in every household around the world.
And we are going to translate the book in Spanish and Creole. And we do. It is just a very affirming story for young people at a young age to see that our children are worth connecting with and playing with and loving.
Palmer: I hope we’ll get to see you do a reading for a group of children. I think that would be really powerful. I am so sorry that this conversation has flown by for me, and I hope for our audience, and we are getting to the point where we need to wrap it up. But I’d love, you know, there are probably many people who are listening who would like more information and would like to know what they can do. There’s a website I think we can point them to. What would you suggest?
Montgomery Tabron: Absolutely. And I want you first to know that January 21st is our National Day of Racial Healing. This is our ninth annual National Day of Racial Healing. Please go to Day of Racial Healing dot org, and you can find all of the information on how to connect to the day. At the end of the day, we do want you to act.
We want you to think about your own story, resonate with your story as you think about how to uplift others and their stories. And then think about someone who you could have a conversation with, maybe a conversation you’ve been avoiding, but use the tools and the practices that are available to have a conversation across difference, to close the empathy gap and build shared understanding.
Palmer: Thank you for everything you do. And thank you for this conversation. Thank you for these two wonderful books, and thank you for leading this work at the Kellogg Foundation that’s trailblazing and really shows what kinds of results philanthropy can achieve. I know all of us have learned a great deal from it and will continue to learn from you and from Kellogg. So thank you for all of that.
To everybody in the audience, I hope you’ll stay up with all that we’re doing in The Commons. It’s a special section of our website. It’s got a weekly newsletter. You can join our LinkedIn group. There are all kinds of ways to connect with us, and we would love to hear what kinds of things we can do to help you work to heal, divides. Thank you all for joining us and have a good rest of your day.
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