Giving Forward Podcast: ‘Homecoming’ with Michael Meyers

Nina Waters 

Hi, I’m Nina Waters, President of The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida. Welcome to Giving Forward, a new podcast where we take you behind the scenes, sharing the real stories of philanthropists and nonprofits that have shaped our community here in Northeast Florida. Today, I’m talking with Michael Meyers, an attorney, the first president of the LGBTQ Community Fund for Northeast Florida, and a current trustee of The Community Foundation. Our conversation today is about how a Jacksonville son, who thought he would never return, made the decision to come back and give back, to make this community a better place. Hi, Michael, thanks so much for being here today.

Michael Meyers 

It’s a pleasure.

Nina Waters 

I want to start out with the beginning. So you are from Jacksonville, you grew up here, you moved away for many years, and then you came back here to raise your family. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Michael Meyers 

Sure. So when I graduated from high school and left Jacksonville, it was really with the intention of not coming back. There were a number of things here that I didn’t particularly like. Fast forward to 2005. I lived in New York with my husband, Chad Labenz, and we were about to become parents of twins. We knew that we didn’t want to raise them in Manhattan, so we needed to figure out where we were going to go. And we had been traveling down here a reasonable amount to do things with my family. We both loved the beaches, and I had overall fond memories of my childhood. So after a good bit of negotiation and discussion, we decided we would move to Jacksonville.

Nina Waters 

And what was Chad’s reaction?

Michael Meyers 

He was cautious. One of the things that we did to prepare for this was on one of his trips down, we had been introduced to Cindy Watson at JASMYN. And he went to see her and asked her, “Cindy, what’s it going to be like to be two men raising kids in Jacksonville?” And Cindy basically said, “It will be fine, provided that you are open about who you are and that you just be yourselves.” And we basically have followed that advice, and it’s worked out really well, I would say.

[JASMYN was founded in 1994 to support the empowerment of LGBTQIA+ teens and young adults through leadership, advocacy, resources, and a safe and affirming community. Cindy Watson has been CEO of JASMYN since 1998.]

Nina Waters 

So here you are with a daughter and son both rising seniors in high school at Bolles. And it’s been a good journey, it sounds like, coming back to Jacksonville.

Michael Meyers 

It’s worked out really nicely.

Nina Waters 

I’m really glad to hear that, actually. That’s great.

Michael Meyers 

The first thing that we did together was work on the LGBTQ Fund. Right? You recruited me into that. And it had some history even before I got involved.

Nina Waters 

It did. I guess it was 2011, Jeff Chartrand, who is a donor at The Community Foundation and a friend, had moved to California to LA because it was a more welcoming place, in his view, for his lifestyle of being a gay man in Jacksonville. So when he moved to LA, it opened up an entire world of programs and services and initiatives that really supported gay people in the community. And he really wanted that for his hometown. So he was coming back and forth to Jacksonville often. And he approached us and said, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could start an LGBTQ fund at The Community Foundation?” At the time, you know, in 2010/2011, we hadn’t done anything in LGBTQ philanthropy. We hadn’t worked in that space. So I will never forget this. We were sitting at the Fox Restaurant for breakfast having this conversation. And I said it’s something we would be open to, but we had to understand LGBTQ philanthropy much more before we could jump into that. So we decided to start an exploratory committee. And he helped to name the people that were on that committee of 28 people. It met for over a year, and it was a wonderful opportunity for The Community Foundation to really understand LGBTQ issues in Northeast Florida – something we didn’t have a lot of experience with. But more importantly, the exploratory committee did just that – they explored. And they looked at where could philanthropy make a difference in Northeast Florida. They came up with several recommendations for our board and our staff to consider. The first one was getting our own personnel policies in order when we look at sexual orientation. So we did make some changes there. And the other thing that they said, a long-term goal, was that they wanted a fund that was created to support LGBTQ issues in this community. And remember that this happened before we had an HRO [Human Rights Ordinance], before gay marriage was passed. So we decided that we would do some research on where philanthropy can make a difference. So the exploratory committee sun-setted after a year, and then we did some research on LGBTQ individuals in Northeast Florida. What were the services? What was out there? Where could philanthropy make a difference? We did four research reports. And then we had a wonderful living room conversation at the Chartrands’ house. And I think that’s when we first met, in the Chartrands’ living room, when we brought together a group of people to say: Does this make sense? Is this something that you would support? Is this something that’s welcomed in the community? Then I’m gonna let you take it from there.

Michael Meyers 

I attended a few of these gatherings around trying to get a fund going. And I have to say at the beginning of the conversations, I was somewhat skeptical about, really, why do this? Because it seemed to me that there were some number of LGBTQ organizations in the community, and if people wanted to support them, why not just give them money? What value add were we? That I had to kind of overcome. The other initial impression I had was just how The Community Foundation had gotten there – the thoughtful process of trying to do the fact-gathering and understanding the needs of the community. So even though I was somewhat skeptical, I came away very, very impressed with it. So if we fast forward a little bit, what ended up happening was that we started a giving circle that was modeled basically on the Women’s Giving Alliance, which is a very successful giving circle at The Community Foundation. I became the first chair of it. And we started going out and raising money, and then figuring out what we were going to do, what issues we were going to tackle in the community. I think that my skepticism got answered some by seeing the function and the role that we played of being kind of a clearinghouse for the initial not-large number of organizations that were doing things. But we kind of knew what all of them were. And we tried to be proactive and thinking about, okay, how can we use this money to make things better. An example of one of our first-year grants was to JASMYN, and at the time (this is hard to believe today), they didn’t have a development director. So we partially funded their initial development director. But we also looked at what they were doing and said it would be useful for you all to update your strategic planning. So we gave them another grant to do the strategic planning.

[Created in 2014, the LGBTQ Community Fund brings together individuals focused on building an inclusive and welcoming environment, while celebrating a supporting Northeast Florida’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community. It has awarded nearly $800,000 in funding to date, making substantial grants to organizations and investing in local research and convenings.]

Nina Waters 

It’s amazing how they’ve grown. And I think the power of collective giving is that individually, not one member could have funded a development director, but collectively pooling our resources together, we were able to provide that for JASMYN – a position they now still have, and still have the funding to support.

Michael Meyers 

Another piece of work that I thought was very important for the community was a number of us were talking about the lack of data about the LGBTQ community. So in 2017, we ended out reaching out to the Williams Institute, which is the leading data think-tank for LGBTQ issues – it’s housed at UCLA – to see if they would work with us on doing a community needs assessment, which they were interested to do in Northeast Florida.

Nina Waters 

It was the first one ever.

Michael Meyers

 This was really the first one that you would say was scientifically valid, in terms of the data collection. We then provided some money ourselves, went out and raised some money in the community, and then did a needs assessment. And we used that needs assessment to rethink what kinds of things we were funding at the fund, as well as a number of other funders in the community have used that needs assessment to determine direction of their funding. I think people are now more comfortable with saying that this is part of what we’re doing at The Community Foundation than we used to be. That we do it so data-driven now makes the integrity of the work pretty much unassailable. And that we do it in a way that is respectful of our donors and of the community and of people who are impacted by it, I think, is all just part of what contributes to what I’ve called the gold standard. I just think it’s a great thing that we do. I think that the LGBTQ Fund is a good example of it. This was something that was not necessarily at the top of everyone’s list at The Community Foundation, and you all took it on. I have anecdotally heard that a few people weren’t so happy about it. So how do you handle this?

Nina Waters 

No, it was it was hard at the time. You have to think about Jacksonville in…I guess, 2013. The conditions were very much kind of like they’re getting back to now, unfortunately. We knew we were going to launch an LGBTQ Fund. And we also knew that there were going to be donors that were going to be challenged by that, because it was a new area for The Community Foundation – and an area that was controversial, quite frankly. We have donors at The Community Foundation, like any community foundation, that are at all ends of the spectrum politically, religion, race, everything. So we knew that there would be a part of The Community Foundation supporters that this would be a challenge for. So I went to 11 different donor families that I thought that there would be some tension and met with them proactively prior to the fund being launched. And the first person I met with, I had the sheet about LGBTQ Fund in front of me and I sat it down before I was able to start talking, and he said, “What in the world is that?” And he didn’t use those exact words. And I said, “Okay, this is what I’m here to talk to you about.” And I explained that a donor came to us, we’ve done our homework, we did the research, we pulled the data, we spent two-and-a-half years with this exploratory committee, and all of that. And by the end of the conversation an hour later, he said, “Okay, Nina, this is how you’re going to sell this.” He said, “We’re a community foundation, we are the community’s foundation, we serve all donors. So you need to let people know that this was an idea that came from a donor, and it’s our responsibility to serve the entire community.” So by the end of the conversation, well, I don’t think that he was going to be giving any money to the fund or becoming a member, but he was helping us to say why this is important for The Community Foundation – and how do we make that case. And I used that information when I went to those other 10 families. I won’t say that every family was on board, and we did lose a few donors. But we gained donors, as well. And after a few years, when those few donors saw that it was not…it didn’t change The Community Foundation, it didn’t change what we could do for them or other parts of the community, they came back. I think that’s the important way, you have to do these things with respect for everyone. And you have to do your homework and make sure that everyone has a chance to be heard.

Michael Meyers 

Right. And I do think that it’s a good example of the tagline of how I think about The Community Foundation: a local charity that connects donors with their philanthropic interest. That’s what we’re here to do. So that is a perfect example of our fulfilling that role. So then a little bit after that, we ended up deciding to change the financial structure of the fund from a giving circle to an endowed field of interest fun, so maybe you can talk a little bit about that.

Nina Waters 

At the fifth anniversary of the fund, we had a wonderful event in the community that really changed the direction, I think, of the giving circle. And it was the Many Sides of Pride event. It changed our logo, it changed our tagline to being “the many sides of pride.” We also, at that event, at the fifth anniversary, were able to announce that an endowment had been established for the LGBTQ Fund. We started out the fund without an endowment component because the members really felt that the dollars needed to go out in the community quickly. There weren’t enough dollars, so don’t tie it up in endowment. But after five years and showing the success of the fund, two families stepped up in a large way to seed a $1 million endowment – the Chartrand family and Delores Barr Weaver. We were able to announce that $1 million endowment at that five-year mark. Here we are getting close to the 10th anniversary, and we’ve invested more than a million dollars in grant-making. And we’re trying to decide and have decided what is the future of the LGBTQ fund. And clearly, the idea is that the permanence, especially in our state and the country as it is today, we feel that we need to grow a permanent fund to support LGBTQ issues in Northeast Florida forever. So we’re really focusing now on estate gifts and those type of gifts that can grow the fund in a larger way. So Michael, as the fund launched and we became more public about the fund, did it change your feelings about Jacksonville?

Michael Meyers 

Yes, I think in a way, around the time we launched the fund, the HRO was also going through either its first or second chapter. And I think that process really demonstrated the divide in Jacksonville. There are a number of people who think, okay, the world includes LGBTQ people, let’s get on with it and treat everybody in an inclusive fashion. And then there’s a whole other group of people that just don’t feel that way. The first time that HRO failed, and the second time it passed. I guess for me, the whole experience kind of validated our belief that we could move here and do it. But it also makes one realistic about what the opposition looks like. And certainly, fast forward to today, all of this is being played out, certainly in Florida, but in many ways, it’s being played out across the country right now.

Nina Waters 

It really is. And that’s why I’m pleased that we have an endowed fund because people felt like, oh, things were changing and moving forward. And progress is being made, and certainly progress was. But this reminds us there will be issues that need to be funded for LGBTQ people in this community forever, and those issues will change over time. And the fund is flexible enough that it will change with it.

Michael Meyers

Yep.

Nina Waters

So you got acquainted with The Community Foundation as chair for five years of the LGBTQ Fund – quite a term – and then got asked to be on The Community Foundation Board. So talk a little bit about why you were interested in that and why you said yes to us.

Michael Meyers 

It actually was not a particularly hard question to answer. Through my work with the LGBTQ Fund, I got to know both the staff of The Community Foundation and really how the organization operated. We talked some about the way things are analyzed from a factual perspective of trying to gather data and make decisions based on facts. And then getting to know you and getting to know the staff, I was just amazed at the depth of the connections that are true locally and regionally and nationally. So that when The Community Foundation does something, I sort of feel like we do it with the state-of-the-art kind of technology and approaches. It was an honor and a privilege to get to be part of it.

Nina Waters 

And you’ve lent a lot to that too, Michael, your legal background, your attention to detail. And I think for me as the president driving us, pushing us to be more civic-minded, more focused on advocacy, potentially moving maybe into the public policy arena more (we’ve done a good amount of that, but we’re scratching the surface really), I think it is helpful to have trustees that have varied interests and have varied backgrounds and are able to lend that to the board discussion, and really change the board discussion in many ways. So I think it’s been really helpful to have you.

Michael Meyers

Thank you.

Nina Waters

Michael, talking about community leadership work – several years ago, State Attorney [Melissa] Nelson asked you and me and Judge Davis (Brian Davis, who’s our board chair currently), and Buddy Schultz to be on the Juvenile Justice Advisory Council, the JJAC. Buddy Schultz actually chaired it. We were on that with several other people for more than a year. Can you talk a little bit about that experience and how it led to The Community Foundation having an interest in justice reform?

[The Juvenile Justice Advisory Council (JJAC) was established in 2017 by State Attorney Melissa Nelson to bring together passionate youth and justice advocates to develop juvenile programming that will reduce recidivism rates and crime in the Fourth Circuit. The committee’s work concluded with a final report issued in May 2019.]

Michael Meyers 

Sure. Well, the starting point of it was that through some high school friends of mine, Chad and I got to know Melissa Nelson and her family. And when she decided to run for state attorney, I told her anything I can do to help, I would be very happy to do. She then got elected and formed the Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee and asked me to be part of it, which was great honor and interesting thing to do. So the work of the committee was to examine, basically, youth diversion. So what happens is when someone under 18 is arrested, they can either go through the criminal justice system, or in some places, they go through an alternative process that’s called diversion. So what we spent a year looking at was…basically, we spent it hearing from youth. We spent it hearing from police officers, from ministers, from people who had lost family members to violence. And we heard from people from other cities about how they were approaching this issue…

Nina Waters 

…which was so interesting to hear those best practices.

Michael Meyers 

Yeah, it really was. At the end of the year, we broke into some subcommittees and then came up with recommendations about what Jacksonville should do. And the recommendation was that Jacksonville should establish a youth diversion program. We took a lot of information about how to do it from how Miami does it. Melissa then took those recommendations and worked to implement them. Then a subgroup of us worked with the people at the City of Jacksonville, and specifically the Kids Hope Alliance, to set up a youth diversion system. And just to say, you know, why do this? So the statistics are that most young people who offend and get arrested will never do it again. And two, if you run them through the criminal justice system, the likelihood of their doing it again increases. It works, right, and it improves thing from a number of perspectives. One, you have some kids who otherwise are going to be more likely to break the law again and be arrested, we have the expenses of paying for those kids in the criminal justice system, and families are impacted. So it really is a win-win to have a good system like that in existence.

Nina Waters 

I think within the first 18 months, every single recommendation was completed. Usually, you and I have both been on studies and commissions and things like that, and sometimes those things, as people like to say, get left on a shelf – and this was anything but that, So as a result of that, Judge Davis, Buddy Schultz, and you and I got really interested in understanding a little bit more about criminal justice reform in the adult system. A study that was done by the Vera Institute about our jails, who was in our jails, how long they were staying in our jails – it had just been done. And I think at the end of that meeting, all of us were very concerned, and wanted to find a way that we could impact the adult system. Can you talk a little bit about that process?

Michael Meyers 

Sure. So the data, Nina, that you’re referring to, it showed a few different things. One is that Jacksonville leads the state of Florida in the per capita number of people who are in jail. The state of Florida is one of the top states in the country by the stay-in statistic, so that Jacksonville stands out as not a good place on this issue in the country. And the second thing the data showed was basically that a great number of people who are arrested for minor crimes, very often misdemeanors or lower-end felonies, they end up spending the time until their case is resolved in jail because they can’t make bail.

Nina Waters 

And many times, people that are in jail for much more serious reasons, because they can make bail, get out of jail.

Michael Meyers 

Right. So basically, what we’re doing is incarcerating a lot of poor people, many of them are people of color. It’s disruptive to their families and to their jobs and everything else. And it doesn’t make us safer. And it costs a lot of money to keep them in jail. What we did was talk to The Bail Project about coming to Jacksonville, and they have a pool of capital that they can use to put up the bail itself. And what they needed was funding to be able to operate in Jacksonville. So Nina, you went out and raised the money to basically get them started here. The most recent stats I saw said that 90% of the people who are bailed out show up for their cases, and 40% of the people have their cases dismissed. You know, it’s quite a narrow thing. It’s taking people who are relatively low-level offenders and helping them get out. And will this by itself fix our criminal justice system? No, but it is a narrow, targeted concrete step that I just think is low-hanging fruit.

[The Bail Project was founded in 2017 to pay bail for low-income people at no cost to them. It also assists with people returning to court and navigates voluntary support services while they wait for their trial. The organization is also working to provide evidence to better inform policies at the local, state, and federal levels. It recently opened three locations in Florida, including Jacksonville.]

Nina Waters 

In many cases, they’re able to get right back to work, don’t lose their jobs, they’re then with their families. It’s a critically important step in the system. The other thing that really impressed us about The Bail Project was that they provide those wraparound services to get help for people: How do you get them to get to court? How do you get the childcare? How do you get drug treatment? Or if it’s a homeless issue, how do you get them placed in a in a good program? So they’re providing those support services, as well, which I think is really important to help [people] not recidivate.

Michael Meyers 

Right, it can be the other things, as well, ranging from, you know, helping with job training or helping with an electric bill that’s due that’s going to have you become homeless. Some people have complicated lives.

Nina Waters 

And I think the important thing that we’ve tried to stress, as well, with The Bail Project is The Community Foundation is not advocating to become a no-bail city or a no-bail state. In fact, we do believe that there is a place for bail and bond. But we feel that there are people that should not be remaining in jail for the only reason that they’re too poor to be able to afford bail to get out of jail. We see this as a tool in a bigger toolbox.

Michael Meyers 

Right. We facilitate and help a lot of these things to happen, but we don’t necessarily blow our own horn about it.

Nina Waters 

I think the challenge is sometimes then people don’t realize the value of The Community Foundation because we are usually a silent partner, or behind the scenes pushing or pulling an issue to move forward. And I would say that it’s served us well. I remember when I took this job as president, Andy Bell, my predecessor, said to me, “You don’t want to be the one talking about your work, you want other people to be talking about it.” And I think there’s some truth in that.

Michael Meyers 

Yeah. I mean, I think the bottom line is it’s helping make things better.

Nina Waters 

Yes. I think I think we’ve done some of that, and there’s still a lot more to do.

Michael Meyers

Yes, there is.

Nina Waters

I’m just thankful that you and Chad made that decision so many years ago and that you’ve made this home. I think it’s made a difference in our community. And I appreciate you being on this board to continue to do that into the future.

Michael Meyers 

Thank you. It’s been a real pleasure, and our work together has been one of my favorite things.

Nina Waters 

Me, too. Thanks, Michael.