Mapping the Four Sectors: A Guide for LGBTQ+ Innovators and Leaders

In my opinion, there is no such a thing. A community, an LGBTQ community, but many different communities.

And I think that the phrasing is very, very important. And as much as we will have more diversity and more organizations, I think it would be much better. And that's actually one of the pros of a private sector. But on the other hand, also the non profits are extremely, extremely important. But just like any other sector, it has its prongs and cons. Let's talk for and about the LGBT communities around the world. I'm Michael Ross and this is straight friendly. So here we're doing that.

We have very special guests for this episode. We always have special guests, but these two, two people who are really love and admire and we know each other for a long time. Back from home, from Israel. So we have Sarit. Hello. Hello. And Barack will present them. Sarit, who deals with diversity and inclusion consultancy. She's a former CEO of the Pride of Lionesse, an organization of parents of trans children and mother of a young transgender man, Sarit Ben Shimon. Hello. Hello. Hello, Hello.

So excited to be here. That is amazing. Always good to have you here. Our second guest, who recently is the vice CEO of Poshen, which is an educational and change making creating workshops and courses in order to understand the LGBTQ communities better. And he's a professional in digital marketing. Hello. Hello. Oh, hello. Nice to be here. I felt for a moment like RuPaul. Hello, hello. Hello. So I thank you very much for taking this interesting challenge of dealing about entrepreneurship.

And we will, we will dive in for a moment to deal about the different sectors. And I think you're going to have a lot, a lot to introduce here. So I will start here with some explanation that I do usually when I teach classes and courses of entrepreneurship and what I find many times that for many entrepreneurs, even people who finished business school, there's some kind of a macro overview which is many times missing, understanding better the landscape.

So we will start here with a general overview of four sectors. But please feel free to raise any opinions inside that you have. Please make it for me also to be less boring. Okay? Because if I talk economies and finances. Don'T worry, we're not going to. We're not going to let you to bore all of us. We're just going to need the information that we need to go on with the subject. Don't worry.

The activism of each and one of you is very interesting because actually both of you are dealing with different kinds of sectors and you are both also entrepreneurs. But I very much appreciate. So generally if we will try to look on the general landscape, no matter about what types of organizations we will look around either if they are hospital, a place where we buy coffee, a place where we're watching maybe a podcast and listening to.

There are lots of different kinds of organizations and we will be focusing here of course with LGBTQ + or what I like to call straight friendly organizations. But actually this information here is relevant to any kind of entrepreneurship and it actually so much related to our daily life all around us. By the way, we did this series also in Hebrew. We found out that many activists, especially people who deal with nonprofit CEOs and so on, have been using that information.

So please feel free to share to use that. If you have any questions, feel free also to comment on the video. This episode is available both on video and also on audio on our global podcast talks Straight Friendly Global so we have four sectors. The first one is the governmental. Also it can be sometimes international governmental like United Nation and people tell similar organizations.

The second sector is what is called the private sector where we talk about businesses, either if it starts from solo entrepreneurship, freelancing or small businesses like a nail salon or a dating app startup like Grindr or others. And then we will deal also with the third sectors, what is known to be the non governmental or the nonprofit, which is a very, very important sector for our discourse.

The fourth sector, which we will not be dealing that much because it depended on legislation in different countries, but we do see some trend and we will see growth in the fourth sector, what is known to being the social businesses, which is a combination of these two sectors, the private or the nonprofits.

But when we talk about the government sector, and I would say a lot of what is shaping the interest of each sector is related actually to the income, not necessarily to the business models, but to the sources of income. So usually for governments, how governments makes money, taxpayers, right for the cities. And sometimes also governments control different resources such as gold and natural minerals and so on. As we know.

Also governments are the ones who also have force either if it's a military, a police, and it's very also related police and the relations between the police and the LGBTQ plus communities. As we know, for instance in the Stonewall riots, so there were riots there against the police, against a governmental organization. And also we'll take examples also in terms of activism.

So sometimes we can decide, okay, there's some subject which we find to be very important for us, are we going to attack that subject or act be Activists in the subject, through government, through or through private sector. But for the government also, that's also the kind of activism working. We can also impact legislation. It's not only about voting, it's also about legislation. And so you're currently located in Israel. Right.

It's also an interesting case, which is one of the only countries, but actually TQ center in Tel Aviv, for instance, and also in some other municipalities is being financed by the municipality, which is a governmental institution. Also the Pride Parade, we know about several campaigns that were in the past which are related tourism to incoming tourism to Israel. So that's a very unique and interesting case. But it was not like that always.

As we know, the law which, the decriminalization of gay same sex, that happened only in the 8 of. In the end of the 80s. I would ask also for a country, you know, like, usually when people think about Israel or thinking about the Middle East, I have to say that many times when I meet people here in North America and those who are not familiar with Israel, so many times we're thinking, okay, he's a. He's from the Middle east, probably he might be massacred for being gay.

But I think it's the situation Israel is more complicated than that.

No. Yeah. I think it's really interesting because you wouldn't expect from Israel, which is a very small country, to be. I think it's confusing because in one hand we are religious and we are majority of Jewish people here, and you don't expect us to be that liberal. On the other hand, we have very powerful liberal parts of this country. And I think it's very interesting to see the conflict between those two parts of this community. And you can see it all over the place.

I can say it from my perspective of a mother of a transgender man, which, I mean, my son is going through his transition like more seven years ago. He started it and I had no idea all the things that he is going to deal with. I mean, my son had to finish school. He was in the middle of High School, 11th grade, he has to go to university, he needs health services and all these things. I had no idea that it's going to be so complicated.

And so many things that we had to deal with which you don't deal with when you're a heterosexual family. And you know, you're used to the usual things, but then one of your children comes out of closet and you understand how complex that can be and how much energy you're going to need to fight for your children just to have the Basic of the basic. It. This was just mind blowing.

And actually this is what I'm doing what I'm doing because and see how it's needed for people to talk about it and you know, to put a spotlight on it. And this is my perspective of it. I think that also what I find that the best entrepreneurs that I know are entrepreneurs that started their entrepreneurship because of their own personal pain. It comes from solving real problems. And let's say also I know that you are involved with many with many different initiatives. I have to be honest.

The way I've got to know Barack was many, many years ago. I was back then I was still in the closet and I was watching during my weekends Barack a YouTube series. It's called Patrice. Patrice was supposed to say right. Yeah. I was young and crazy back then. When I was 21. I'm. I'm still kind of rebel. You know. When I created this TV series I was like. It was like our perspective about Tel Aviv and it was like a satire almost. We wanted to. To show how we see the community.

I mean it was really cool. It was like a YouTube series and it was very viral. In times that viral wasn't a thing. It was really cool. And I really. I'm really happy that you in the closet like saw it, watched it and hopefully got inspired and then looks happened. Since then hosting a straight friendly podcast.

Yeah. And I think that it's really interesting because you know, let's say if we were just talking about governmental initiatives or funding which is very much also related to history and cultural. So let's say for the Israeli case or the generally the Middle east case, including also the Palestinian authorities, Lebanon and some of the other countries which are surrounding Israel.

So actually that legislation which was actually homophobic against same sex between men was actually legislated by the British mandate. If we will go and trace back before the colonialization, we'll say that things actually were quite different. And while we see some funding in Israel, for instance of where's the Kanahat? What was known as Channel One, which for many years was funded by the government.

And actually for these days and years is still also one of our competitors is for the Hebrew podcast is governmental. But for your case. So you created an online series. You're dealing with a digital marketing. You're dealing also with the third sector with nonprofits. But actually it's very interesting because you created a YouTube series in a time that maybe do you think there was an a content creator which funded by the government or a gay governmental TV channel.

Maybe then you wouldn't do that. Like, what made you to create that? So I really do believe I was born, like, at the exact time when I was, like, growing up. I saw Yossi and Jagger. I don't know if the audience know this movie, but you definitely should look for it. And I was inspired to see, like, two men in the army, like, having a romance and grew up on that. And just like, you know, like, in art and culture, when it feels right and when you want to say something, you're gonna say it.

You don't need funding for making art. This is, like, the most important and amazing thing with it. Art comes from the heart. But when people see opportunities, for example, to create an impact or creating something bigger, then, of course, it's amazing to have money to create art. And so, for me, it just, like, felt right. I was, like, young. I was crazy. I was like, again, like a rebel. And I just, like, wanted to do it happily.

Nowadays you have lots of creators and entrepreneurs Online that creating LGBTQ + content and showing visibility and they earning money for this. So it's amazing as influencers, back then, there wasn't like, this term, like influencers. So. Yeah. And by the government, I gotta say, go back a little bit. For the previous, I would say yes, we live, like, in a really hard place, very religious. But I'm gonna say we worked for our rights and we worked for our funds.

And it's really important to put it as a community. We did it. And for example, my organization, when I used to work like Hoshin, and we got every year we have, like, funding from the government to create courses and workshop for high school students in order to meet and personally, people from the LGBTQ community, which is amazing. But again, we fought for it, and they didn't just, like, present it as here, take some money to create, like. Even try to cancel. We still have to fight for it.

We still have to fight for it. I mean, it doesn't matter how liberal we are here, we still have to fight for our children to be able to see someone that they can imagine themselves growing into. Because I think one of the things that is very hard for younger people, which are from the LGBTQ plus community, they feel weird and they feel like something is wrong with them. And I can see it all over the place when I meet the families and I meet them, you know, work with them.

And I think this is so important what Hoshan does here, because this is actually the governmental. Because this is. You're talking about education. We are talking about influencing education in the schools, in the high schools and talking about it and you know, making it's amazing. And just think of, just imagine how far we came that h this organization is working together with the educational Ministry in Israel and they're working together every year.

This is like, it's a dream come true for like the LGBT community. And again, we need always to keep an eye that we going to get it every year. So it's always. Absolutely ongoing fight. We know that it's an ongoing fight and we definitely cannot take things for granted. As we see also how in some countries around the world, the situation and the legislation actually went backwards towards the LGBTQ plus communities. We see how all the time it's going up and down.

And maybe this is also one of the cons of initiatives which are running either through the government or in cooperation with. Because since eventually the people who are deciding about the funding of the people who are in power and that can change. And I just think about it. Koshan founded 20, 20 years ago by a group who just wanted to create personal experiences to meetings with the LGBTQ community.

They were like, just like a bunch of people like going from there to there and like hello, like want to talk now? And so we can meet. And we came far and now we have like more than hundreds of people like volunteering and working in this organization. It's amazing. So we will have a short break just after every break. We will continue to our sector to being to be non profit. The production of this episode came to.

Reality thanks to the support of the Friedrich Naumann foundation for Freedom in Jerusalem. So while the governmental sector, its funding are governmental based on the tax payment also a lot affected by political issues, governmental issues as well. And of course we cannot also ignore international politics. They have also the second sector and the third sector. The second sector businesses from freelancers to small businesses to startups and larger corporates.

But we will focus now mainly with the third sectors, as known to be as the nonprofit and the non governmental sector. Many times when we see like making legislation or getting governmental funds can take a lot of time. We had the example here for instance of Hoshen, which today is collaborating with the Ministry of Education in Israel, as also in some other countries as well.

But actually what we see that a lot of entrepreneurship, a lot of the rights that we know about started activists who didn't even form any kind of entity, who take the examples, for instance of a Stonewall riots that took place in New York City on June 1969, way before it was registered as, or it's a nonprofit or anything like that. Like activism can start even without being registered.

But eventually, if we want to grow and form some kind of entity, most probably it will start through the nonprofits. Because nonprofits are designed to deal with social causes, many times causes that governments are not dealing with. We can see for instance in some countries when a country is not dealing with environmental issues, for instance, so for example Greenpeace today, everyone are talking about the global warming and some other environmental stuff.

We see also global legislation, also the ESG that corporates have to deal with. But actually a lot of it started way before, but by different non profits. And actually for many governments it was contradicting their interest, dealing with pollution or selling some specific, for instance, fossil fuels and so on. So sometimes there can definitely be clashes in terms of interest. We cannot ignore that eventually money, money shapes a lot of other things here. Money makes the world go around.

It's all over the place, no matter where you are. That's exactly no matter what the subject is. Yes. And also, I think also we cannot deny also the fact that the money affects politics also in terms of non profits, first of all, because the way nonprofits are, are shaped, that they must have both, let's say a CEO and people who work for. And there's also the board, the board and a chairperson that can involve politics. Also the income is dependent mainly on donations, on donors, on foundations.

Although we do see some trends, like for instance with the Obama campaign, where the fundraising was done by regular people who could contribute a monthly payment of $5, for instance. So we do see some changes in these trends, but generally for nonprofit, it is all shaped by the income model of donations, but also can bring a lot of competition in terms of agility. It's not like startups, for instance, that are very technological oriented and they're into the profits.

So the pace is definitely different when it comes to nonprofits.

And I would love to ask you dear guests here about your involvement, about your perspectives about non profits for your own personal experience. I'll start. I think one of the most important thing is that we're talking about people. And I think that one of the major points are if you want to make a change, you need to be the change. Anyway. The fact is that if you want to make a change, you need to be a change and you need to do it by yourself.

Because you cannot wait for the government or for or whoever is responsible make this change. Because I can tell you. Okay, let's talk. I'm a mother of a transgender young individual. My son started his journey when he was 16 years old, and we had to fight for his rights. We had to fight to make sure that he gets what he needs and he's going to have his rights. And this was a fight. I mean, we were mothers. We are allies. I'm a heterosexual woman. I am not community.

And we knew that we need to do something about it, and we need to make this change, because no one is going to do that job for us. I mean, being a transgender individual, it's insane. You know that only at 2013, the DSM 5 made this change of removing the gender identity disorder and from the list of the mental health issues and defined it as gender dysphoria. And until then, those children felt like there is something really wrong with them and they cannot, could not express themselves.

And if the parents were not involved and make the change and say, okay, we have lots of organizations, but you don't have parents of young transgenders, which is very, you know, specific, but you need to do that because no one else is going to do that job for you. And it doesn't matter how many organizations are here and how much the LGBTQ community is large and stable wherever you are. This is a specific problem that we had to deal with.

And this is something that if you don't do that, you cannot wait for someone to make to do that for you, because you need to drill into it, into the problem. We had to fight. We had to go to the Knesset just to fight for our children's rights, because no one is going to do it. And this is what we are talking about when we are talking about the nonprofit organizations, because this is not like, okay, this is something common. And we all agree that what we need to do is 1, 2, 3.

And I'm sure that Barack, you understand that from your. Society changes all the time. And every time, we need to think about new stuff in order to solve new problems. So there's always new problems. This is how the world works, right? And it's really important to know when you go to this bottle, going to a fight, and in order to change people's mind and laws, you're gonna need people with you that believes in the same cause, the same agendas, and together on. Together, you cannot do it alone.

You need to go for a fight. And this is. And it grows from the bottom, because it's not just something on top. You say, okay, this is what we need to do. This is something that we. We need to. That's the meaning of being allies. Because it has to be in you. It's life or death issue. And if you don't, do you know, Michael, it's exactly the example that you gave about Greenpeace. Okay, who is going to come and say, okay, let's spend lots and lots of money for the environment?

No one is going to volunteer for that. Only the people that knew how important it is, they could make the change. And now you can see that all over the world they make those changes. We all recycle and all that stuff. And no one uses plastic anymore. And big, no, no. If you take a plastic back in the supermarket. And this is a change that was made by the people, by the organizations, right. In the past years, we see like radical people using the term progress against people. Progress.

It's, it's a, it's a bad thing, is it? Progress means to go forward, not to go backward. Right. It's good to push our society to a different direction and a good direction because this is how we human beings develop into different nature. Right? It became a curse. Calling someone you're progressive became like, okay, it's a bad word. No, no, no, just don't call me progressive. It's so great that really time that to create progress. It's a bad thing.

This is like crazy actually, if you think about it really. Of course it is. But you know, the problem is that our minds are binary. You just keep yourself safe by going any right or left. And the change comes from the people that suffer and know that they need to make this change. They have no other choice. I have no choice.

What I do in my life, protecting LGBTQ individuals, transgender specific. It's because this is what I had to do. Yes. And we as a community always need to be alert and always need to read like the whole story and to find the new, the places that we need to fix. Because we also, like, the LGBTQ community is also like growing and creating progress. Like inside. You know, back then nobody said like LGBTQ plus community, right? It was like gays, okay? That's all we knew. Gays and lesbian.

That's all we knew. Even bisexuals were like, okay. And right now where we have more identities and we have more people who would like to, like, the terms are like getting bigger, the diversity, like, it's amazing. We have so many, like colors right now. And we always need us grown up men and people to find a way to give them the chance and to help them and to fix what needs. To be fixed and not to count. On the government to make choices for us and our lives and our children's lives.

And someone needs to fight that fight. And that's why those nonprofit organizations exist. Because no one, nobody's going to do the dirty job for us and for the causes that we fight for. The issue of representation is very important here and it also involves a lot of politics. I have several examples of both global and also where from Israeli perspective and, and personal.

But we can also see that for instance, if we take for example New York City and the stone Riots event, 1969, the year after it was commemorated by the parade, the first parade that we know that we are thanks to our commemorating and marching all around the world, usually around five months. And you already mentioned the term of gay. So actually the first registered movement and a non profit that was established is the Gay Liberation Front.

Now back then the word gay meant both homosexual and lesbian. A lot of my inspiration, especially as an entrepreneur, comes from voguing and also through like transgender communities. So about representations of where several cases were like so Marsha P. Johnson, who was a woman of color, actually background associated, both of them didn't identify as transgender, but as transvestite. So it's also really interesting to see how the definitions change.

Even like the term LGBTQ is, this word is actually it's a coalition of new words. But with creating organizations where actually by donations or some other sources of income, it means also creating job opportunities. And with that plus with the way that organizations are shaped with comes politics.

And we can see that for instance with the example of Martha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, where they can show how when the movement was created so in its goals it was about expanding the movement, that more people will know about, that it will be more covered in the media. Actually Stonewall riots in 1969 were not that much covered in the media, although it were several and several days of historical protests.

So while this organization were dealing with representation, with job opportunities, making sure that there will be no discrimination, because back then people could be fired in the US just based on their sexual orientation or their sexual identity. And while fighting for that, they excluded this transvestite activists who were actually being active in the protest themselves. And I can also give another example, let's say for the Israeli case.

Me as someone who grew up in the periphery in the up suburbs of of Israel, born to a Russian speaking family, for me I felt many times like many of those nonprofits in Israel, they were not relevant for me, they were not relevant for my parents. Because the discourse I'm Sorry to say that, but was a very white Ashkenazi Tel Avivian, and not necessarily a fit my background.

I think this is one of the reasons why so many of my friends back home in the Galilee were actually Arab speaking, because we came from very traditional societies, very maturistic also, where the acceptance is very, very different. I also have an example how when I was in the beginning of my 20s and I was very active in my hometown, I even formed a political party with partners that reached to the municipality.

And I remember how I wanted to use those connections that I had and experience and power in order to create a youth organization in my hometown. But back then, when I was trying to do it, I tried to contact different nonprofits, LGBTQ + nonprofits in Tel Aviv. They were not answering my messages at all. And once, eventually I started doing that, I found out that one of those organizations wanted to sue me for violating copyright.

And I think that this is a very important subject because for me, it was. This is why I didn't create that, actually. And we here want also to talk about, you know, about the reality and about the politics that comes around it also. There's also a lot about, let's say, representation. Is that organization or the other really represent me or us or not? And then with. With. With money and organizations comes power, power, and comes politics. Eventually, of course, it's all included.

You know, it's money, it's politics, and you can be, you know, really want to make a change, but you cannot separate it. And it always happens there. I can. I can tell you that even if I talk about trans organizations, in tiny, small Israel, we have four trans organizations. This is insane. Why can't we work altogether? Because you have different agendas and you have different point of views, and this is always a problem.

And if someone comes up and wants to make something new and make a change, you immediately get attacked from all over the place. So I understand exactly what happened to you, because, you know, it's all about money. And if there is a new player in the game, you have to split. Especially when you're fighting on donations or power. And I would say this is one of the reasons I always say that. And I'm sorry people here don't agree with me, but this is my. My opinion.

In my opinion, there is no such a thing a community, an LGBTQ plus community. There are many different communities. And I think that the phrasing is very, very important. And as much as we will have more diversity and more organizations, I think it would be much better and that's actually one of the pros of a private sector. But on the other hand, also the non profits are extremely, extremely important. But just like any other sector, it has its prongs and cons.

And also, let's say if we take the example of Barack, okay. And he's that I think also, by the way, Barack also inspired my creation. By the way, when I, when I started with Straight Friendly, I tried to do it for one of the nonprofits and no one wanted to do that and work on that, so I created their own thing. But I can say that, like, there is a limit to how much you can volunteer, of course. And there is a limit to how many volunteers you can have.

And managing volunteers can be very, very difficult. And I think that maybe it's crazy. So I would love if both of you, and I would love also to hear a bit about, from, from Barak, from his experience also, let's say, how do you see it in Hoshin or some other organizations, whichever you will choose, especially when you have like, you have, I think, both workers and volunteers. Right? Right. So what's the difference between them?

So the thing is, when you create an organization, you have like a new cause, right. You want to create like a change, right. And first it's gonna start small, so you don't have the money. So you need volunteers, you need people who believe in your cause. And together you can create the impact that you want with the time the cause is right and necessary and still necessary after like 1 year, 2 years, 3 years. And then the donations are coming, the money from the government is coming.

And you establish a strong organization, of course you have the money and you are capable to make it bigger and stronger. And with the money, you need to choose and you need to think what you're going to do with it. So for example, in Hoshan we have more hundreds of schools that we are visiting during the year. It's a lot. You cannot use all the volunteers that you know.

For example, when I'm going to a school, I need to create this, the workshop, and I need people for it, you know, and at some point we have like couple of several workshops in a day. So you need people can commit it with volunteers. You cannot count on them for the whole year to come. So you need people to work for you. And in order to make so you need to give them something in return. And it's money. But the amazing thing is it's money that goes for the LGBTQ + community to exist.

So sometimes they need this money and it's amazing for us as a community to provide jobs. And it's amazing. So basically in Fortn, you can choose, you can rather go volunteering or you can apply and to do it with a salary. And this is like. And it's amazing, really. It's amazing to have to get to this point that you can really afford it.

So we've been talking about the entrepreneurship. We've been talking about the first sector of the governmental a little bit, just a bit about the second sector, the private one. And we've now been talking mainly about the third sector nonprofit organizations. And we've been dealing here also about the politics, the bureaucracy, but also the urgency and the activism which can thrive through nonprofits, about donations and about many other topics here that shapes the lives of so many people.

And for us, the goal here is that for our listeners and who among you, if you have any idea for any kind of entrepreneurship and innovation, maybe before starting it, start it. But also if you can use and learn some of the methods that we've been practicing here, that can be very helpful. I mean, like, why not to learn from mistakes that people have already taken? For you, and just for summarizing here, it's about resources. And we emphasized the importance also of volunteers.

And volunteers is a very important thing. We're talking about involvement and engagement of LGBTQ people and our allies all around the world. And we've been talking about communities. And the leverage that nonprofits has is also the ability in one hand to have the workers, people who should be paid and should be paid really good. And we have also the volunteers. And I can share from my personal experience when I was volunteering for Hotline for LGBTQ people.

So like, for us, for the people who came to volunteer, it was also something with a lot of commitment and even when Straight Friendly has started more than five years ago. So we were based on volunteers, then we switched mainly to workers. But there was also some, some really nice things of having volunteers. We had one listener of our podcast who was living actually in the other side of the country, and he wanted very much to be involved. And we cannot take it as granted.

And also for us as entrepreneurs, even if we have some goals for our nonprofits, the ability also to integrate activists and volunteers is very important and very beneficial. And commitment and the involvement and the engagement is very, very important. So every kind of person should have its gratitude and the thankfulness for that. So if for some people it can be measured by payment, so for volunteers, and can be measured by value and the value they receive.

And it is very, very important also to acknowledge that and to thank to our volunteers. So. And I also want to thank the volunteers here, Saeed Ben Shimon and Barack Rips, thank you very, very much for joining this recording and taking this volunteer with us. We will continue also to our second continuous episode where we will be talking together about the private sectors and entrepreneurship and LGBTQ entrepreneurships through the private sector. So thank you. Thank you very much.

Satan Bharat, thank you very much. That was amazing. See you on the other side. Yes. And as we say, bye.