20 Ways to Amplify Attention for Under-Recognized Voices

“Radical poets don’t get pension plans. Community is my social security.” - Aurora Levins Morales

A POST-ELECTION NOTE

First, I hope that these three resources can offer a sense of ease and a reminder of our solidarity. 

To start, this episode from adrienne maree brown and Autumn Brown’s podcast, How to Survive the End of the World, pierced my heart on so many levels. It was a reminder of the long arc of the political impact we can make, and adrienne’s insights about how voting is the least we can do are a salve for these divisive times. 

And, if you’re looking for restorative spaces post-election, two come to mind. Autumn Brown is co-hosting a conversation with Ricardo Levins Morales and Arianna Genis. The focus is on building endurance for liberation, and I will 100% be in attendance. You can buy tickets on a sliding scale here.

Then, my client, Victoria Albina, is hosting a free somatic/nervous system processing call on Monday, November 11 @ 8pm EST. She says, “We’ll do exercises together on the call to be with and work some of these big feelings out, we’ll do exercises to ground ourselves so and to be generative and creative, expansive and hopeful, together - join us live if you can, watch the replay the next day if you can’t.” You can register here.

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“Radical poets don’t get pension plans. Community is her social security.”

That’s a line from Grace Quantock’s autoresponder after she includes a poem from the Aurora Levins Morales, a movement elder, storyteller, and lifelong social justice activist. It’s a quote directly from Aurora herself.

Then, she directly includes a link to Morales’ Patreon page. 

When I talk about using our platforms to support under-recognized voices¹, this is one version of what I mean. 

As someone who lives at the intersection of both privilege and marginalization, she’s identified how to leverage her space to shine the spotlight on someone and something important. 

You might have guessed, but I am wholly obsessed with finding ways for us to lift each other up across the spectrum of community support. 

If you’re curious about how you might use your platform to do something similar, here are 20 ideas to consider based on capacity²:

LOW

1. Publicly recognizing a source with a mention and a link: This could be a shout out (s/o) or a hat tip (h/t). You can do this in writing, in reels, or on interviews. 

   Ixchel Lunar
   does this routinely and her content is a wonderful example of her deep respect for legacy.

2. Sharing an episode, a quote, or an insight with a friend (with source recognition)

3. Supporting at the lowest level through Substack or Patreon 

4. Sharing links to visibility opportunities: The thing you’re applying for? Tell other people about it. This simple act has led to numerous visibility wins for under-recognized voices in my network. 

5. Assess what you’re reading, listening to, consuming on your feed: How diverse are the perspectives? Find intersectionally diverse voices to add to the mix. 

6. Recommend a Substack. 

7. Restack an article with a quote you loved or a personal note. 

8. Include quotes from intersectionally diverse thinkers that you appreciate in your newsletter: Toi Smith does this beautifully. If you’re interested in running an anti-capitalist business, I highly recommend signing up for her newsletter. 

9. Shout out someone and their work in your autoresponder

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9. Tandem pitching with a PS: When you pitch yourself, choose someone else to pitch alongside you. You might include this in the P.S., e.g. “Have you heard of X’s work? Based on what I’ve heard on your podcast so far, there’s so much resonance between your work and theirs.” 

10. Making an intro 

11. Offering a childcare trade: My friend and I are both entrepreneurs with small children around the same age. Once a month, sometimes more often, I’ll watch our kids while she does a block of work and she’ll add my little one into her mix while I work at her kitchen table. 

12. Offer a sliding scale for your work: A great example of this comes from

    Ash He/Him
    of The Sovereign Spirit Medium. Scroll down on this page to see their “What’s the Investment” and “Green Bottle” graphics.

HIGH

14. Running a donation-based class:

    Sophy Dale
    and Christina Paul are hosting a class on Relationship Marketing where all proceeds go to urgent humanitarian aid in Gaza. You can do this for a specific cause like they’ve chosen or you can choose to support someone specific: an artist, an activist, a writer. 

15. Donating monthly to an organization that redistributes funds: This could be a local mutual aid fund or an organization like Loving Black Single Mothers.

16. Tandem pitching: When you pitch yourself, choose someone else to pitch alongside you. Establish an understanding with this person first so you can include all of the talking points that you think might be relevant for the outlet too. If you’re interested, I can talk more about how this works and include a template or two so you can see the format. (s/o to Brigitte Lyons for introducing me to this concept early on in my career)

17. Pitching a keynote, workshop, or panel in collaboration with an under recognized voice

18. Creating a stipulation that you’ll only speak on panels or at events with a x% of intersectional diversity represented

19. Creating a format for sharing voices from under-recognized populations

20. Organizing an event that brings people together 

This list is a drop in the bucket. There are dozens of other ways that we can support under-recognized voices, and I would love to hear your ideas in the comments below. 

1. This language was coined by N. Chloé Nwangwu from NobiWorks.

2. I’m basing this off of my experience of capacity as a single mother who runs a small business and manages chronic symptoms.

Retraction: A previous edit attributed the quote “Radical poets don’t get pension plans. Community is my social security” to Grace Quantock. It has since been updated with attribution to Aurora Levins Morales.