The Best Ways to Respond to Needs Cross-Culturally

“What can I do to help?” is the question I am hearing from so many people right now who want to respond to the immediate needs of neighbors who are without access to grocery stores, clean water, and medication. And who are even having to clean up their burned down, looted, and vandalized businesses. Not to mention the deep desire to respond to the long-term needs of people of color (POC) who have long been oppressed by systems built by white people to profit white people in the United States.

Earlier this week, I was on a call with nearly 300 community leaders in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area talking about ways to best serve our communities right now and long into the future. An African American leader very transparently said, “we don’t need saviors, we need partners.”

So, what do we do as whites if we genuinely want to help right now? Unfortunately, simply having good intentions to make a difference does not guarantee being helpful. Instead of banking on good intentions, the best ways to respond to needs cross-culturally are to use the following four steps, which are direct asks from our black and brown neighbors (and happen to also be backed up by a lot of research):

1. Listen.

Do not rely on your assumptions about how you can be helpful. Before you go into an unfamiliar neighborhood, connect with the local leaders. And ask them what needs they have and then listen. We cannot know what others need without first asking. When we think we already know what people need without first asking them, we’re simply projecting based on our own experiences, perspectives, and biases. If you haven’t yet asked someone what they need, this is the one time it is safe to assume. Assume you don’t know. The people closest to the problem already know the best solutions to it. Please ask them and then listen to their response. And if you don’t know any local leaders personally, find someone who does and reach out to them. Then don’t forget to listen. In our haste to want to be helpful, we can do more harm than good when we don’t listen.

2. Learn.

As you listen, take time to learn what the actual (not perceived) needs are. Being in a position of privilege, it is too easy to fall into the trap of believing we know how we can be most helpful. If we want to help, we must learn from those who actually know what the needs, and solutions, are. As one indigenous community leader recently said, “Please stop creating solutions to problems that do not actually exist.” Being well-meaning is not the same as being helpful. Truly being helpful requires the humility to learn from others. And learning from the local leaders is always the best.

3. Commit.

Once you know how you can genuinely meet an actual need, commit to meeting it and show up. There is nothing worse than having someone make a commitment, only to break it. Every time we do this, it chips away at any amount of trust that may have existed. Showing up isn’t always convenient. In fact, truly being helpful to others and meeting their actual needs is often rather inconvenient. Keeping your commitments, however inconvenient they might be, goes a long way to establishing trust. And trust is crucial in order to be helpful in the long-term.

4. Partner.

As for responding to the long-term needs of POC who have been oppressed for centuries by systems built by white people for white people, seek to become a partner. While help and support are needed in the short-term, it is partnerships that are essential for truly being helpful over the long-haul. If one person is always in a position of giving and another person is always in the position of taking, feelings of superiority will emerge, and collaboration will be next to impossible. Partnerships are built on mutual trust and accountability. If you are up for it, this is the most helpful and necessary type of support we can offer to our black and brown neighbors.

The importance of accountability cannot be overstated when wanting to be helpful for the long-term, for as a community leader in Minneapolis recently said, “The security of white supremacy lulls us to sleep unless we are held accountable to stay awake and stay the course to dismantle our systems that oppress people of color in America.”

Wanting to help others in need is the hallmark of compassion. In our desire to love our neighbors, to serve them, and to help them, we too often forget to check with them first to see how we can best do that. Let’s commit to helping others in such a way that we bestow nothing but honor and dignity upon those whom we seek to help by listening, learning, committing, and partnering. Together, we will make lasting changes.