Is Your Help Silenced?

Have you ever done something nice for someone else? Was it because you were expected to or because you truly wanted to help? Let's say it's because you truly wanted to help. Did you help in a way that catered to your strengths or did you help in a way others wanted you to? The last question may or may not seem obvious. I was asked this question once and thought it was a simple answer. However, a recent event challenged my perception of the question.

Last week, I sat at a group meeting for an hour. To protect the group's identity, I will refer to the group as HELP. At HELP, they discussed ways others, who are not part of their community, can help advocate for their cause. In the middle of the meeting, I announced that I was one of those people and I wanted to help their cause in a different way, a way I knew very well. The way I knew would give them a voice and that voice would be explained to many people. Again, I can't give away what I proposed because I need to protect the group. To my surprise, the reaction was not received well. I received looks of shock, to the point where one girl looked scared. There was silence in the room for a good 30 seconds. The group members basically brushed off what I said and wanted to hear what the group members thought.

Hello?!? How can they expect their supporters to help them if they don't let their supporters help in ways they know how to help? Why is it that HELP is limited in their definition of help? Do they realize they pushed away a supportive person that night? Now, I can't say that I have given up on the cause HELP promotes, but the ways HELP reacted to my help made me feel "othered."

If you run an organization and you need all of the support and allies you can get, listen to what your allies have to say. Understand that each supporter and ally is unique and each can contribute in different ways. If you are an ally or supporter of any group and the group wants you to help based on their standards of helping, then you have every right to walk away. If a group truly wants your help, then they should be open-minded to what you have to offer.