What leads us to explore our relationship to death? For Angela Fama, it began when a terrible accident caused her to consider her own death. But she noticed that when she tried to talk about death, she met discomfort and resistance. Instead of dropping the conversation, she searched for ways to enter into it; to make others more comfortable with the subject. Out of this need of hers, the Death Conversation Game was born!

Angela Fama (she/they) is the creator of Death Conversation Game and facilitator of Let’s Talk About Death. They are also an interdisciplinary artist, photographer, musician, and aspiring death doula. In their praxis, Fama focuses on the inner and outer connections that can be made pushing at the edges of the barriers surrounding ‘sticky’ subjects (such as trauma, identity, love, and death). Born on The Farm in Tennessee, they were raised in Ontario and Zimbabwe, and currently reside on the unceded traditional territories of the Coast Salish xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and Sel̓íl̓witulh Nations (Vancouver, Canada). They work from an intersectional feminist perspective valuing equity, inclusive of all genders, sexual orientations, abilities, races, religions, and classes.

Some believe that dying people increasingly speak nonsense, losing their grip on reality. But Lisa Smartt, a linguist trained to pay deep attention to words, realized as her father was dying that what he was saying was coherent and deeply moving, pointing to a world which she little understood and inviting an exploration of what he might be talking about. After his death, she hurtled headlong into a mission; collecting final words, convinced they had something profound to offer those of us who are not dying. The Final Words Project and her book, Words at the Threshhold: What We Say as We're Nearing Death, are the beautiful result. I was honored to be quoted in this beautiful book!

Lisa Smartt, MA, is the author of Words at the Threshold. A linguist, educator, and poet, she founded the Final Words Project, an ongoing study devoted to collecting and interpreting the mysterious language at the end of lives. She co-facilitates workshops about language and consciousness with Raymond Moody at universities, hospices, and conferences and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit her online at http://www.finalwordsproject.org.

I admire this woman so much! That's why I am running this episode again.

Women of color are reliably at the forefront of every progressive movement, both in sheer numbers and in activism. Yet there are many factors that limit their leadership and put an undue burden on them, resulting in a loss to the movements themselves. Former Groundswell Fund founder and executive Vanessa Priya Daniel knows first hand the toll these underlysing factors take. She also interiewed some of the most groundbreaking leaders and has written a profound book about what holds back our most capable leaders, and what we can all do to shift the tide.

Vanessa Priya Daniel has worked in social justice movements for 25 years as a labor and community organizer, writer, researcher, and funder. The heart of her work is connecting people and resources to achieve vibrant grassroots power and realize a multiracial, feminist democracy.

She is the founder of Groundswell Fund (a 501c3), and Groundswell Action Fund (a 501c4), two leading funders of organizations led by women of color, and transgender people. Under her leadership, Groundswell moved over $100M to the field, centering intersectional grassroots organizing led by women of color and using a breakthrough philanthropic model that featured supermajorities of women of color movement leaders and former grassroots organizers on its staff and boards of directors. During her tenure, more than 40 foundations and over 2,000 individual donors relied on Groundswell to help them move resources to 200+ organizations at the grassroots. Groundswell received the National Committee of Responsible Philanthropy’s “Impact Award” for smashing issue silos.

Vanessa was featured in the Chronicle of Philanthropy as one of 15 “Influencers” who are changing the non-profit world and named by Inside Philanthropy as one of their “Top 100 Most Powerful Players in Philanthropy”. She is the recipient of the 2022 Smith Medal from her alma mater Smith College, the 2017 National Network of Abortion Funds’ Abortion Action Vanguard Award, and the 2012 Gerbode Foundation Fellowship. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, among other publications and her first book, Unrig the Game: What Women of Color Can Teach Everyone About Winning. is being published by Random House in 2025.

Vanessa has organized homecare workers with SEIU; helped win a landmark living wage law with the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy; and conducted research to support the organizing efforts of welfare mothers with the Applied Research Center (now Race Forward). Currently, through her firm, Vanessa Daniel Consulting, LLC, she offers strategic advising and coaching support to donors, foundations, grassroots organizations and organizational leaders. She serves on the boards of directors of the National LGBTQ Task Force and Common Counsel Foundation, and on the Advisory Board/Brain Trust of the Kataly Foundation’s Environmental Justice Resource Collective, and the Democracy Frontline Fund. She is currently a fellow with the Decolonizing Wealth Project. Vanessa and her co-parent Tricia, are mothers to two daughters, ages five and thirteen.