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Nonprofit Lawyer Beyond Advisers Scott Curran

Beyond Blogging

EXPERT ANALYSIS · UPDATES · NEWS

  • Zayneb Shaikley
  • Jul 25, 2024

Updated: Oct 9, 2024

Last week, Publishers Marketplace shared the exciting announcement below regarding Beyond Advisers' Founder & CEO Scott M. Curran's new book deal!


We're BEYOND excited about this, and are especially eager to share it with you — our friends, clients, and collaborators — because you and your work are at the center of what has inspired this book!


Scott M. Curran BOOK

As a social impact leader and valued member of the Beyond community, we would love to keep you posted during the year ahead with updates, sneak previews, and free resources from the upcoming book via our new Do (More) Good (Better) Newsletter.


Click below to sign up, and please share with others you know who are eager to Do (More) Good (Better) in their lives and work!



Beyond Advisers was featured in Rolling Stone , where Scott Curran provided advice on business success.

Beyond Advisers was featured in Rolling Stone Magazine, where Scott Curran provided advice on business success.

12 Proven Processes for Identifying and Executing Business Goals

Here's how to strategically create and follow through on your most important business goals.



NO MATTER WHAT industry you’re in, business success starts with identifying short- and long-term goals. However, it can be tricky to figure out exactly how to set and achieve those objectives.


To help, Rolling Stone Culture Council business leaders share their goal-setting strategies and why these methods are effective. Follow their recommendations to help you refine your approach to achieving your business goals.


Set Annual Goals With Mid-Year Check-Ins

Implement annual SMART goal setting organization-wide, for specific departments and individually. Then hold mid-year check-ins for those goals (and also for performance) as well as a year-end review of both the SMART goals and individual performance. This has proven to be an ironclad success strategy for our team and for our clients. – Scott Curran, Beyond Advisers


Updated: Feb 5

Beyond Advisers’ Founder and CEO, Scott Curran, was quoted in The Hollywood Reporter's piece, “DEI Is Not DOA — At Least Not Yet,” alongside Stacey Abrams, Ishan Bhabha Amanda Kelso, Julie Ann Crommett, Maikiko James, and Montea Robinson.

The ongoing debates and legal challenges around DEI are shaping the future of how organizations support underrepresented communities. As Gary Baum notes in the article, the current climate of anxiety and legal scrutiny is real, but doesn't need to deter the underlying work.

As Scott shared, "The higher the profile, the greater the likelihood you’ll be targeted.” This is especially true in celebrity, corporate, and big brand philanthropy.

However, it's important to remember that there are ways to continue this work compliant with the law (evolving though it may be). And it is imperative to remember that these challenges are part of a broader struggle for equality and inclusion that has always been part of the American experience and always will be.

While there may be obstacles, the commitment and resilience of those dedicated to inclusive initiatives remain strong. Together, we can continue to push for progress and ensure that our efforts to support underrepresented communities remain robust, effective, and compliant with the law.


Check out the full article below!

 Scott Curran Talks DEI with The Hollywood Reporter

DEI Is Not DOA — At Least Not Yet

Conservative activists are taking aim at race-based grants and programs designed to help members of marginalized communities. Will philanthropies soon find themselves in the crosshairs?


The DEI dominoes started falling — or at least wobbling — last summer. There was a Supreme Court ruling all but gutting affirmative action on college campuses. In Hollywood, there was the mass exodus of diversity officers — at Warner Bros. Discovery, Disney, Netflix and the Motion Picture Academy.


Meanwhile, conservative activists launched a barrage of anti-DEI lawsuits with corporations in the crosshairs, like the one filed in March against CBS and Paramount by former (and possibly future) Trump aide Stephen Miller on behalf of a white SEAL Team writer who was allegedly denied advancement because of DEI policies.


Philanthropic work so far has remained largely unscathed by the DEI battles, but that may soon change. In June, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a judgment that could — if it sticks — upend how organizations administer grants and how they decide who should get them. The suit — brought by Edward Blum, the same activist behind the Supreme Court college admissions case — maintained that an Atlanta-based venture capital firm called Fearless Fund was acting in a discriminatory manner by using its nonprofit arm to administer a grant program that specifically helps Black female business owners. That sort of race-based philanthropic activity, Blum argued, was unconstitutional. The 11th Circuit agreed.


Those who operate in Hollywood’s grant-making realm are mostly taking a wait-and-see approach, generally viewing the Fearless Fund decision as narrow and preliminary. “The ruling is disappointing,” says Sundance Institute acting CEO Amanda Kelso, “however, we are confident this issue will not be settled by this case or this court.”


Still, some organizations have begun assessing their rainy-day legal fund capacities and scrutinizing verbiage on their websites. (For example, language explicitly referencing race might be euphemistically adjusted to “underrepresented communities.”) “There are a lot of companies that are doing audits,” explains Julie Ann Crommett, who worked in-house at Disney and now heads the Georgia-based DEI consultancy Collective Moxie.


For now, the biggest threat may be perception. “There’s a difference between legal reality and legal bullying,” notes Stacey Abrams, the two-time Georgia gubernatorial candidate who is now a founder of the advocacy group American Pride Rises. “Stephen Miller and Ed Blum aren’t winning. They’re whining. Still, their intention is to have a chilling effect, and they’ve had some success. They’ve convinced reasonable organizations, including within the entertainment industry, to do a cost analysis about being sued.”


Washington, D.C.-based attorney Ishan Bhabha, who advises entertainment and media firms on their DEI programs, agrees. “I have many clients who think DEI is ‘under attack,’ and it makes them nervous. The climate of anxiety is real,” he says, noting that such nervousness is the point of these suits. “They want to create a fear-based environment that you might be next to be sued. If people are concerned, maybe they’ll pull back.” That’s particularly true of the more conspicuous philanthropic efforts. Says consultant Scott Curran, whose background includes work as general counsel at the Clinton Foundation, “The higher the profile, the greater the likelihood you’ll be targeted.”


Others, though, don’t think these attacks will ultimately succeed, defiantly vowing to carry on no matter what Miller, Blum and their compatriots throw at them. “People who have dealt with historical oppression don’t have anything to lose,” says Maikiko James, senior director of programs at Women in Film. “Sure, the terrain can get rockier, and there’s obviously real threats. But for those of us who care about this, we aren’t going to give up.” Montea Robinson, CEO of Ghetto Film School, adds that DEI advocates, whether administrators or donors, “are ambitious and optimistic — but also pragmatic. They aren’t going to be easily swayed.”

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