Easeful Belonging: Reflections on the Work of Simply Being

This summer I had the opportunity to attend the 2026 Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP) annual conference in Los Angeles. During the conference, I experienced, perhaps for the first time in a long time, easeful belonging. In the months since, I’ve found myself reflecting on three questions:

1. Is it possible that I can belong?
2. What does it look, feel, and sound like to belong easefully?
3. How can I and we — as individuals and as a philanthropic community — intentionally create easeful environments?

As an Associate Partner on New Profit’s Equity & Proximity team, I think about these questions for others all the time, whether I’m working to strengthen belonging internally across the organization or designing and facilitating convenings for our social entrepreneurs. So why did it feel strange to be asking myself these questions? 

The truth is that for many reasons, I don’t always get to experience this level of belonging myself. As a queer Latina, daughter of immigrants, and first-gen college grad, I often go into professional spaces expecting not to belong. I expect to be one of a few, to be mistaken for janitorial staff, or to be questioned about what I’m doing somewhere.

And yet, I experienced something profoundly different at HIP.

We ate tacos with our hands. Vibrant color and flowers filled the conference rooms. A drag queen performed Selena and Karol G between sessions. Spanish, English, and other languages were welcomed, even expected. Music played nonstop, and laughter and celebration were treated as intended outcomes. 

Our humanity was on full, authentic display — loud, wild, unapologetic, beautiful — and it was then I knew I could belong. And my belonging was easeful. 

For me, easeful belonging is about simply being and existing without explanation, justification, or effort. It’s feeling seen and welcomed without having to perform or contort to meet some arbitrary expectation. At HIP, I walked into a space made for someone like me, and I didn’t even have to ask. I didn’t have to think about what to say or who to be. I was free to show up exactly as I am. That freedom gave me more mental, emotional, and physical capacity to actually be present: to soak in what speakers and community members shared and to let my heart and mind buzz with new questions, implications, and aspirations. 

While I experienced this easeful belonging as effortless, the facilitator and convener in me knows that creating the conditions for people to simply be, without having to explain or perform, takes forethought, attention, and intention. It requires anticipating what people might otherwise have to ask for and building spaces that don’t require anyone to earn their place in them. I’m still learning what that looks like in practice. But having experienced it myself, I’m sure we can build more of it, with intention and in community. 

Here’s to more easeful belonging for all of us.

Geo Hernandez is an Associate Partner on New Profit’s Equity & Proximity team.