Making the Case for Inclusion within Your Organization

The purpose of these discussions is for you to begin thinking about creating greater inclusivity within your organization. The purpose is not to get you to decide definitively what you will or will not do differently. That will happen after you gather information and begin analyzing the data about your organization.

For now, visualize briefly what might be different if your organization were to become more inclusive. Reflect on your answers alone and with your team. Remember, you can use these prompts as a starting point for advancing inclusion within your organization.

Discuss how inclusiveness will help advance the mission of your organization.
Discuss how you currently engage with the people you serve in your programs and in your fundraising, marketing, and communications.
Consider how your mission statement might change, if at all, to reflect a greater commitment to inclusiveness.
In broad terms, think about how your programs and the people who benefit from your programs might change as a result of your organization becoming more inclusive.
Consider how your fundraising, marketing, and communications might be different as a result of your organization becoming more inclusive.
Think how the diversity of the organization might be different if it were more inclusive. How would the composition of the board, the staff, the volunteers, etc. change?
Think about your operations. What would be different (e.g., personnel policies, recruitment strategies, etc.) as a result of your organization becoming more inclusive?
Begin to imagine a shift in the organizational culture that results from a greater commitment to inclusiveness. How would your organization's internal culture be different?

The Anti-racist Approach to Consulting

This training approach examines racial oppression, white privilege, power, and social justice. It examines systemic forces that affect race relations and highlights the ways in which privileges for white people historically have been legitimized and perpetuated for centuries through laws, economics, and political and social institutions. It also stresses that white people have a responsibility to learn about white privilege and to become allies in the fight against racism. In some cases, the approach has been modified to address multiple issues in addition to racism, such as sexism and homophobia. In this case, the training is usually referred to as Anti-Oppression or Social Justice training.

The Colorado Progressive Coalition describes anti-racism work this way: "Anti-Racism work and confronting white privilege is not about diversity, nor is it about cultural sensitivity... To understand racism, we must first look at discrimination and have a comprehensive understanding of its impacts... Discrimination has been a part of this country's institutions, founding documents, even the first actions more than 500 years ago when extermination and colonization of North America's indigenous people"...and the trafficking and forced labor of Africans began. Discrimination has seen many different phases in this nation."

This type of training approach is designed to incorporate training at all three levels (individual, intergroup, and systemic). However, its ultimate purpose is to help people understand the systemic nature of racism. Though anti-racism trainings often start with individuals identifying their own cultural identity (similar to an intercultural/valuing differences approach), training will usually move quickly into understanding how cultural identities have been strongly influenced by historical and systemic factors (e.g., white male privilege was given institutional legitimacy in the U.S. Constitution which only allowed men who owned land to vote.) As training expert Patti DeRosa writes, "anti-racism holds that the core culture and institutional structures must fundamentally change, while recognizing that changes in our personal attitudes are also essential."

This approach is firmly grounded in a commitment to exploring differences and similarities between groups. Change will only be possible, according to an anti-racism approach, when people understand the historic and systemic factors, including colonization and oppression, which have contributed to different cultural experiences and identities. Similarities are also explored. Often, this training approach helps people examine how they are in some aspects members of an "in group" (and the privileges that go along with that) and in some aspects they are members of an "out group" (and the prejudice and discrimination that go with that). This kind of exploration helps people explore parallels, intersections, and distinctions among identities and experiences.
Taken with thanks from http://www.nonprofitinclusiveness.org/anti-racism-approach

Four Questions to Assess Whether Your Organization Is Ready for Antiracism Work?

The next time you think about hiring an anti-oppression/antiracism consultant, ask yourself if your organization is willing to dig deep and disrupt. Equity Centered's antiracism work does not spend time discussing whether racism and other systems of oppression exist. They do exist. Period. And that is our baseline. Be honest with yourself about where your organization stands, as it does more harm than good to start this work before the organization is ready. If you recognize that your organization isn't ready for antiracism work, remember that we can meet you where you are to help you advance diversity, equity, and inclusion more incrementally (although we will always push you to move past your comfort zone).

1. Is your organization ready to talk about race explicitly?

This doesn’t mean we won’t talk about race at the intersections of other identities, but we will not work with you for anti-racism or anti-oppression consulting if you shy away from talking about race directly and deeply.

2. Are white employees ready to be uncomfortable?

The point of antiracism work is to disrupt the white comfort that impedes change and facilitates the continued oppression of people of the global majority. It’s ok, normal, and promotes growth to be uncomfortable sometimes. How people deal with discomfort is part of the learning--and transformation.

Section referenced with thanks from https://fakequity.com/2016/08/26/no-more-cultural-competence-trainings-and-other-thoughts-about-power/

3. Are you willing to ensure and offer compensation so there are more than a token few people of color in the room?

This is our commitment to disrupting white echo chambers. This means organizations need to include community members, volunteers, students, or community partners as much as possible to participate. It also means holding workshops at different locations or at different times to accommodate partners of the global majority.

4, Is your organization ready to slow down, change course, and try something new?

Part of upholding institutional racism is we follow the same paths, approaches, and practices that we’ve inherited. Fast and “efficient” is not always productive. Yes, this also means your organization will need to dedicate more resources to achieving racial equity but the longer term outcomes are worth it.