Published on Huffington Post here. It’s a Tuesday after school and 25 elementary school personnel are gathered at the Office of School Health of the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). They are there to learn about gender diversity and how to bring this conversation into the elementary schools. The District is breaking new ground by giving educators tools and resources to make their classrooms, curriculum, and health services...
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Work: Eight Questions for Building Readiness and Steering Clear of Pitfalls
Diversity, equity, and inclusion work can transform organizations and help them do their work more effectively. This work can be most successful when people are fully invested and have a good idea what is involved. Without this, organizations sometimes set themselves up for failure and bring consultants in with unrealistic expectations. If you are thinking of launching into work around diversity, equity, and inclusion, this post may help you...
Undoing Patterns of Privilege as We Learn
In my work with organizations around race, power and privilege, I’ve noticed a pattern. Sometimes we anticipate defensiveness on the part of white people in the group and plan our sessions to accommodate this defensiveness. I’ve begun correcting this pattern and setting goals more proactively. At the same time, I have become hyper aware that a primary reasons we’re doing this work is that people of color may feel unsafe,...
Seeing and Naming Racism in Nonprofit and Public Organizations
In light of the unrelenting and vicious assaults on the Black community, and in response to the #BlackLivesMatter movement, I have asked myself what more I can do to challenge racism, particularly anti-Black racism. One thing I am doing is challenging myself to be more aware and forthright in noticing and speaking out about the racism I see when I work with non-profit and public organizations. This post is an effort to name those things that...
Diversity & Equity: Closing the Leadership Gap
Thanks to my colleagues Steve Lew, Senior Project Director, CompassPoint Nonprofit Services and Maura Bairley, Interdependent Consultant for Social Change, for their contributions to this piece. When I work with organizations around diversity and equity[1], I start with managers, because I believe that their buy-in and investment is essential for the work to succeed. Lately, I’ve been struck by a gap I see between what it takes to build...
