Jennifer:
Thank you for sharing about BlueHub's experiences with this. For Capital Impact Partners, we have had a volunteer group that has helped to facilitate discussions and build trust among staff for many years. Some of the materials I've found well pre-date my time here: activities to promote inclusion, to honestly address differences, and to begin to discuss ways that we incorporate inclusion in our everyday work.
Our current group is comprised of 8 people (and our total staff is currently just under 80). We have a group charter, where we aim to include to represent at least 3 departments and at least 2 of the 3 CIP offices. We have just re-written parts of our charter to specify some of our goals:
- To facilitate safe space for employees to address important and sometimes challenging topics, strengthens our organization's core values
- To provide background for reviewing internal policies and procedures that promote diversity, equity and inclusion
- To promote inclusivity, including races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientation, religions, economic circumstances, physical and/or mental circumstances.
- To equip staff with ways to address diversity and equity in a personal, professional, collegial, respectful and understanding fashion
We are currently establishing some goals for the year with specificity, including to share - on a monthly basis - inclusion-first articles that might be thought-provoking. Our group also has a commitment to host "brown bag" presentations or discussions at least 3x throughout the course of the year.
Happy to hear more about what other organizations are doing along these lines.
Best,
Olivia
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Olivia Rebanal
Director of Loan Programs
Capital Impact Partners
Oakland CA
(510) 496-2235
orebanal@capitalimpact.org------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: 02-03-2019 23:59
From: Jennifer Angarita
Subject: Is there a racial equity working group at your organization?
Hi all, Welcome again to the Racial Equity Community! To kick-off our discussion forum, we'd like to start by learning more about the formal and informal ways CDFIs have organized themselves to normalize and operationalize the practice of racial equity.
Do you have a racial equity working group at your organization and if so, who is involved and how is it structured? How many staff persons are involved, what are the members' roles and responsibilities, and is the work on a volunteer basis or included formally in annual performance plans?
I can begin by sharing some of BlueHub's experience. In late 2017/early 2018, we started an internal racial equity working group, comprised initially of four staff people. Later in the year, it was expanded to include an additional staff member. The group was started on an informal, volunteer basis by individuals who had expressed interest in applying a racial equity lens to our work. We operate within the BlueHub loan fund and our working group is a learning group, focused on learning about adaptive problems and being intentional about better understanding, addressing, and mitigating systems of racial inequity. This year, as our organization has grown and on-boarded new staff, we're in the process of thinking through how to adjust our governance and structure.
I'd love to hear how others have approached this work and any lessons learned so far!
Best,
Jennifer
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Jennifer Angarita
Project Manager, Strategic Initiatives
BlueHub Capital
Boston MA
(617) 427-8600
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