As Equity in the Center continues this period of rapid growth, we are now seeking applications for an Operations Associate. This new position is currently a part-time role (approx. 20 hours per week), however, the potential for full-time employment is possible within 6-12 months for a highly successful candidate. 

Reporting to Executive Director, Kerrien Suarez, the new Operations Associate will be a key leader on the team who supports the Executive Director, maintains current internal systems and processes, manages relationships with organizational vendors, oversees event logistics, and partners with organizational leadership on the long-term growth and expansion of the operations team.

Applications must be submitted via this form. Please do not email resumes, cover letters or inquiries to EiC staff or board members. The selection process is being managed by an external consultant to ensure equitable access and consideration for applicants. 

In December 2020, a group of colleagues that has been convening regularly to learn with and from one another published a set of shared values that illustrate who we are, why we came together and how we show up in our work to support one another and organizations as practitioners committed to deep equity.

To further illustrate what those values look like in practice with organizations, in community with one another, and in solidarity for collective liberation, we’ve created a second infographic, which we share here along with an invitation to connect to our emergent learning community.

In 2021, our vision is to build community with one another, share tools and resources, and provide learning and capacity building opportunities designed to advance deep equity practice. We invite you to connect with us, and to share some details on your equity work and learning goals, via this Interest Form. Your responses will inform the capacity building resources and opportunities, including training and peer learning opportunities, we share in the months ahead.

In solidarity,

Network of Deep Equity Practitioners

Who We Are, Why We Came Together & How We Show Up

A little over a year ago, a group of colleagues began convening regularly to learn with and from one another, and to support our collective vision and daily work to make progress toward race equity and collective liberation in partnership with leaders, organizations and networks. At the time, we could not have foreseen the historical course of 2020 and the exponential increase in demand for race equity training, capacity building and consulting in the wake the murders of countless Black and trans individuals— Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Michelle Michellyn Ramos Vargas and many others— sparking Black Lives Matter demonstrations nationwide.

We came together with a shared vision to hold space for ourselves and other colleagues – whether they identify as race equity practitioners or DEI consultants – interested in engaging a community focused on learning, peer support and movement-building for transformation of the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, and society. Our first collaborative project was to define our shared values as practitioners, and to outline how those values connect to who we are, why we came together and how we show up in our work to support one another and organizations. The resulting infographic is the first in a series of resources we plan to cocreate and curate as part of our emerging work together. 

We will keep connecting, writing and sharing, and invite others to join us on the learning journey before each of us committed to race equity and social justice in the organizations we lead and support. 

Our forthcoming infographic, to be released in early 2021, will focus on the “what” of race equity work, “how” change happens and “how” we know when organizational transformation in pursuit of race equity and collective liberation is being done well and contributes to movement building.

This blog was originally published in the October 14, 2020 Luminare newsletter, Be Lumin-Us.

“Lead. Follow. Or, get out of the way.”

This quote, alternately attributed to Thomas Paine and George Patton, is top of mind today. Not because centering the leadership philosophies of powerful white males seems appropriate when the American president just released a statement celebrating the “achievements” of Christopher Columbus – a man whose depravity is as well documented as his sense of direction – but because a truthful reimagining of the quote for this moment might be to paraphrase Stonewall Community Foundation’s Jarrett Lucas:

“Fall back and let Indigenous and Black people lead….Indigenous and Black leadership moves us closer to solutions. Get out of the way.”

Get out of the way. How can leaders and organizations do that?

Below, I’m sharing some resources and tools that I hope will support colleagues and co-conspirators for racial equity and justice in beginning to do so. By centering the voices, lived expertise, healing practices, leadership and power of Indigenous and Black people, we make progress toward the deep equity and liberation that this moment in history, and colonialism’s legacy of state-sanctioned savagery and white supremacy, requires. Equity in the Center believes deep equity to be the foundation of the Race Equity Culture leaders must inspire progress toward within organizations and in broader society. It is my hope that these tools and resources – which can support our collective work to follow or get out of the way of Indigenous and Black visionaries – will support you in building relationships and practices rooted in the wisdom, joy, energy, and purpose that have sustained Indigenous people for millennia, and people of African descent for centuries, on this land.

BLOG LINKS

Centering Indigenous and Black Leadership

• Changing the Narrative about Native Americans: A Guide for Allies
• Dismantling Anti-Black Bias in Democratic Workplaces: A Toolkit
• The Disruption of White Supremacy: The white male-centric colonial system is incapable of the leadership we need, and Indigenous knowledge is essential for the innovation that will follow this disruption
• The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle Philanthropy
• What I’ve Learned about Showing Up for My Black Co-Director
• How to Support Black Leaders
• Investing in Native Communities
• The Case for Funding Black-Led Social Change
• Decolonizing Wealth
• My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies

Resource for Allies

• White Women Doing White Supremacy in Nonprofit Culture
• As Non-Black POC, We Need to Address Anti-Blackness
• So You Want to Be a White Ally: Healing from white supremacy

Other Tools/Resources

• White Dominant Culture & “Something Different” Worksheet
• Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity’s Guide to Grantmaking with a Racial Justice Lens
• Operationalizing Racial Justice
• Change Elemental’s “Systems Change & Deep Equity: Pathways Toward Sustainable Impact, Beyond “Eureka!,” Unawareness & Unwitting Harm”
• Race To Lead Revisited
• POWER MOVES: Your essential philanthropy assessment guide for equity and justice
• Resonance: A Framework for Philanthropic Transformation

EiC Resources

• “Awake to Woke to Work: Building a Race Equity Culture” publication (users must enter email address and accept licensing agreement to view/download)
• November 2019 Opening Plenary featuring Dr. Gail Christopher and Marcus Walton on the importance of racial healing to operationalizing equity in organizations
• Video case studies of organizations that participated in “Awake to Woke to Work” research

In Partnership and Solidarity

Broader reach and sector-level focus will guide the next chapter as Equity in the Center becomes an independent organization

Today marks a new chapter in Equity in the Center’s story — one we are writing in partnership with stakeholders and in pursuit of our shared vision for race equity in society. Going forward, Equity in the Center (EiC) will operate as an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. We are developing a strategic partnership with Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO), the details of which will be shared in the coming weeks. Though the operating model is changing, our commitment to dismantling racism and building a Race Equity Culture within institutions— conceived in 2015, guided by our Advisory Committee, and practiced in our work supporting leaders and organizations — remains firm. We are deepening our capacity to transform the social sector in collaboration with colleagues and co-conspirators. We are excited to move towards a sustainable, scalable structure that operationalizes our theory of change.

Equity in the Center emerged in 2015 as a collaborative of Annie E. Casey Foundation grantees who convened to grapple with this essential question: Why are there so few leaders of color in the social sector? The answer — and call to action — was to widen the focus beyond diversity at the individual level and address racism at every level on which it operates within nonprofit, philanthropic, and other social sector institutions. 

A collaborative spirit has informed and inspired EiC’s approach throughout our existence. We launched from a shared planning effort among leaders from Annie E. Casey Foundation, ProInspire, Public Allies and AmeriCorps Alums. We hosted collaborative Design and Dialogue sessions, attended by over 120 nonprofit and philanthropic leaders and race equity practitioners from across the country who lent perspective and expertise to development of the Race Equity Cycle. Most recently, and with the support of the ProInspire board, EiC’s advisors and stakeholders voted that it should separate from ProInspire and chart an independent course.

We value the deep and trusting relationships we have built among advisors and stakeholders, the guidance and expertise they have shared with EiC, and the contributions each has made to our ability to impact the field. These relationships are critical to our continued impact, as much of the moral and technical support required to persist as leaders in race equity is found within our ecosystem of expert collaborators and co-conspirators. Our goal is to deepen and broaden these relationships in support of a growing network of race equity practitioners committed to the values of deep equity and liberation. We believe deep equity to be the foundation of a Race Equity Culture in organizations and broader society. As our model evolves, we will continue to nurture not only these relationships, but the joy, energy, and purpose they have manifested in EiC’s work.

As we move into this new chapter, we have great appreciation not only for our Advisory Committee, but for individuals whose support has been essential to our work so far. ProInspire’s Founder and CEO, Monisha Kapila, had a vision for Equity in the Center’s successful launch, and ensured funding and operational conditions were in place for the project and its leadership to flourish. Ashley Stewart, formerly of Annie E. Casey Foundation, is the visionary who provided start-up funding for the project and influenced peers to invest in it. Ericka Hines, Managing Director of EiC and Principal of Every Level Leadership, was lead researcher for the Awake to Woke to Work: Building a Race Equity Culture publication, and her brilliance is reflected in the Race Equity Cycle framework. To CHANGE Philanthropy National Director/Coalition Catalyst Carly Hare and Building Movement Project Co-Director Sean Thomas- Breitfeld, who were the first colleagues to accept a formal organizing role with EiC, we offer deep gratitude for their early support, constant encouragement and sustaining friendship. To Marcus Walton, President and CEO of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, who invested in EiC as a strategic co-conspirator and appreciated the potential impact of the Race Equity Cycle research early on, we remain grateful for your inspiring vision and transformational partnership. And, to Andrew Plumley, former Associate Director of EiC and newly minted board member, we remain indebted for the excellence and integrity he brought to co-leading a body of work that evolved to reflect the passion and purpose he poured into it.

In its next iteration as an independent 501(c)3 organization, Equity in the Center will operate under the leadership of Executive Director Kerrien Suarez and a seven-member (and growing) Board of Directors representing nonprofits, philanthropy, and independent race equity practitioners: Amanda Andere, CEO, Funders Together to End Homelessness; Jara Dean-Coffey, Director and Founder, Equitable Evaluation Initiative and Founder, Luminare Group; Holly Delany Cole, Director, Flexible Leadership Awards, The Haas Leadership Initiatives, Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund; Carly Hare, National Director/Coalition Catalyst, CHANGE Philanthropy; Maggie Potapchuk, President, MP Associates; Andrew Plumley, Director of Inclusion, American Alliance of Museums; Sean Thomas-Breitfeld, Co-Director, Building Movement Project. We are deeply grateful to each of these colleagues and co-conspirators for their early and unflagging support of EiC’s vision and values, personal and professional investment in its potential, and commitment to continued growth and impact. 

While our business model and identity is evolving, our vision of race equity in society and our commitment to building a Race Equity Culture in the social sector remain unchanged.