Racial Equity Planning
Racial Equity Assessment
We start the racial equity planning process with a racial equity assessment to help you understand where you are now. Assessments can be shaped to fit your scope and budget but often include an analysis of existing policies and procedures and a combination of interviews, focus groups, and/or surveys with groups like the board, staff, constituents, and partners. Based on your chosen scope, we can develop an appropriate plan and timeline.
Following the assessment period, CommunityConnective will share insights to help you understand how current policies and procedures support or hinder racial equity goals (or other types of goals) as well as how board, staff, constituents, and partners view the organization in relation to those goals. We submit a written report that shares the themes of what we learned through our assessment, what these findings mean, and our recommendations for possible focus areas as the organization plans for the future.
Racial Equity Workshops
In order for your organization to fully embrace the role race plays in your internal and external work, it will be critical to embark on a learning journey. Therefore, we encourage organizations to include workshops as a part of their planning process.
All of our workshops are three hours long, are capped at 25 live participants, and take place over Zoom. We can also work together to figure out the best plan for sharing recordings with your team if that is desired.
We offer a series of three or four core workshops that will set your team up for success as you work to align with the values of racial equity. The topics we cover include vocabulary and concepts, the history of race/racism in the United States, and helping your organization connect that history to where we are today by exploring the characteristics of default whiteness and white supremacy culture so that you have a framework to help you spot racism in action and begin to flip the script.
We are also able to provide coaching, identity caucuses/affinity groups, and facilitated workshops on a number of different topics. (For more specific information, please refer to our Workshops & Other Learning Opportunities page)
Creating a Racial Equity Plan
Following the assessment and workshops, organizations are ready to engage in creating a plan to embed racial equity throughout the organization. Through a highly collaborative process, we draw upon what was learned in the assessment and workshop phases of the project to outline priorities, goals, and objectives that align with that learning. Additionally, we work with the organization to create an implementation plan that includes accountability measures, timelines, success measures, and more to ensure that the plan actually happens and doesn’t simply gather dust sitting on the shelf.
She knows her topic and she brought good resources to our group as well! I also found her to be empathic and supportive and thoughtful.
Deep knowledge of racial equity topics, great questions to ask that generated thoughtful responses.
Helping to get us into the uncomfortable zone; she was consistent; focus on our accountability
Tracy Bishop
Forest Preserves of Cook County Director of Permits, Rentals and Concessions
Alex Cornwell
Chicago Lights Director of Evaluation and Impact Racial Equity & Social Justice Committee Co-Chair, Chicago Women in Philanthropy
Rev. Carlos Reyes Rodríguez
Immigration Law & Justice Network Culture & Outreach Manager