Your Organization Needs A Shared “Equity Why”
Creating a clear, shared “Equity Why” anchors your organization’s racial equity approach and provides direction for new practices.
Why a Shared “Equity Why” Matters
I’d like to explore the need for a clear, shared equity “why” that anchors your organization’s racial equity approach. Unless people understand the why of racial equity, executing the “how” is incredibly difficult. The why should drive an organization’s work, and having a clear, shared sense of why is essential for moving people forward in the journey. Without a shared sense of why, organizations can get stuck and remain that way for a long time, sometimes spinning in the same place for years. Organizations that find themselves stuck because they lack a clear why can have the same conversations repeatedly and never move forward.
Two fundamentals guide my work with clients:
1. Adopting racial equity as a practice is everyone’s job. That means whatever a person’s job or role is in an organization, there are actions that they can take to help the organization be more equitable.
2. Racially equitable practices should cut across an organization’s internal and external work. To be most effective, equitable practices should be utilized in different parts of the organization, like internally facing operations, such as accounting and payroll, and externally facing – communications, policy, or outreach.
A Shared Equity Why Creates Sustainable Benefits
Even if your organization, philanthropy, or nonprofit is not at the beginning of its racial equity journey, it’s still essential to ensure that everyone is operating from a shared why. A clear “Equity Why” can guide your organization’s:
– Equity goals and values
– Approach and implementation
– Internal and external strategies
– Public statement
A Preview of What Happens When There Is NO Shared Why
When there’s no shared understanding of why racial equity matters in an organization’s work, it can stymie the organization’s growth and slow the work’s maturity, which can be frustrating for staff because, generally, people come into organizations with different levels of knowledge and different ways of connecting to the work.
Here are three symptoms of not having a shared why:
1. Your organization has no singular racial equity approach or strategy that cuts across the organization.
2. Teams within your organization use different racial equity approaches in their work; progress may be uneven across teams.
3. People use different approaches in their everyday work; teams have no shared approach.
The commonality across the symptoms is that there is no shared understanding that feeds into a shared strategy. As a result, people have the same conversation over and over about what equity means within the organization and what it looks like in the day-to-day.
Do you recognize these symptoms? If you do, it might be time to pause your work, circle back, and revisit the understanding of why racial equity matters in your company, your nonprofit, government agency, or philanthropy.
Revisit Commitments to Gain Greater Clarity
I want to share three actions you can take to move your organization forward if you realize there is no shared “why.” Chances are, it is incredibly frustrating to both you as a practitioner and the work that you lead.
Here are three action steps that you can take to check in on your organization’s “Equity Why”:
Stop what you are doing. Chances are, it’s incredibly frustrating to both you as a practitioner and the staff.
Audit current activity. Look at the underlying why of all the activity currently happening within your organization. A range of activities is likely occurring, but it is likely not connected to ONE strategic vision. This is the work to take up at this moment.
Get the input of others. This is an adaptive exercise, meaning that you’re going to need the input of others to move an organization through this process. This is not something that one person can sit at their desk and do alone.
Start with the question, “Why does equity matter in our organization versus starting with a problem, like a lack of data for a project you may be working on.”
There can be many reasons that organizations do not move forward in their equity journey. However, when I see organizations spin, one thing I always look for is whether or not there’s a strong “why.” You know that there’s shared ownership of the why because everybody can speak to it, and you can see it in the everyday work across the organization.
If you’re seeing your organization constantly stumble or have the same conversations on repeat, then take a moment to revisit the why. It is also important to note that even if you have a strong sense of why, review it together – regularly. These kinds of commitments (just like values) should be revisited regularly.
For Helpful Tools:
Check out my podcast episode:
Check out my blog post:
How to Identify Your Organization’s Racial Equity Stage
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