DEI Progress Report

Our DEI Progress Report is an internal document that captures the first four and a half years of our intentional diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) journey, from 2017 to mid-2021.

The spark for our DEI journey began with a board-level conversation in August 2016, and it was staff of color who led the charge in ensuring DEI was an organization-wide commitment. After the August board meeting, staff of color came together multiple times and brought forward the idea of creating a racial equity statement to clarify the organization’s understanding and commitment.

The following graphic illustrates the major milestones of our DEI work:

We’ve spent time assessing how far we’ve come and where we are now in our DEI journey. Key insights include the following:

• • We now have a more open culture. As an organization, we moved from not talking about race across the organization to an internal culture that is open to talking about race explicitly. We created spaces that foster more compassion, open-mindedness, and a willingness to empathize and see different worldviews.
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  • We have a more unified commitment to working toward racial justice. There is a desire across both staff and board to make significant changes to advance racial justice through our policies, practices, and culture.
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  • We have the tools. Our development of the Racial Equity Magnifier (REM), a tool we use to help center racial equity across our decision-making processes, and deep learning about intercultural development through the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) have pushed our thinking and actions.

Key insights about where we’re going include the following:

• • We need to create a stronger container for racial equity. Our executive team has taken on the role of serving as the container, meaning it will continually learn for action around racial equity and demonstrate the following: a shared understanding of what we mean by racial equity; clarity on what success in advancing racial equity looks like within the organization; the skill and will to partner with staff on these efforts; and a commitment to having collaborative discussions that impact racial equity.
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  • We have a lot more learning to do and action to take. We need to continue to take the time to have deeper conversations that help us understand the history and impact of racial inequities that move us to take action.

The following are the top three learnings to affirm for the future as we consider the next phase of our DEI journey:

1. 1. Organization-wide support and being intentional about DEI is critical.
   2. Organizational culture is critical to make significant DEI changes.
   3. Organizational change requires us to deconstruct, take action, and keep practicing.