Inspiration and encouragement for building a Race Equity Culture™
By Cyndi Suarez, President of Big Soul In a time of backlash to powerful social change, the question many are asking is what’s next for racial equity? The leaders of Equity In The Center—a leading racial equity organization, coining the term Race Equity Culture™—have...
By Equity In The Center Between 2020 and 2025, Equity In The Center™ (EIC) became one of the most widely recognized authorities on how race equity is embedded into organizational life. This period coincided with seismic shifts: the height of the COVID-19 pandemic;...
By Cyndi Suarez, President of Big Soul Since 2018, Equity In The Center has been at the forefront of driving racial equity in organizations. In its first five years as an independent 501c3, it coined the term Race Equity Culture™ and created a framework for it that is...
This article is the third in a series on Equity In The Center. Its purpose is to capture knowledge for the nonprofit sector. The articles in this series explore: The creation of EIC EIC’s biggest learnings thus far EIC’s biggest contribution to the field to...
By Cyndi Suarez, President of Big Soul Equity In The Center has learned many lessons in its first five years as an independent 501c3—at the level of the field, the organization, and the individual. Its leaders have taken time to reflect honestly and bravely, and to...
By Cyndi Suarez, President of Big Soul The Seed of a Powerful Idea This year Equity In The Center celebrates its fifth anniversary. In a short time it has become a leading organization for racial equity work, coining the term Race Equity Culture™, which is now used...
The thread of structural racism runs through almost every issue addressed by the social sector. In order to disentangle this thread and eliminate its far reaching impacts, organizations must be thoughtful and deliberate in advancing race equity as a core principle....
In a recent Equity in the Center LinkedIn Live, Tenaja Jordan spoke with Whitney Parnell, founder and CEO of Service Never Sleeps, about what it means for white people to move from passive intent to active allyship. At a time when racial polarization is being...
Read Time: 3 minutesIn order to advance intersectional race equity, we need solidarity rooted in deep relationship, mutual defense, and coordinated action. That’s how we build power and work toward a future where our collective liberation is realized.
A lot has changed since Equity In The Center® became an independent organization: a global health pandemic and racial reckoning reshaped the movements for equity and justice, with far-reaching implications for philanthropy and nonprofits. Efforts to roll back the...
And we do feel strongly that there is a way to persist in instituting organizational principles and practices that allow folks to thrive. We’ve always said that centering the lived experiences of individuals who have been historically marginalized benefits not just...
The Cornerstones of Resilience Building a Race Equity Culture™ demands more than passion—it requires tools, practices, and coaching. At Equity In The Center, we’ve identified three cornerstones that ground our work: Shifting Worldviews : Reframing how we see power,...
The lack of relationship with and knowledge about Indigenous peoples, culture and communities isn’t by accident; it is the direct result of centuries of marginalization that began with land theft and genocide. This Native American Heritage Month, Equity In The Center...
Read Time: 2 minutesWe must remain as whole as possible to face the work ahead. As Indigenous, Black and people of color, our ancestors faced more devastating limitations to their humanity and freedom. We and each of you, our co-conspirators, are built for this moment.
Read Time: 4 minutesEquity In The Center® (EIC) seeks a Data Coordinator Consultant to assist with data preparation for Racial Equity Tools’ bi-monthly newsletter. RET is used broadly across the social sector as one the best sources for racial equity tools and resources field-wide. This position is an exciting opportunity to advance racial equity and justice. The ideal candidate excels in managing data, and assisting in the creation and dissemination of bi-monthly newsletters. Familiarity with digital tools and platforms (including Wix, Excel, and Google Sheets), as well as a commitment to racial equity, are essential for this position.
Read Time: 2 minutesPeople talk about the left and right hand sides of the brain, a convenient shorthand that glosses over the complexities of the human brain and especially adult learning. Learning at work involves designing for more than just the linear/logical (left) and creative/associative (right) sides of our brains. As an organizer, I know how important it is to name, see and address power on all four levels on which it operates: individual (internalized), interpersonal, institutional and structural. Doing this allows me to really understand organizations when I am supporting them in their equity journey and learning.
Read Time: 3 minutesOn July 21, 2024, President Biden released a statement saying he would suspend his presidential campaign and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president. It took conservative pundits and media little time to relentlessly attack Harris on the basis of her race and gender, labeling her a “DEI hire.” The attacks are rooted in a history of sexist and racist attacks on Harris dating back to her campaign for the presidency in 2019. And, the foundation for these attacks lies in the structural and systemic racism, and the deep-seated patriarchy, that are endemic to our nation’s history.
Read Time: 3 minutesLeading with our values of being Pro-Indigenous and Pro-Black, Equity In The Center (EIC) remains inspired by the possibility of working into a Pro-Indigenous framework for our collective liberation. To that end, we recently shared a video explaining our practice of paying a land tax to the Piscataway Conoy, whose land we occupy in the Washington, DC region. EIC allocates 2% of our annual budget for this purpose, and encourages colleagues to redistribute resources as part of a broader commitment to take action in solidarity with Indigenous communities.
Read Time: 3 minutesPublished in 2018, Awake to Woke to Work®: Building a Race Equity Culture™ couples the case for organizations centering race equity with an actionable framework (the Race Equity Cycle®) and concrete next steps. Since then and over 71,000 downloads later, we continue to build the social sector’s capacity to operationalize race equity. In 2021, we introduced the Race Equity Cycle Pulse Check™, an assessment for organizations to determine where they are on the Race Equity Cycle® and that provides action steps to move from one stage to the next. Initially launched as a free resource, the Pulse Check has been utilized by over 50 organizations, and was determined to be a robust, valid tool when evaluated in 2023. We have complemented our resources and tools with programmatic supports, including training, coaching, cohort programs and a network for race equity practitioners.
Read Time: 2 minutesEquity In The Center (EIC) is excited to announce the adoption of Racial Equity Tools (RET)! As RET celebrates its 15th anniversary, EIC is honored to lead the next phase of expansion and advancement of RET’s comprehensive website. With this transition, RET will focus on enhancing curation expertise, technical assistance, user-friendliness, responsiveness, and the integration of accessibility and language justice practices. Created in 2009, RET is a key source in the racial justice field, providing a wealth of resources for activists, practitioners, and scholars. With more than 4,500 resources in 98 categories with a robust and popular glossary, RET serves as a critical resource to the race equity, racial justice and movement fields.
Read Time: 4 minutesAs you embark on your holiday shopping this season, consider championing BIPOC-owned businesses! Our curated 2023 gift guide includes must-haves like the “Land Back” shirt from Naokah Designs, an urban Indigenous brand, and “Parents Are Human,” a card game that helps you spark deep conversations with your loved ones—all priced at $60 and below. For a list of more BIPOC-owned businesses to support for the holidays and year-round, please see our Holiday Roundup of BIPOC-Owned Businesses.
Read Time: 3 minutesProfound, collective grief has followed Hamas’ terror attack on Israel, the deepening conflict and resulting humanitarian crises. We mourn the lives lost and continue to hold Israeli and Palestinian victims, their families and loved ones in the light.
Read Time: 3 minutesEmbracing difficult conversations is essential towards building a Race Equity Culture™ – not just in external organizations, but also internally at Equity In The Center (EIC). Our team extends immense gratitude to our partners and consultants at Building For Mission (BFM) for their unwavering support and guidance with this (and much more) over the past two years. Their transformative partnership has been a crucial part of our nonprofit start-up journey as we continue to grow and lean into our values.
Read Time: 2 minutesThe two recent Supreme Court rulings – striking down affirmative action in college admissions and LGBTQ+ rights – represent a significant regression in civil rights. By diminishing the ability of institutions to consider race as a factor in admissions, the ruling disregards the enduring effects of systemic racism and the need for proactive measures to address historical oppression. “Refusing to acknowledge race doesn’t make the exquisite design of racism disappear. It makes it take hold even stronger,” as stated in The Skillman Foundation’s recent blog, “Racial Neutrality Does Not Exist: Why Affirmative Action Actually Benefits ALL of Us.”
Read Time: 3 minutesJennifer Miller’s piece “Why Some Companies Are Saying ‘Diversity and Belonging’ Instead of ‘Diversity and Inclusion’” highlights how a flawed definition of belonging – “[helping] people who aren’t marginalized feel like they’re part of the conversation” is being used to center the comfort of “lily-white leadership” experiencing “hostility” and “resentment” triggered by poorly designed and executed DEI initiatives.
Read Time: 2 minutesCelebrate our five-year Awake to Woke to Work™ anniversary as we unveil an updated version of our Race Equity Cycle® infographic! This enhanced edition explicitly recognizes the intersection of identities such as age, class, disability, gender, immigration status, religion, and sexual orientation in cultivating and sustaining a Race Equity Culture™. By centering race in this graphic, we acknowledge its central role in our collective experience.
Read Time: 5 minutesIn our first blog in this series, we introduced the idea of an equity container: A set of conditions that allows groups to move through racial justice work without falling apart or reproducing white supremacy culture. A strong equity container allows teams to work through conflict, disagreement and harm in ways that strengthen team alignment, which is critical to operationalizing equity at organizations. When a team’s container is fragile or fractured, the team is likely to create harm and lose its ability to have the honest, vulnerable conversations needed to dismantle white supremacy. What does it look like to actually nurture a strong container? We’re iterating on a simple framework for this: Build, Maintain, Repair.
Read Time: 9 minutesOrganizations have a feverish obsession with getting diverse talent in the door. Throughout recent years, pieces have been published underscoring the importance of recruiting leaders of color to the non-profit sector (see The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Quarterly), but little has been said about retaining leaders of color, and even less about why so many leaders of color leave. It turns out there’s a secret to losing diverse talent. It takes daily effort, but with consistency, incorporating these seven components within your organization will send leaders of color packing (depending on what you do or don’t).
Read Time: 4 minutesOn Jan. 17, The New York Times published an opinion piece from Jesse Singal titled “What If Diversity Training Is Doing More Harm Than Good.” The article was a missed opportunity to highlight the benefits of organizational transformation focused on mitigating measurable identity-based inequities, a change that unfolds along a developmental continuum from diversity to inclusion to equity and is executed over years. The “gotcha” framing of the article focused on a well-known fact among equity practitioners and demonstrated in studies: transactional trainings focused on unconscious bias and “consciousness raising” yield little to no measurable benefit and can challenge morale in ways that degrade commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Read Time: 3 minutesThese recent tragedies reflect that we are still in much the same place we were before the “racial reckoning” following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. In fact, police violence has escalated since then. These acts also demonstrate how BIPOC can be complicit in white supremacy and perpetuate police violence. And, while the news cycle is quick to place responsibility on individual problems or “bad apples” in police departments, we know that dismantling white supremacist systems and structures is the only way to prevent these tragedies from occurring again.
Read Time: 2 minutesAs a start-up organization driven by race equity, we strive to make decisions that are aligned with our values AND recognize the importance of being held publicly accountable to those values. Our announcement to leave Twitter was followed by a wave of support from many individuals and organizations who appreciated the transparency and agreed with the decision, but weren’t sure if or how they might do the same.
Read Time: 3 minutesWe’ve grown significantly since 2020 – from our staff to our reach – making progress towards realizing our vision of a future where nonprofit and philanthropic organizations advance race equity internally while centering it in their work externally. As we end the year, we remain hopeful. And, we’re excited to share highlights and reflections on what we’ve accomplished in the past year.
Read Time: 3 minutesIf you’re going to shop this holiday season, why not support BIPOC-owned businesses? We got you covered with our gift guide below featuring a “You are on Native land” beanie from the Indigenous-owned shop Urban Native Era, beautiful home decor from Black-owned businesses, and more gifts all under $60.
Read Time: 9 minutesKicking off this new EIC partner spotlight series is Whitney Parnell (she/her), Founder and CEO of Service Never Sleeps (SNS)! Whitney is the facilitator of our virtual partner trainings, BIPOC Allies, held quarterly, and White Allies, held monthly. She recently sat down with Equity in the Center to chat all about the founding of her org, truly committing to the allyship lifestyle, and the upcoming SNS Allyship Summit that’s themed “What does it mean to be Black-led?”
Read Time: 4 minutesAchieving race equity — the condition where one’s racial identity has no influence on how one fares in society — is a fundamental element of social change across every issue area in the social sector. Building a Race Equity Culture™ is the foundational work when organizations seek to advance race equity; it creates the conditions that help us to adopt anti-racist mindsets and actions as individuals and to center race.
Read Time: 4 minutesStructural change is essential to building a Race Equity Culture™. And, too often, organizations attempt this change without paying enough attention to the container that holds them in this work. We offer that a critical step in building a Race Equity Culture is deciding to be together differently. This means acknowledging that multiple, interlocking systems of oppression operate in the team’s environment and taking conscious measures to subvert those.
Read Time: 2 minutesAs we continue this period of rapid growth, we are now looking for an Operations Manager. This is a full-time role (32 hours per week). Reporting to the Vice President of Operations, the new Operations Manager will be a key leader who supports the President, maintains current internal systems and processes, manages relationships with vendors, oversees event logistics, and partners with leadership on the long-term growth and expansion of the ops team.
Read Time: 2 minutesAs a start-up organization, we’re experiencing a period of rapid growth and transition. We are grateful to each stakeholder that has supported EiC’s work since our debut in 2017! Cross-sector support from race equity leaders, champions, and funders has been crucial in positioning us for this moment of transformation.
Read Time: 2 minutesEquity in the Center is hiring for the VP of Operations, a role that will be critical to our start-up organization’s growth and sustainability! The VP will be responsible for building and running cross-functional processes that touch every employee at EiC.
Read Time: 2 minutesWith three recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, Orange Country, California, and Uvalde, Texas, we’ve seen, yet again, how deeply white supremacy and violence are embedded in the fabric of this nation. We are heartbroken for these victims and their families. We are angry that “thoughts and prayers” are offered but action to prevent gun violence, which disproportionately affects BIPOC, is not.
Read Time: 9 minutesThis post, originally published on December 17, 2020, is relevant during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM). Especially in the wake of the racist mass shooting in Buffalo, NY that took 10 lives and injured three more this past weekend, it remains important to call for the eradication of the anti-Blackness that permeates globally. The Asian American and Black communities have a history of solidarity to build on. Working together, we can build true racial solidarity and move all communities closer to equity.
Read Time: 3 minutesOriginally published on March 23, 2021. Using an intersectional frame, last week’s horrific killing of eight people, six of whom were Asian women, can be viewed as the tragic manifestation of the misogyny, racism and white supremacy embedded in the fabric of American culture and society – the same culture that generously described the white gunman’s actions as the result of “a bad day” and his being “fed up.” In America, the crimes of a white male domestic terrorist can be casually regarded with greater humanity than the lives or deaths of those he murdered.
Read Time: 2 minutesSandra Herrera (she/her) is excited to join Equity in the Center as the new Communications Associate. She’s worked for a leading real estate website and in the non-profit sector, learning to hone her design and storytelling skills and lead with fearless empathy. She enjoys being a plant mom, eating tamales and arroz con gandules, and reading any book that Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes.
Read Time: 2 minutesMiyo Hall-Kennedy (they/she) is the new Training Associate for Equity in the Center. Miyo has spent the last fifteen-plus years working across a variety of sectors, including the U.S. Navy, mental healthcare, K-12 education, and employment services for nonprofit organizations in California, Virginia, Chicago, and Las Vegas.
To better align EiC's pricing to the team's equity values and established best practices among national equity leaders (such as Rockwood Leadership Institute), we will adopt a tiered pricing model beginning in April 2022. We ask that organizations purchasing tickets...
Read Time: < 1 minuteEquity in the Center is hiring a Director/Sr. Director, Content and Stakeholder Engagement role, working alongside Rebekah, that will be critical to the organization’s growth and sustainability.
Read Time: 3 minutesRebekah Gowler (she/her), our Senior Director, Content and Stakeholder Engagement, and Jaser Alsharhan, of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO), explore how grantmakers are reimagining racial equity in their organizations in this blog collab announcing GEO’s newest learning cohort, the Race Equity Culture™ Fellowship, designed in partnership with our team.
Many EiC stakeholders don’t know the story of our founding and evolution into an independent 501c3, so gather for story time as we celebrate our first year as an independent non-profit organization, marked by growth and innovation, in the midst of a massive racial...
Equity in the Center is inviting applications for two new positions, a full-time Communications Associate and a part-time Training Coordinator. These new roles are critical to the organization’s growth and sustainability. The Communications Associate will be a key...
Equity in the Center is thrilled to be one of the 286 organizations that received a part of the almost 3 billion dollars that MacKenzie Scott committed to addressing social inequities in our society. We are very proud to be amongst our race equity peers in receiving...
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...
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...
Equity in the Center is inviting applications for the Director/Sr. Director, Content and Stakeholder Engagement, a new role that will be critical to the organization’s growth and sustainability. The person in this position will lead service delivery of EiC...
"Please stop saying this is not America, or we are better than this. America was founded on the violent taking of land and reliance on chattel slavery by white supremacist slave owners who documented their plan to commit genocide on Indigenous people. Just over 50...
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...
Read Time: 3 minutesBy 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.
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...
This article was originally published in the PEAK Grantmaking Journal: Black Voices in Grants Management, which makes space for Black grants professionals to be heard in the discussion on racial diversity, equity, and inclusion in philanthropy, with ideas for building...
By: Kad Smith [Image by Steve Johnson From Pexels] If you’ve checked out our offerings at CompassPoint before, you know that we’ve referenced the habits of white supremacy culture frequently. It’s become one of the guiding frameworks that’s helped us build a...
By: Nicola Chin Last week as I was creating this framework for Strategic Thinking in a Long-Term Crisis, I came across a hole in our library of resources: grieving. Up With Community has tools and resources to share on trauma, but we were lacking supports to...
By: Nicola Chin We’ve spent the last two weeks virtually connecting with community-based partners across the country on their responses and needs at this moment. We have heard the resounding historic theme that, in moments of crisis, communities of color and other...
A Founder’s Reflections on Pausing and Transitioning POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 9, 2019 [Español abajo] By Amy Mandel (Bio below) During our “pause for the cause,” AMKRF has entered a time of organizational reflection and analysis building. As a part of our work, we are...
Liberation from the Inside Out POSTED ON JUNE 5, 2019 [Español abajo] Lindsay sitting still and going inward By Lindsay Majer (Bio below) I imagine our pause for the cause has looked like an eleven-month vacation. We did not welcome a new cohort of Fellows. We...
The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle Philanthropy POSTED ON AUGUST 19, 2019 [Español abajo] By: Marsha Davis (Bio below) During our “pause for the cause,” AMKRF has entered a time of organizational reflection and analysis building. As a part of our work, we are...
This blog expands on our two previous blogs about Reimagining Compensation. You can find those blogs here and here. Both of these blogs are part of our longer series about living into values of justice and equity at CompassPoint. Read the other blogs in this series...
"Do you want to be right, or do you want to be free?” –Many, many people. Recently: Chris Guilllebeau. Hmmmmmmm. Do I want to be right or do I want to be free? Now, that's a tough one. Sometimes I really, reallllllllllly want to be right. I want everyone to see things...
Written by Jasmine N. Hall Ratliff - Adjunct Professor at St. Louis University and Consultant at Keecha Harris and Associates, inc. By 2044, people of color will be a majority of the population in America. As we move toward this reality, broad opportunities exist...
Written By Kad Smith, Project Director, CompassPoint This is the third blog in our series around our journey to center racial justice, equity, and a vision for leadership in service of liberation at CompassPoint. If you missed the first two installments, catch up here...
Grisel M. Robles-Schrader Saludos/Greetings I’m Grisel M. Robles-Schrader, Director of Evaluation, Stakeholder-Academic Resource Panels (ShARPs), and Director of the Applied Practice Experience at Northwestern University. I am also co-chair of the Latinx Responsive...
Read Time: 9 minutesNaming these patterns is not about calling out other white women or distancing myself from whiteness. My own behavior reflects these patterns and has perpetrated harm in ways I did not comprehend in the moment. I have been called on these practices. Sometimes, I heard what folks were trying to tell me. In other instances, it’s taken me years to see the impact of my behaviors. I believe the following patterns are an important part of the story about why a sector that aims to do good so often falls short of its vision.
Written by Yolanda Caldera-Durant, Vice President, Fund the People For many aspiring professionals of color, unpaid internships and low-paying apprenticeships are one of the few ways they can enter the nonprofit workforce, but they simply are not financially viable....
Nicola Chin, Founder, Up With Community@nicolamchin @upwithcommunity Note: This guest post is a review and expansion of a workshop offered at the October 2018 Equity in the Center Summit. Nicola during her 2018 Equity in the Center Summit...
By Kerrien Suarez with the support of Ericka Hines Image created by Julie Stuart of Making Ideas Visible This is the second in a series of recommendations designed to help nonprofit and philanthropic organizations engage consultants to build a Race Equity Culture. You...
By Kerrien Suarez with the support of Ericka Hines This is the first in a two-part series of recommendations designed to help nonprofit and philanthropic organizations engage consultants to build a Race Equity Culture. Leaders find the process of hiring a race equity...
By Cyndi Suarez, President of Big Soul In a time of backlash to powerful social change, the question many are asking is what’s next for racial equity? The leaders of Equity In The Center—a leading racial equity organization, coining the term Race Equity Culture™—have...
By Equity In The Center Between 2020 and 2025, Equity In The Center™ (EIC) became one of the most widely recognized authorities on how race equity is embedded into organizational life. This period coincided with seismic shifts: the height of the COVID-19 pandemic;...
By Cyndi Suarez, President of Big Soul Since 2018, Equity In The Center has been at the forefront of driving racial equity in organizations. In its first five years as an independent 501c3, it coined the term Race Equity Culture™ and created a framework for it that is...