Celebrating Five Years of Awake to Woke to Work®

May 25, 2023 | Equity In The Center News, Race Equity, Woke @ Work

Read Time: 2 minutes

Equity In The Center celebrated the fifth anniversary of our Awake to Woke to Work®: Building a Race Equity Culture™ publication this April! As we mark this occasion, we’re reflecting on the influence it’s had on organizations working to create a more equitable workplace, especially following the “racial reckoning” of 2020.

After a year of planning, literature reviews, primary interviews, and framework development, in 2018 we presented a research-based, practical guide for organizational race equity transformation. What sets our Awake to Woke to Work® publication apart is that it was created in collaboration with the very people and organizations intended to use it, with over 150 representatives from social sector organizations involved.

The report has been downloaded more than 70,000 times around the world and 18,394 nonprofits list our Race Equity Cycle® criteria in their Candid profiles, demonstrating the significant need for this resource. The Awake to Woke to Work® framework is designed to help organizations move from being aware of the need for race equity to taking action towards building a Race Equity Culture™. The framework has been used by a range of organizations, from nonprofits to government agencies to corporations.

We’re celebrating our five-year Awake to Woke to Work® anniversary by unveiling an updated version of our Race Equity Culture™ 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 individual and collective experience.

 

Infographic titled “Levers to Move Organizations Through the Intersectional Race Equity Cycle®”. A circle with 7 levers listed around: Senior Leaders, Data, Organizational Culture, Learning Environment, Board of Directors, Communities, Managers. Beneath those, Sexual Orientation, Gender, Disability, Class, Immigration Status, Age, Religion are listed. Beneath those is the “Intersectional Race Equity Cycle” which consists of Awake (orgs are focused on representation by increasing numbers of racially diverse people), Woke (orgs are evolving their culture to value all people’s contributions), Work (orgs are accountable to addressing systemic racism and root causes of inequity internally and externally). At the center of the circle, is the word, “Race.”→ DOWNLOAD HERE.

How does your organization address intersectionality as you are building a Race Equity Culture™? The updated infographic is designed to support organizations in being explicit about the differential impact of intersecting identities on historically marginalized individuals and communities.

We are excited to announce the upcoming release of our Awake to Woke to Work® Toolkit, designed to help leaders assess where their organization is on the Race Equity Cycle® and provide actionable next steps to move from Awake to Woke, or Woke to Work.

We express our deepest gratitude to all who have joined us on this transformative path. We look forward to the next five years and beyond, as we continue to make a lasting change together. Here’s to five years of progress, learning, and collaboration in creating more equitable organizations!

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