Race Equity Culture™ Virtual Partner Training with The BIPOC Project

Building Black Power: Dismantling Anti-Blackness in Our Institutions and Movements

This session is for organizational leaders seeking to disrupt the ways anti-Blackness shows up within teams, organizations, and communities.

Description

Led by The BIPOC Project, this webinar will teach multi-racial participants to disrupt the ways anti-Blackness shows up in organizations and communities.

The facilitated workshop will involve interactive exercises and an experiential dialogue using historical and contemporary information, self-reflection, institutional analysis, visioning, and collective action planning.

A key learning objective of this training is for participants to be more equipped with resources for identifying and undoing anti-Black racism and building pro-Black spaces within teams, organizations and communities.

As a result of participation in this session, you will:

  • Enhance your understanding of how anti-Black racism operates as a fulcrum of white supremacy
  • Have a deep analysis of how anti-Black racism distinctly influences institutional culture and inter- and intra-personal dynamics within organizational, community and movement spaces
  • Develop practices and commitments for undoing white supremacy and anti-Blackness, and advancing pro-Black organizing spaces as a necessary foundation for racial equity
  • Be equipped with strategies to be accountable to Black people and communities in the work to build anti-racist organizations and communities.

If you have any questions or concerns, please email workshops@equityinthecenter.org.

    Upcoming Workshops and Cost

    Equity In The Center updated service pricing to a tiered pricing model in April 2022 to better align with best practices among equity-focused organizations. We ask that organizations purchasing tickets on behalf of their staff purchase tickets in the tier that aligns with your organizational budget and sector. For individuals purchasing tickets for themselves, we ask that those with greater privilege purchase tickets at the higher end, which will allow individuals with historically less access to wealth, disproportionately BIPOC folks, to pay the lower fees.

    Refund Policy | Apply for a Race Equity Culture™ Scholarship

    Stay tuned for the next session!
    Subsidized Rate Actual Cost Rate Supporter Rate Investment Rate
    Non-profits with budgets <$1M Non-profits with budgets between $1M and $3,999,999; government Foundations with assets less than $10M; non-profits with budgets between $4M and $9,999,999 All for-profit companies; foundations with assets over $10M; and non-profits with budgets $10M and above
    $165 $190 $215 $240

    *Budget categories based on Rockwood Leadership Institute’s tiered pricing model

    Testimonials

    I liked the mix of real tools with the thoughtfulness and exploratory aspect of the training.

    This training was very validating of things I have been questioning myself about at work – encouraging me to continue pushing for pro-Black stance not just anti-racist, developing policies and protocols that do not require the individual to be fully up to speed in order to take actions that are pro-Black as part of the instituton’s organizational fabric. The training gave much more concrete background, a space to feel into the importance of pro-Blackness, and recommit myself to keep on pushing. I feel strengthened, more clear, and more brave.

    It is always challenging having these conversations in multi-racial spaces with strangers where everyone comes to the training with their own experiences. I thought that Merle and Fiona did a wonderful job of helping to bridge the gap and provide action steps for me to take back to my organization.

    The presentation was excellent and the presenters worked well together. It was a master class in facilitation as well as how anti-blackness shows up even in well intentioned situations.

    Merle and Fiona did an incredible job as facilitators to open up the session from a visioning space and then move us into large and small group conversations around concrete ways to identify and dismantle anti-Blackness. I especially appreciated the framework around building pro-Black institutions – which is distinct from building anti-racist institutions. It’s a proactive framework that moves beyond addressing anti-Blackness to actually taking pro-Black stances and actions.

    There was a good mix of theory and practice / practical emphasis. The facilitators were excellent and created a space that allowed people to explore discomfort but push beyond it.

    Facilitators

    Fiona Kanagasingam, Co-Founder, BIPOC Project

    Fiona is an organizational development and equity strategist with 20 years of experience. She has managed change and scaled impact across multiple sectors as both a consultant and executive leader, most recently at Planned Parenthood of Greater New York, where she designed and led the organization’s strategy to center equity across all operations and programs. The approach she led is regarded as a model for Planned Parenthood nationally and has been publicly recognized: How Planned Parenthood of Greater NY Defanged Conservatives and Strengthened Its Mission | The Racial Reckoning Inside Planned Parenthood. Previously, Fiona was a senior leader at Community Resource Exchange (CRE) where she led engagements focused on strategic planning, equity, leadership development, team effectiveness, and change management for funders, nonprofits, higher education, and public sector organizations. She built and scaled CRE’s Equity and Inclusion practice to one of the firm’s largest, and launched CRE’s own internal racial equity transformation process.

    Her approach to advancing change and justice has been shaped by foundational experiences globally, as a senior leader in higher education where she launched a nationally groundbreaking methodology for dialogue on race, politics, and identity in her country of origin, Singapore; as an advisor to large global corporations on organizational assessment and change; and as a counselor working directly with families impacted by violence.

    Fiona received her BA from Columbia University in Comparative Politics with a concentration in Gender Studies, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, her Master in Counseling from Monash University in Australia, and her Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Georgetown University. She is also a certified executive coach. Learn more about her experience on LinkedIn.

    Merle McGee, Co-Founder, BIPOC Project

    Merle McGee is an equity leader with responsibility for developing engagement strategies with an equity lens. Merle has extensive experience in nonprofit management, youth development, education, racial justice, and gender equity. She previously served as Chief Program Officer at the YWCA of the City of New York, where she oversaw multiple program portfolios. Merle recently published a chapter in Changemakers! Practitioners Advance Equity and Access in Out-of-School Time Programs on youth development, race, and critical practice. Merle received her Bachelor’s degree from New York University and holds a Master’s of Science in Non-Profit Management from the Milano School of International Affairs, Management and Urban Policy at New School University. She is the co-founder of the BIPOC Project (a Black, Indigenous, and People of Color solidarity movement). Merle has been an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Administration at the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, where she taught nonprofit consulting and Race and Identity in Organizations.