Equity Consulting
Becoming Equitable Institutions
As you work to make your communities, organizations, businesses, and institutions more equitable, the YWCA Equity Institute and our team of consultants are here to help you do the work with Becoming Equitable Institutions Consulting services!
YWCA’s Equity Institute offers several solutions to assist your equity team with understanding organizational strengths and challenges, navigating policy change, and prioritizing action steps toward achieving your equity goals:
PLEAE NOTE: We are currently at capacity for working with new clients. However, we are still accepting inquiries and will be in touch with you to discuss your needs after you submit the form.
We work with your team to gather information about your current racial equity or leadership efforts that will provide data-driven insights into how successfully your organization is operating. We provide data on where your organization is on a continuum of organizational equity, and provide an assessment report with detailed results and recommendations to help your team prioritize actions toward creating an equitable organization.
Interactive and skills-based training for staff, leadership, and board members on foundations of structural racism, power, and intersectional oppression to build abilities to help your organization succeed.
Our 101 Series is designed to increase experience with naming and discussing inequity operating in and around us.
Bias & Accountability
Consciously or not, all of us carry biases toward individuals or groups. In this interactive workshop, we’ll explore how bias shows up in and around us, shaping the world we live in and our interactions with one another. Participants will learn how to name what is implicit and step into accountability in order to manage bias in themselves and the places they live and work. Objectives include:
- Increase understanding of how bias has shaped us and our world historically
- Increase ability of participants to reflect on and share their own biases
- Increase personal motivation and ownership of accountability in managing bias and growing toward equity
Power & Privilege
As we consider topics of race, gender, ableism, heterosexism, and ageism, this workshop explores: What privilege is, who has it and how it works for them, as well as how power and privilege are connected, and how the misuse of power and privilege become oppression. Objectives include:
- Recognize how power, privilege, and oppression shape our lives
- Identify how systemic oppression has affected us and our relationships
- Consider ways to shift power and work against oppression at interpersonal and institutional levels
Developing Cultural Humility
What does it mean to be develop cultural humility? We’ll explore how an organization can become inclusive and understanding of a variety of cultures, races, abilities, and differences, and identify changes that can be made by organizations and by individuals to transform the climate. Objectives include:
- Explore our many cultural identities and their complex relationship with race
- Understand how embracing cultural humility can move our organizations toward equity
- Practice applying the principles of cultural humility individually, interpersonally, and institutionally
Our 201 Series explores culture and socialization and how to take action to change the systems in which we are embedded.
What is White Supremacy Culture?
It is often hard to talk about race because white culture values certain ways of knowing and not others, and assigns a higher value to some ways of behaving than others. Because these ideas have been maintained over a long period of time, it is sometimes hard for people to notice that this culture is based in whiteness. What are the characteristic of white supremacy culture – and what do we do once we’ve recognized this? Objectives include:
- Identify the covert ways white supremacy shapes us and our society
- Learn four actions to dismantle white supremacy culture
- Commit to acting against white supremacy in our communities and institutions
Socialization of Oppression
This workshop looks at how we have been socialized to play certain roles within the systems of oppression that are deeply rooted in American culture, and how we help maintain oppressive systems. Armed with this information, what would it look like to break out of the traditional responses to these systems? Objectives include:
- Explore the ways we have been socialized to think, respond and act in oppressive ways
- Identify what it looks like to liberate ourselves from the ways we’ve been socialized
- Identify one commitment to helping self or org move toward liberation
Advocacy in Action
This workshop is for those who want to see systemic change in their community, their institution, or their industry, but don’t know where or how to start. Participants will learn foundational understandings, tools and tactics for analyzing the systemic power operating in their context and activating people power toward systemic change. Objectives include:
- Apply foundational equitable frameworks to our understanding of advocacy
- Refine the focus of our advocacy
- Explore 3 tools that can help engage in advocacy strategically and equitably
- Identify tactical strengths and weakness to support collective advocacy work
We support your organization in short-term and targeted ways to provide dedicated staff additional strategy and feedback. Areas for consulting may include research and analysis on issues related to racial equity; equity strategic planning; team support; and work planning
We work with your team to co-design equity learning experiences for staff and stakeholders in your field.
Skillfully-guided conversations and/or listening sessions for your organization to inform and guide your racial equity strategies.