EDIA Working Group EDIA Working Group Journey Toward Equity Journey Toward Equity SARAH We are here as representatives of the EDIA Working Group at NEFA, past and present. We are going to talk to you about our organizational journey toward equity, so far. Before we start, I want to highlight one of our group agreements for this presentation: we are all on this journey, but we are all at different places on the journey. We are all going to make mistakes. Let us do so bravely and move forward, not with shame, but with acknowledgement and learning. 1
W HO A RE W E ? Current Co-Chairs • Sarah Kelley • Abby Southwell Past Co-Chair • Quita Sullivan Current and Former Working Group • Rodrigo DelaTorre SARAH We’re here today to talk to you about a group near and dear to all of our hearts, the NEFA Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (EDIA) working group. Sarah & Abby Current Co‐Chairs – Sarah Kelley and Abby Southwell Quita Past Co‐Chairs – Quita Sullivan and Daniela Jacobson Rodrigo Current members: Kristin Gregory, Kim Szeto, Derek Schwartz, Jug Chokshi and myself Rodrigo DelaTorre Past members: Meena Malik, Jane Preston, Sara Nash, Sharon Timmel and Steven Fenton. ABBY Over 50% of staff so far have served on the working group and we’re hoping to get to 100% 2
F ORMATION AND H ISTORY October 2017 June 2018 NEFA board adopts Equity Quotient July 2017 artEquity facilitates 2018‐2021 Strategic leads training at Plan all‐staff training board retreat August 2017 Winter 2017‐2018 November 2018 EDIA Working NEFA staff lead artEquity facilitates Group forms dismantling White second all‐staff Supremacy workshops training ABBY We want to begin by centering you in time. The history of the working group is only about 18 months long, but these have been extremely busy and fruitful months, packed with activity. In July 2017, all staff attended a training with artEquity, a wonderful organization with whom Quita had previous experience, having been part of the artEquity facilitator training. The NEFA staff training was a two‐day primer on issues related to equity within the workplace and the arts specifically. Leaving the training, there was a resounding sense among staff that we needed a place to pursue further conversations and learnings related to equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility. From there, the EDIA working group was formed. The necessity of this group was only further emphasized when in October 2017, the board (you all?) formally adopted NEFA’s 2018‐2021 Strategic Plan – with EDIA as a key value and goal. In the time since then, the working group has continued our community’s learning by supporting shared leadership in staff‐led trainings on Dismantling White Supremacy Culture, as well as trainings with outside facilitators Equity Quotient and artEquity to the board and to staff. We’ll speak more about these and other initiatives later in the presentation. 3
W ORKING G ROUP M ISSION • In order to contribute to an equitable world, we need to be: • Equitable internally • Accountable to each other as a community • Committed to ongoing growth and learning QUITA This is the why of our group. (READ THEM OFF THE SLIDE) 4
S TRATEGIES T OWARDS O UR M ISSION • Carrying out cross-organizational projects related to equity • Pursuing shared leadership and knowledge sharing • Ensuring that we remain accountable • Onboarding EDIA journey and resources for new staff • Supporting NEFA’s new affinity groups SARAH These original goals of the working group developed from the work done at the first artEquity training, before the release of the completed Strategic Plan in October 2017. These goals are the benchmarks to which we hold ourselves accountable as a working group. • Carrying out internal and cross‐organizational projects related to equity • Offering an opportunity for shared leadership and knowledge sharing throughout the staff • Accountability ‐ Ensuring that the commitments that were made to each other as a community at the artEquity training and throughout the strategic planning process are upheld • Onboarding new staff on NEFA’s EDIA journey and sharing training resources as part of the employee orientation process • Supporting NEFA’s new affinity groups and advocating for their resource needs From there, NEFAns developed a structure and schedule for a group of staff to meet regularly and plan for how to stay accountable to the agreements we made to each other. 5
S TRUCTURE OF W ORKING G ROUP • 7 staff, rotate every six months • Equitable representational member breakdown • Monthly 1.5 Hour Meetings RODRIGO Our group rotates through 7 staff at a time and serve for one year, this rotation is staggered in June and December for the most part; this is so that there is memory and continuity. When considering the make‐up of the group, we do our best to achieve equitable representation which reflects our full staff and we consider: Staff of color and white staff Programs and Operations staff Nonbinary, Female and Male staff Part time and Full time staff Core Team, Managers and Directors, Executive Leadership ‐ There is always one member of the Executive Leadership team. Our agenda is always packed and we meet for an hour and a half every month! 6
S TRATEGIC P LAN G OAL #3 • Recognize, support, and invest in equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility as essential in all aspects of internal processes and external opportunities to build a strong arts sector ABBY Goal: ‐Recognize, support, and invest in EDIA as essential in all aspects of internal processes and external opportunities to build a strong arts sector After the strategic plan was finalized in October 2017, NEFAns dove into the work of operationalizing each goal. The EDIA working group took goal 3 as our primary directive. In Spring 2018, staff sat together as a group and conducted an analysis of where we were and where we wanted to be in relation to goal 3. From this process, we developed strategies to begin to tackle at least part of this goal. The working group broke our strategies up by the audience of each strategy, with the identified audiences being: ‐Work related to internal NEFA staff ‐Work related to NEFA Board and Committees ‐Work related to NEFA Constituents -Work related to NEFA Funders 7
S COPE OF C URRENT W ORK Work related to internal NEFA staff • Work related to NEFA Board and • Committees Training, Processes, Structures, and Evaluation QUITA Recognizing that this is a huge scope of work, the working group determined in Spring 2018 that this working group’s key goal for the first year of the strategic plan would be the first two areas, internal staff and NEFA board and committees. While EDIA work is happening with constituents and funders, it is on a departmental and program level and is not led by this working group, at this time. We hope that a future board meeting can focus on a discussion of our EDIA work in program, event, and external operational work . We also identified four areas where the working group could contribute to these parts of NEFA: ‐Training ‐Processes ‐Structures ‐Evaluation 8
T RAINING • artEquity staff trainings • Equity Quotient board training • Dismantling White Supremacy Culture workshops SARAH Here are some concrete examples of the work we’ve done so far. In terms of trainings… We’ve had two contracts with external trainers: artEquity trainings: July 2017 and November 2018 We planned and executed both of these trainings with artEquity. These trainings act as touch points for the full staff to acknowledge the work we’ve done and the work we have left to do. Equity Quotient: June 2018 You, the board, participated in this training with Keryl McCord to loop NEFA’s board and staff into EDIA work and conversations. Keryl also did a follow up workshop with the full NEFA staff to debrief the board training. Dismantling White Supremacy Culture Workshops Staff developed and facilitated workshops in fall 2017 and spring 2018 that were an outcome of resources provided to us at the first artEquity training. Two‐hour brown bag lunch style sessions to work through questions about white supremacy culture in our work place and how to combat it organizationally and within our teams. 9
P ROCESSES • EDIA Orientation for new staff • Discussion Guidelines/Group Agreements • Land Acknowledgement QUITA In order to revise our practices, we had to take a look at the processes we use. We put together a two‐part orientation with resources and a short history of our EDIA work, much like the one you are getting today, as well as hands‐on activities to embody the values within the first few months of new staff’s time at NEFA. We put together group agreements based on the resources provided by artEquity, additional examples from staff’s external work, and our own internal needs at NEFA. We update them every few months with input from full staff and implement them at internal and external large group meetings. Group agreements generated by those meetings also become an input into updating NEFA's own agreements. We have committed to starting our large meetings and convenings with a land acknowledgement as a way to model and institutionalize a practice which helps shine a light on the history of a place and its original caretakers. 10
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