Equity is Everyone's Work: Embracing a Culture of Contribution

Over the last few months I've been holding space for conversations related to Cultivating Equity Practices and Building a Culture of Contribution. These conversations have helped me shape and design an existing program that I offer – Accelerating Equity Outcomes: Building a Culture of Contribution. This program consists of reflective and interactive learning sessions designed for staff, managers, executives, and board members who are committed to fostering equitable, inclusive, and anti-racist practices within their organizations and/or communities. Grounded in the Contribution Mindset, the workshop emphasizes that everyone brings valuable skills, experiences and insights needed for equity integration. Participants explore their personal motivations, identify their unique strengths, and recommit to taking concrete actions. By embracing this mindset, individuals can align their efforts with individual and collective equity goals, and recognize that meaningful change can stem from shifting small routines, to disrupting invisible patterns to working on big systems change  – they all lead to progress and real impact. 

Through these conversations I've learned that this model is a valuable reset and recalibration moment for leaders and teams. A big thanks to members of my community for joining me, sharing your insights and investing in some reflection time for yourself.  For those of you who may be interested in learning more, I’ve highlighted a few key insights that I took away from these sessions:

Lead With Your Values: Participants confirmed the importance of reconnecting with their core values and the personal reasons behind their engagement in equity, inclusion, and anti-racism work. This reflection helps clarify equity goals and provides a foundation to remain grounded and committed especially when facing external challenges. As shared by participants, personal history, experiences of marginalization, or witnessing actions that go against one's values can be powerful drivers for this work. 

We All Have a Leadership Role to Play: A core tenet of the Contribution Mindset is recognizing that everyone has valuable skills, experiences, and perspectives that can contribute to equity. The process encourages individuals and teams to identify their "superpowers," areas of expertise, wisdom, and unique ways of being, and to leverage and amplify the unique strengths of others around the table, fostering collaboration and surfacing the insights from a diversity of viewpoints. As noted by one participant, this model reminds everyone that the work does not fall on any one person, and that it can be accelerated through collective contributions and engagement.

(Re)Commit to Action: Leading with values and recognizing yourself as a leader are the jumping off points that can move you to action.  Participants noted that this framework helped them to think about actions in a different way. As shared by one participant, it encourages shifting focus to what you can do. Taking the time to reflect on your routines, how you make decisions, how you meet with peers/colleagues, how you use questions to deepen understanding and encourage a diversity of perspectives are all examples of leading with equity and moving into action. Taking the time to share a variety of actions, what’s working and what people are thinking about in terms of actions and engagement was helpful for all participants.  

Want to learn more? Interested in experiencing this yourself?

I’m hosting a final session on June 9th (before a break in the summer), and you are invited. Register here.

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Chanel Grenaway & Associates Inc. is committed to helping leaders, staff teams and boards align with their anti-racism and inclusion goals through continuous learning and practice change. Do you need support to start or accelerate your equity practice and outcomes? Happy to hop on a call with you to see how I might help. Let’s chat.