ADVANCING SOCIAL EQUITY INITIATIVE

The Advancing Social Equity Initiative (ASEI) is a six-month program to ground equity into the fabric of organizations and increase the capacity and well-being of teams to sustain their ability to implement positive change.

We believe that advancing equity as an organizational value is a way to intentionally make space for positive outcomes to flourish, whether in direct services, capacity building or public policy spheres.

This initiative also involves training, monitoring, and evaluation of participants. The fellowship catalyzes strategic initiatives inside the organizations to engage teams, board members, and constituent partners and welcome community engagement.

PROGRAM

  • The program includes skills development on communication, well-being, identifying and addressing bias, understanding systemic racism, and approaches to implementing change from a personal and organizational perspective.  
  • Learning methods include lectures, group discussions, guided contemplative practices, case study examples, and promising practices.  
  • The curriculum has been developed by experts in social equity, contemplative practice, well-being, and organizational effectiveness.

FORMAT

The format is a live two-day in-person session followed by five monthly virtual one-hour sessions and another two-day in-person sessions.  It is encouraged to have members from several nonprofit organizations attend in each cohort to encourage cross-organization learning.

Ivy Child will provide training materials, resources, curriculum, activities, and an action plan/ plan work for the participants. It typically involves 6 months of intensive training for participants, giving them room to ask questions while taking this DEI work journey together. The format is a live two-day in-person session followed by five monthly virtual one-hour sessions and another two-day in-person session.  It is encouraged to have members from several nonprofit organizations attend in each cohort to encourage cross-organization learning.

It includes guiding organizations to build skills development on communication, well-being, identifying and addressing bias, understanding systemic racism and approaches to implementing change from a personal and organizational perspective. 

Learning methods include lectures, group discussions, guided contemplative practices, case study examples, and best practice sharing amongst participants. 

 The curriculum has been developed by experts in social equity, contemplative practice, well-being, and organizational effectiveness with Ivy Child International as the primary organization.

GOALS

  • Power Building
  • Grassroots movement building: Activities that engage, educate, and organize, building political awareness and solidarity within and amongst marginalized groups.
  • Leadership development: Efforts to deepen the bench of talented organizational and movement leaders from within displaced and marginalized communities through activities such as training, peer support, mentorship, and intersectional convening.
  • Capacity Building of emerging nonprofits in Worcester County to align with evidence-informed equity models. 
  • Seed a pilot demonstration model to ground equity in the fabric of local nonprofits, thereby increasing well-being amongst staff and constituents with exponential impact in the community. 
  • Serve as inspiration for other area human service organizations to build collaborative power to ground equitable well-being efforts in the region.

POPULATION SERVED

  • Nonprofit organization staff & leadership

IMPACT & OUTCOMES

  • Help organizations in capacity building to advance racial and social justice 
  • Work with cohorts in developing models to expand equity, inclusion, and social justice.
  • Catalyze strategic initiatives inside the selected partner organizations to engage staff, board members, and constituent partners and welcome community engagement to advance social equity.
  • Build a network of community partners; serving as resources to one another while identifying the needs of the communities and working collaboratively to further the mission and vision of this grant. 
  • To build the capacity of emerging nonprofits to align more tightly with evidence-informed equity models.  
  • Seed a pilot demonstration model to ground equity in the fabric of local non-profits, thereby increasing well-being amongst staff and constituents with exponential impact
  • This model inspires other human service organizations to build collaborative power to ground equitable well-being efforts in the region.
  • Bringing internal change within the organization: This includes 
    • increasing the knowledge of the board and staff, 
    • adopting new policies and procedures
    • creating space for courageous conversations
    • intentionally building a pipeline for change
    • integrating DEI Work into organizational culture
  • External change: This includes but is not limited to;
    • working with organizations to change the programming to address implicit bias
    • working with community members to address structural biases
    • increasing the ability of the nonprofit and the communities they serve, to participate in collective advocacy efforts to change systems in order to advance equity and social justice.

Southern New Mexico

An example of this program is the partnership between the Community Foundation of Southern New Mexico, Ivy Child International, the Aprendamos Intervention Team, the Covarrubias Family Foundation Fund, and the EWS Collective.  The Southern New Mexico program is a 5-year program, with new nonprofits selected for the program each year to enter as a cohort for the ASEI program.

The ASEI program is designed to directly support nonprofits participating in the program, as well as serve as inspiration for other area human service organizations to build collaborative power to ground equitable well-being efforts in the region.

Ivy ChildAdvancing Social Equity Initiative