LEARN
Photo Credit to WE in the World
What is the equity toolkit?
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This toolkit is to help guide community collaborations assess and refine their approach to equity in their community outcomes, within their collaboration, and as they work alongside short-term or long-term partners
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Through the assessment, assessment report, framework, and group discussions, this equity toolkit guides collaborations through assessing and refining their current strategies on addressing inequities that impact vulnerable populations in the people they serve, within their collective, and in their short- or long-term partnerships
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This toolkit helps guide community collaborations assess and refine their current strategies to center equity in their work and collective as a whole
What does it mean to advance equity as a community collaboration?
We must be the change we wish to see in the world.
The BEACON assessment is an invitation to community collaborations
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reflect and engage in dialogue
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share power
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deepen our equity journey
By changing ourselves, we can work together to change the world—with equity, creativity and abundance.
1. Share Leadership and Power with
Residents / People with Lived Experience
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Sharing power can mean creating governance, elevating the leadership role of residents; adopting transparent decision-making processes; and strengthening community organizing and leadership.
2. Define Ambitious Equity Goals and Use Data with an Equity Mindset
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Goals should honor the voice and wisdom of affected communities, alongside a commitment to collecting and analyzing disaggregated data on current disparities and improvements. The measures tracked should be meaningful to residents and people with lived experience.
3. Design Structures and Processes to Promote Equity at Individual and Organizational Levels
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Collaborations can create clear structures within the organization that will support equity; norms and standards around how to have challenging conversations about inequities; and an expectation to align with the organization's vision and strategies for equity.
4. Recognize and Eliminate Structural Barriers that Uphold Inequity
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Grappling with the history of the community, being explicit about the role institutional or structural racism plays, are an important step before focusing energy and strategies at the most effective levels. Collaboratives should create a shared understanding of historical and root causes that drive racism, sexism, homophobia and other social ills.
5. Members Walk Our Talk
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Do the members of your community collaboration all actively work to advance equity and racial justice in their own organizations or associations?
6. Shift your Backbone Organization to a "Root Body"
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A Root Body suggests the foundational and interconnected network of people that are within and/or across organizations, that come together to support the work of a community and their multi-sector collaboration. The Root Body nourishes and feeds the collaboration, with varying levels of formal and informal structures and processes.