Round Table Discussion 1
General Conversation Notes:
• Give good apology [on a personal level]
• Identify the disruptors in the organizations and bring them into the process
• Invite the disruptors into the room and let the “drama”/process unfold
• Push organizations to identify/own their history and ask how the history impacts how
the community you serve engages with the organization
• George Floyd as a catalyst for conversation
o Overcoming initial skepticism of work
o Boards vs. staff—due to power structures, boards are more conservative than
staff
• Swimming partnership to teach students how to swim
• “We write our stories with the choices that we make.” –Dr. Maysa Akbar Today you
are writing a story today you made the choice to prioritize this choice [to attend the
symposium] “Decolonizing Wealth” by Edgar Villanueva
• Unpacking the lack of diversity
• Include diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in performance standards/reviews
• Need to unpack Y-History and expand diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to all
team members organizationally
• Look inward—self awareness
• Better leverage our positions to be at the table to address importance of diversity,
equity, and inclusion (DEI)
• Jumped straight to action in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) journey but want
to go back to history
1. What steps has your organization taken towards racial equity?
• Looking at population served and modeling our staff and Board of Directors from
those characteristics
• Having external perspectives at the table when making decisions (i.e. not just
internal decision making)
• Expanding reach of constituents/clients
• Identifying the right way to be equitable racially (i.e. not just inviting people of color
(POC) to join boards)
• Prep work to get org read for racial equity trainings
• Acknowledge problems
• Community outreach:
o Intentional strategic partnership
• Hired outside consultant to perform audit
• Increasing representation among the staff
o Internship opportunities as added pipelines
• Training
• Y-USA looked at history; allows local Ys to look critically and advance equity;
expanded partnerships with smaller non-profits & Black, Indigenous, People of Color
(BIPOC) populations.
• Looking at leadership for representation, bilingual employees, finding voice of
cultures they work with, moving the board to understand the importance of diversity,
equity and inclusion (DEI)
• Recreating visuals representative of all history/cultures
• Reinterpreted exhibits to be more inclusive
• Hiring with more intentionality
• Being truthful in stories and telling the full history
• Embracing resistance
• Adding equity in job titles
2. What challenges have you or your organization faced in the journey to racial
equity?
• Bringing in trainings that haven’t really helped us grow equitably
• Hard to pinpoint where to start or what to address
• Founders’ syndrome—not letting go to allow for new leadership to flourish
• Lack of representation on our Boards/staffs
• Ineffective staff recruitment for more diverse representations
• Not enough conversations about equity at all levels of organization (so not enough
engagement)
• Board/stakeholder resistance, defensiveness, blind spots
3. In what ways have you encountered resistance to change at your organization?
• No specific resistance, but not enough prioritization so that is stymying progress
which is acting as the resistance
4. Why do you want your organization to become racially equitable?
• Representation, leadership, workforce
• Be more disruptive to help drive change
• Be more intentional about hiring
• Take a deeper dive into our institution’s histories and systems evolution and impact
on communities we serve
• Don’t waste time, make sure diverse employees aren’t burdened
• It strengthens the work we do
Round Table Discussion 2
Action Steps
• Monthly discussions and training support for non-profit board
• Dig deeper into organizational history & our founders & to take action to change
funding sources to address historical/modern inequities
• Not taking the resistance personally and not personalizing the misinformation given
to that person
• We don’t have to make everyone comfortable all the time; this is our direction and
you can come a long or not
• Use your energy wisely and there will be some who choose not to move on
• Read and discuss “Decolonizing Wealth”
• Be the crockpot/thermostat, don’t let things go quiet, standing agenda item on
internal staff meetings
• Make sure decisions are made with diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) lens
• More direct advocacy for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in Philanthropy
