We need your feedback on RacialEquityTools.org! Please complete this Community Survey by March 29, 2024.

Woke @ Work

Inspiration and encouragement for building a Race Equity Culture™

Move Beyond Acknowledgment: Reparative Relationships with Indigenous Communities

Move Beyond Acknowledgment: Reparative Relationships with Indigenous Communities

Read Time: 3 minutes Leading with our values of being Pro-Indigenous and Pro-Black, Equity In The Center (EIC) remains inspired by the possibility of working into a Pro-Indigenous framework for our collective liberation. To that end, we recently shared a video explaining our practice of paying a land tax to the Piscataway Conoy, whose land we occupy in the Washington, DC region. EIC allocates 2% of our annual budget for this purpose, and encourages colleagues to redistribute resources as part of a broader commitment to take action in solidarity with Indigenous communities.

Our Path to Sustainability

Our Path to Sustainability

Read Time: 3 minutes Published in 2018, Awake to Woke to Work®: Building a Race Equity Culture™ couples the case for organizations centering race equity with an actionable framework (the Race Equity Cycle®) and concrete next steps. Since then and over 71,000 downloads later, we continue to build the social sector’s capacity to operationalize race equity. In 2021, we introduced the Race Equity Cycle Pulse Check™, an assessment for organizations to determine where they are on the Race Equity Cycle® and that provides action steps to move from one stage to the next. Initially launched as a free resource, the Pulse Check has been utilized by over 50 organizations, and was determined to be a robust, valid tool when evaluated in 2023. We have complemented our resources and tools with programmatic supports, including training, coaching, cohort programs and a network for race equity practitioners.

EIC Adopts Racial Equity Tools (RET)

EIC Adopts Racial Equity Tools (RET)

Read Time: 2 minutes Equity In The Center (EIC) is excited to announce the adoption of Racial Equity Tools (RET)! As RET celebrates its 15th anniversary, EIC is honored to lead the next phase of expansion and advancement of RET’s comprehensive website. With this transition, RET will focus on enhancing curation expertise, technical assistance, user-friendliness, responsiveness, and the integration of accessibility and language justice practices. Created in 2009, RET is a key source in the racial justice field, providing a wealth of resources for activists, practitioners, and scholars. With more than 4,500 resources in 98 categories with a robust and popular glossary, RET serves as a critical resource to the race equity, racial justice and movement fields.

2023 Holiday Gift Guide – BIPOC-Owned Businesses

2023 Holiday Gift Guide – BIPOC-Owned Businesses

Read Time: 4 minutes As you embark on your holiday shopping this season, consider championing BIPOC-owned businesses! Our curated 2023 gift guide includes must-haves like the “Land Back” shirt from Naokah Designs, an urban Indigenous brand, and “Parents Are Human,” a card game that helps you spark deep conversations with your loved ones—all priced at $60 and below. For a list of more BIPOC-owned businesses to support for the holidays and year-round, please see our Holiday Roundup of BIPOC-Owned Businesses.

Navigating Difficult Conversations and Transformative Partnerships with Building For Mission

Navigating Difficult Conversations and Transformative Partnerships with Building For Mission

Read Time: 3 minutes Embracing difficult conversations is essential towards building a Race Equity Culture™ – not just in external organizations, but also internally at Equity In The Center (EIC). Our team extends immense gratitude to our partners and consultants at Building For Mission (BFM) for their unwavering support and guidance with this (and much more) over the past two years. Their transformative partnership has been a crucial part of our nonprofit start-up journey as we continue to grow and lean into our values.

EIC Statement on Recent SCOTUS Rulings

EIC Statement on Recent SCOTUS Rulings

Read Time: 2 minutes The two recent Supreme Court rulings – striking down affirmative action in college admissions and LGBTQ+ rights – represent a significant regression in civil rights. By diminishing the ability of institutions to consider race as a factor in admissions, the ruling disregards the enduring effects of systemic racism and the need for proactive measures to address historical oppression. “Refusing to acknowledge race doesn’t make the exquisite design of racism disappear. It makes it take hold even stronger,” as stated in The Skillman Foundation’s recent blog, “Racial Neutrality Does Not Exist: Why Affirmative Action Actually Benefits ALL of Us.” 

We Will Not Mitigate Racial Disparities if We Center the Comfort of People Privileged by Systemic Racism and White Supremacy Above Those Marginalized by Them

We Will Not Mitigate Racial Disparities if We Center the Comfort of People Privileged by Systemic Racism and White Supremacy Above Those Marginalized by Them

Read Time: 3 minutes Jennifer Miller’s piece “Why Some Companies Are Saying ‘Diversity and Belonging’ Instead of ‘Diversity and Inclusion’” highlights how a flawed definition of belonging – “[helping] people who aren’t marginalized feel like they’re part of the conversation” is being used to center the comfort of “lily-white leadership” experiencing “hostility” and “resentment” triggered by poorly designed and executed DEI initiatives.

Celebrating Five Years of Awake to Woke to Work®

Celebrating Five Years of Awake to Woke to Work®

Read Time: 2 minutes Celebrate our five-year Awake to Woke to Work™ anniversary as we unveil an updated version of our Race Equity Cycle® infographic! This enhanced edition explicitly recognizes the intersection of identities such as age, class, disability, gender, immigration status, religion, and sexual orientation in cultivating and sustaining a Race Equity Culture™. By centering race in this graphic, we acknowledge its central role in our collective experience.

Build, Maintain, Repair: A Deceptively Simple Framework for Tending to Your Organization’s Equity Container

Build, Maintain, Repair: A Deceptively Simple Framework for Tending to Your Organization’s Equity Container

Read Time: 5 minutes In our first blog in this series, we introduced the idea of an equity container: A set of conditions that allows groups to move through racial justice work without falling apart or reproducing white supremacy culture. A strong equity container allows teams to work through conflict, disagreement and harm in ways that strengthen team alignment, which is critical to operationalizing equity at organizations. When a team’s container is fragile or fractured, the team is likely to create harm and lose its ability to have the honest, vulnerable conversations needed to dismantle white supremacy. What does it look like to actually nurture a strong container? We’re iterating on a simple framework for this: Build, Maintain, Repair. 

How to Lose/Retain Diverse Leaders in 365 Days

How to Lose/Retain Diverse Leaders in 365 Days

Read Time: 9 minutes Organizations have a feverish obsession with getting diverse talent in the door. Throughout recent years, pieces have been published underscoring the importance of recruiting leaders of color to the non-profit sector (see The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Quarterly), but little has been said about retaining leaders of color, and even less about why so many leaders of color leave. It turns out there’s a secret to losing diverse talent. It takes daily effort, but with consistency, incorporating these seven components within your organization will send leaders of color packing (depending on what you do or don’t).

It’s Time to Shift from Transactional DEI to Transformational Race Equity Work

It’s Time to Shift from Transactional DEI to Transformational Race Equity Work

Read Time: 4 minutes On Jan. 17, The New York Times published an opinion piece from Jesse Singal titled “What If Diversity Training Is Doing More Harm Than Good.” The article was a missed opportunity to highlight the benefits of organizational transformation focused on mitigating measurable identity-based inequities, a change that unfolds along a developmental continuum from diversity to inclusion to equity and is executed over years. The “gotcha” framing of the article focused on a well-known fact among equity practitioners and demonstrated in studies: transactional trainings focused on unconscious bias and “consciousness raising” yield little to no measurable benefit and can challenge morale in ways that degrade commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Meet Mara (she/they), EIC Training Coordinator

Meet Mara (she/they), EIC Training Coordinator

Read Time: 2 minutes Mara Brennan-Magidson (she/they) is the White Allies Training Associate at Equity In The Center. Mara is a facilitator, organizer, and highly distractible creative living and learning her way on the Dakota and Anishinaabe land, also known as the Twin Cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota. Mara is honored to support EIC’s learning spaces that are intended for white folks to examine internalized white supremacy and commit to anti-racist action.

EIC Condemns the California Mass Shootings and Murder of Tyre Nichols

EIC Condemns the California Mass Shootings and Murder of Tyre Nichols

Read Time: 3 minutes These recent tragedies reflect that we are still in much the same place we were before the “racial reckoning” following the murder of George Floyd in 2020. In fact, police violence has escalated since then. These acts also demonstrate how BIPOC can be complicit in white supremacy and perpetuate police violence. And, while the news cycle is quick to place responsibility on individual problems or “bad apples” in police departments, we know that dismantling white supremacist systems and structures is the only way to prevent these tragedies from occurring again.

Is Your Organization Thinking About Leaving Twitter?

Is Your Organization Thinking About Leaving Twitter?

Read Time: 2 minutes As a start-up organization driven by race equity, we strive to make decisions that are aligned with our values AND recognize the importance of being held publicly accountable to those values. Our announcement to leave Twitter was followed by a wave of support from many individuals and organizations who appreciated the transparency and agreed with the decision, but weren’t sure if or how they might do the same.

Our 2022 Year In Review

Our 2022 Year In Review

Read Time: 3 minutes We’ve grown significantly since 2020 – from our staff to our reach – making progress towards realizing our vision of a future where nonprofit and philanthropic organizations advance race equity internally while centering it in their work externally. As we end the year, we remain hopeful. And, we’re excited to share highlights and reflections on what we’ve accomplished in the past year.

8 Holiday Gifts from BIPOC-Owned Businesses

8 Holiday Gifts from BIPOC-Owned Businesses

Read Time: 3 minutes If you’re going to shop this holiday season, why not support BIPOC-owned businesses? We got you covered with our gift guide below featuring a “You are on Native land” beanie from the Indigenous-owned shop Urban Native Era, beautiful home decor from Black-owned businesses, and more gifts all under $60.

Herna Cruz-Louie (she/her/siya) Joins the Team as the VP of Operations

Herna Cruz-Louie (she/her/siya) Joins the Team as the VP of Operations

Read Time: 2 minutes Herna (pronounced “Er-Na”) Cruz-Louie (she/her/siya) has over 15 years of experience working as a nonprofit administrator, community organizer, and youth development practitioner, over 10 years of HR Management experience, and 7 years working for tech startups in the San Francisco Bay Area. Herna was awarded one of Filipina Women’s Network’s 100 most influential Filipinas in 2011, and currently serves as the Volunteer Director for the American Center of Philippine Arts.

Whitney Parnell of Service Never Sleeps On Starting a Racial Justice Org & the Allyship Lifestyle

Whitney Parnell of Service Never Sleeps On Starting a Racial Justice Org & the Allyship Lifestyle

Read Time: 9 minutes Kicking off this new EIC partner spotlight series is Whitney Parnell (she/her), Founder and CEO of Service Never Sleeps (SNS)! Whitney is the facilitator of our virtual partner trainings, BIPOC Allies, held quarterly, and White Allies, held monthly. She recently sat down with Equity in the Center to chat all about the founding of her org, truly committing to the allyship lifestyle, and the upcoming SNS Allyship Summit that’s themed “What does it mean to be Black-led?”

Race Equity Cycle Pulse Check™: How We Started

Race Equity Cycle Pulse Check™: How We Started

Read Time: 4 minutes Achieving race equity — the condition where one’s racial identity has no influence on how one fares in society — is a fundamental element of social change across every issue area in the social sector. Building a Race Equity Culture™ is the foundational work when organizations seek to advance race equity; it creates the conditions that help us to adopt anti-racist mindsets and actions as individuals and to center race.

Meet Niki Jagpal (she/her), Executive VP at EIC

Meet Niki Jagpal (she/her), Executive VP at EIC

Read Time: 2 minutes Niki Jagpal has been the Executive Consultant at Equity in the Center since January, helping with vision, strategy, research, and more. She is a seasoned leader, researcher, and facilitator with over 15 years of progressive organization- and field-building experience. She tries to lead with compassion, intention, humility, and inclusion and her work is informed by her practice of Buddhism.

Want To Operationalize Equity? Look At Your Organization’s Container

Want To Operationalize Equity? Look At Your Organization’s Container

Read Time: 4 minutes Structural change is essential to building a Race Equity Culture™. And, too often, organizations attempt this change without paying enough attention to the container that holds them in this work. We offer that a critical step in building a Race Equity Culture is deciding to be together differently. This means acknowledging that multiple, interlocking systems of oppression operate in the team’s environment and taking conscious measures to subvert those.

We’re Hiring an Operations Manager!

We’re Hiring an Operations Manager!

Read Time: 2 minutes As we continue this period of rapid growth, we are now looking for an Operations Manager. This is a full-time role (32 hours per week). Reporting to the Vice President of Operations, the new Operations Manager will be a key leader who supports the President, maintains current internal systems and processes, manages relationships with vendors, oversees event logistics, and partners with leadership on the long-term growth and expansion of the ops team.

Reflecting on Our Recent Transitions and Looking Ahead

Reflecting on Our Recent Transitions and Looking Ahead

Read Time: 2 minutes As a start-up organization, we’re experiencing a period of rapid growth and transition. We are grateful to each stakeholder that has supported EiC’s work since our debut in 2017! Cross-sector support from race equity leaders, champions, and funders has been crucial in positioning us for this moment of transformation.

We’re Hiring a VP of Operations!

We’re Hiring a VP of Operations!

Read Time: 2 minutes Equity in the Center is hiring for the VP of Operations, a role that will be critical to our start-up organization’s growth and sustainability! The VP will be responsible for building and running cross-functional processes that touch every employee at EiC.

Statement & Resources on Recent Mass Shootings

Statement & Resources on Recent Mass Shootings

Read Time: 2 minutes With three recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, Orange Country, California, and Uvalde, Texas, we’ve seen, yet again, how deeply white supremacy and violence are embedded in the fabric of this nation. We are heartbroken for these victims and their families. We are angry that “thoughts and prayers” are offered but action to prevent gun violence, which disproportionately affects BIPOC, is not.

Problem Minority & Model Minority: “Solidarity” Against the Backdrop of Anti-Blackness

Problem Minority & Model Minority: “Solidarity” Against the Backdrop of Anti-Blackness

Read Time: 9 minutes This post, originally published on December 17, 2020, is relevant during Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM). Especially in the wake of the racist mass shooting in Buffalo, NY that took 10 lives and injured three more this past weekend, it remains important to call for the eradication of the anti-Blackness that permeates globally. The Asian American and Black communities have a history of solidarity to build on. Working together, we can build true racial solidarity and move all communities closer to equity.

Stop Asian Hate

Stop Asian Hate

Read Time: 3 minutes Originally published on March 23, 2021. Using an intersectional frame, last week’s horrific killing of eight people, six of whom were Asian women, can be viewed as the tragic manifestation of the misogyny, racism and white supremacy embedded in the fabric of American culture and society – the same culture that generously described the white gunman’s actions as the result of “a bad day” and his being “fed up.” In America, the crimes of a white male domestic terrorist can be casually regarded with greater humanity than the lives or deaths of those he murdered.

Sandra Herrera (she/her) Joins the Team as Communications Associate

Sandra Herrera (she/her) Joins the Team as Communications Associate

Read Time: 2 minutes Sandra Herrera (she/her) is excited to join Equity in the Center as the new Communications Associate. She’s worked for a leading real estate website and in the non-profit sector, learning to hone her design and storytelling skills and lead with fearless empathy. She enjoys being a plant mom, eating tamales and arroz con gandules, and reading any book that Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes.

April 2022 Pricing Model Updates

April 2022 Pricing Model Updates

To better align EiC's pricing to the team's equity values and established best practices among national equity leaders (such as Rockwood Leadership Institute), we will adopt a tiered pricing model beginning in April 2022. We ask that organizations purchasing tickets...

We’re Hiring 2022

We’re Hiring 2022

Read Time: < 1 minute Equity in the Center is hiring a Director/Sr. Director, Content and Stakeholder Engagement role, working alongside Rebekah, that will be critical to the organization’s growth and sustainability.

Creating a Race Equity Culture™ Together

Creating a Race Equity Culture™ Together

Read Time: 3 minutes Rebekah Gowler (she/her), our Senior Director, Content and Stakeholder Engagement, and Jaser Alsharhan, of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO), explore how grantmakers are reimagining racial equity in their organizations in this blog collab announcing GEO’s newest learning cohort, the Race Equity Culture™ Fellowship, designed in partnership with our team.

Reflecting on Our Recent Transitions and Looking Ahead

Our Story

Many EiC stakeholders don’t know the story of our founding and evolution into an independent 501c3, so gather for story time as we celebrate our first year as an independent non-profit organization, marked by growth and innovation, in the midst of a massive racial...

We’re Hiring 2022

We’re Hiring – Again!

Equity in the Center is inviting applications for two new positions, a full-time Communications Associate and a part-time Training Coordinator. These new roles are critical to the organization’s growth and sustainability.  The Communications Associate will be a key...

We’re Hiring 2022

We’re Hiring!

Equity in the Center is inviting applications for the Director/Sr. Director, Content and Stakeholder Engagement, a new role that will be critical to the organization’s growth and sustainability. The person in this position will lead service delivery of EiC...

We Tried to Tell Y’all

We Tried to Tell Y’all

"Please stop saying this is not America, or we are better than this. America was founded on the violent taking of land and reliance on chattel slavery by white supremacist slave owners who documented their plan to commit genocide on Indigenous people. Just over 50...

Network of Deep Equity Practitioners: Building Capacity for Liberation

Deep Equity Practitioners: Building Capacity for Liberation

Who We Are, Why We Came Together & How We Show Up A little over a year ago, a group of colleagues began convening regularly to learn with and from one another, and to support our collective vision and daily work to make progress toward race equity and collective...

“Lead. Follow. Or, Get Out of the Way.”

“Lead. Follow. Or, Get Out of the Way.”

Read Time: 3 minutes By centering the voices, lived expertise, healing practices, leadership and power of Indigenous and Black people, we make progress toward the deep equity and liberation that this moment in history, and colonialism’s legacy of state-sanctioned savagery and white supremacy, requires.

Reflecting on Our Recent Transitions and Looking Ahead

Equity in the Center’s Next Chapter

In Partnership and Solidarity Broader reach and sector-level focus will guide the next chapter as Equity in the Center becomes an independent organization Today marks a new chapter in Equity in the Center’s story — one we are writing in partnership with stakeholders...

So You Want to Be a White Ally: Healing from white supremacy

So You Want to Be a White Ally: Healing from white supremacy

This article was originally published in the PEAK Grantmaking Journal: Black Voices in Grants Management, which makes space for Black grants professionals to be heard in the discussion on racial diversity, equity, and inclusion in philanthropy, with ideas for building...

On Grieving

On Grieving

By: Nicola Chin Last week as I was creating this framework for Strategic Thinking in a Long-Term Crisis, I came across a hole in our library of resources: grieving. Up With Community has tools and resources to share on trauma, but we were lacking supports to...

A Founder’s Reflections on Pausing and Transitioning

A Founder’s Reflections on Pausing and Transitioning

A Founder’s Reflections on Pausing and Transitioning     POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 9, 2019 [Español abajo] By Amy Mandel (Bio below) During our “pause for the cause,” AMKRF has entered a time of organizational reflection and analysis building. As a part of our work, we are...

Liberation from the Inside Out

Liberation from the Inside Out

Liberation from the Inside Out     POSTED ON JUNE 5, 2019 [Español abajo] Lindsay sitting still and going inward By Lindsay Majer (Bio below) I imagine our pause for the cause has looked like an eleven-month vacation. We did not welcome a new cohort of Fellows. We...

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle Philanthropy

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle Philanthropy

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle Philanthropy POSTED ON AUGUST 19, 2019 [Español abajo] By: Marsha Davis (Bio below) During our “pause for the cause,” AMKRF has entered a time of organizational reflection and analysis building. As a part of our work, we are...

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle Philanthropy

Reimagining Compensation Decisions Through An Equity Panel

This blog expands on our two previous blogs about Reimagining Compensation. You can find those blogs here and here. Both of these blogs are part of our longer series about living into values of justice and equity at CompassPoint. Read the other blogs in this series...

On Organizational Trauma

On Organizational Trauma

"Do you want to be right, or do you want to be free?” –Many, many people. Recently: Chris Guilllebeau. Hmmmmmmm. Do I want to be right or do I want to be free? Now, that's a tough one. Sometimes I really, reallllllllllly want to be right. I want everyone to see things...

Centering Latina/o/x Voices in Evaluation Practice

Centering Latina/o/x Voices in Evaluation Practice

  Grisel M. Robles-Schrader Saludos/Greetings I’m Grisel M. Robles-Schrader, Director of Evaluation, Stakeholder-Academic Resource Panels (ShARPs), and Director of the Applied Practice Experience at Northwestern University. I am also co-chair of the Latinx Responsive...

White Women Doing White Supremacy in Nonprofit Culture

White Women Doing White Supremacy in Nonprofit Culture

Read Time: 9 minutes Naming these patterns is not about calling out other white women or distancing myself from whiteness. My own behavior reflects these patterns and has perpetrated harm in ways I did not comprehend in the moment. I have been called on these practices. Sometimes, I heard what folks were trying to tell me. In other instances, it’s taken me years to see the impact of my behaviors. I believe the following patterns are an important part of the story about why a sector that aims to do good so often falls short of its vision.

Building Healthier Equity Projects

Building Healthier Equity Projects

Nicola Chin, Founder, Up With Community @nicolamchin @upwithcommunity Note: This guest post is a review and expansion of a workshop offered at the October 2018 Equity in the Center Summit.     Nicola during her 2018 Equity in the Center Summit workshop. At some...

So You Want to Hire an Equity Consultant – Part 2

So You Want to Hire an Equity Consultant – Part 2

By Kerrien Suarez with the support of Ericka Hines Image created by Julie Stuart of Making Ideas Visible This is the second in a series of recommendations designed to help nonprofit and philanthropic organizations engage consultants to build a Race Equity Culture. You...

So You Want to Hire an Equity Consultant- Part 1

So You Want to Hire an Equity Consultant- Part 1

By Kerrien Suarez with the support of Ericka Hines This is the first in a two-part series of recommendations designed to help nonprofit and philanthropic organizations engage consultants to build a Race Equity Culture. Leaders find the process of hiring a race equity...

Search Posts

Recent Posts

Move Beyond Acknowledgment: Reparative Relationships with Indigenous Communities

Move Beyond Acknowledgment: Reparative Relationships with Indigenous Communities

Read Time: 3 minutes Leading with our values of being Pro-Indigenous and Pro-Black, Equity In The Center (EIC) remains inspired by the possibility of working into a Pro-Indigenous framework for our collective liberation. To that end, we recently shared a video explaining our practice of paying a land tax to the Piscataway Conoy, whose land we occupy in the Washington, DC region. EIC allocates 2% of our annual budget for this purpose, and encourages colleagues to redistribute resources as part of a broader commitment to take action in solidarity with Indigenous communities.

Our Path to Sustainability

Our Path to Sustainability

Read Time: 3 minutes Published in 2018, Awake to Woke to Work®: Building a Race Equity Culture™ couples the case for organizations centering race equity with an actionable framework (the Race Equity Cycle®) and concrete next steps. Since then and over 71,000 downloads later, we continue to build the social sector’s capacity to operationalize race equity. In 2021, we introduced the Race Equity Cycle Pulse Check™, an assessment for organizations to determine where they are on the Race Equity Cycle® and that provides action steps to move from one stage to the next. Initially launched as a free resource, the Pulse Check has been utilized by over 50 organizations, and was determined to be a robust, valid tool when evaluated in 2023. We have complemented our resources and tools with programmatic supports, including training, coaching, cohort programs and a network for race equity practitioners.

EIC Adopts Racial Equity Tools (RET)

EIC Adopts Racial Equity Tools (RET)

Read Time: 2 minutes Equity In The Center (EIC) is excited to announce the adoption of Racial Equity Tools (RET)! As RET celebrates its 15th anniversary, EIC is honored to lead the next phase of expansion and advancement of RET’s comprehensive website. With this transition, RET will focus on enhancing curation expertise, technical assistance, user-friendliness, responsiveness, and the integration of accessibility and language justice practices. Created in 2009, RET is a key source in the racial justice field, providing a wealth of resources for activists, practitioners, and scholars. With more than 4,500 resources in 98 categories with a robust and popular glossary, RET serves as a critical resource to the race equity, racial justice and movement fields.