Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Collective Learning Journey

Following a valuable session on equity and unconscious bias in November, NetworkPeninsula & The Bernardine Franciscan Sisters Foundation invite you to continue this journey with us in 2021. We will take a deep dive into understanding diversity, equity, and inclusion, and how they impact our work in the nonprofit sector. As we all work to improve the health and wellbeing of people in our communities, and as we touched on in November, there is a compelling need for diversity, equity, and inclusion to be woven into everything we do. We hope you will embark with us on this collective learning journey, to the ultimate benefit of the people we serve.

This series will be again be led by Matthew Freeman and multiple team members from Dialectix Consulting. To begin, we will be offering five training and dialogue sessions that will focus on the various dimensions of DEI work: self, organization, and community.

These sessions will be held from 11:30 am – 1:30 pm on the following days:

January 14
February 11
March 11
April 15
May 13

Each educational session will be followed 2 weeks later by an informal session to share what we learned in the session prior, challenges we face in effecting change, and steps we can take in moving forward.

These sessions will be held from 9:00 am – 10:00 am on the following days:

January 28
February 25
March 25
April 29
May 27

Session 1: Self – Exploring and Understanding Diversity – Too often invoking the word diversity provokes controversy, and people focus on politically hot topics and devolve into debate and defensiveness. In this training, we propose to invite people into greater self-awareness and dialogue around the varieties of identities and experiences that make up the human community, and how those shape each of us and the work we do in the community.

Session 2: Interpersonal – Interpersonal Dialogue Skills – We are often hampered in our ability to make progress as a community around DEI because our conversations with each other break down. This training will focus on the skills necessary to have more effective conversation across and about differences, how to deliver difficult feedback, and how to interrupt micro-aggressions and other problematic statements we might encounter.

Session 3: Organizational – Frameworks for Optimizing your Organization for DEI – In this training, we will share a simple organizational assessment that can help diagnose strengths and challenges related to DEI. We will also introduce several other research-tested frameworks for organizational change geared towards helping improve DEI efforts.

Session 4: Community – Racial Equity in the Community – To advance racial equity in our communities, we must shift the way we measure the impact of our work. In this training, we will discuss the importance of data- collecting, analyzing, and the ethics of disaggregation. Additionally, we will introduce racial equity impact assessments, and invite participants to analyze their own work using these tools.

Session 5: Dialogue – Learning Review and Dialogue – In order to create an ongoing environment for learning, it is essential to create a container for honest discussion about the successes and challenges individuals and organizations are encountering along this journey.