“A social movement that only moves people is merely a revolt. A movement that changes both people and institutions is a revolution.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The continuum and exercise below it are helpful tools in moving toward fully inclusive, racially just groups, organizations, institutions, systems, cultures, and society at large.
Suggested exercise:
(Can be completed in do-it-yourself fashion. Or, if you’d like an outside facilitator, please drop us a line at SpartanburgTRHT@wofford.edu)
Convene a diverse group of people who share a connection to the organization (e.g., a staff meeting, Board meeting, committee meeting, etc.). If you don’t have a racially diverse group, you will need to find a way to get one and effectively mitigate any power dynamics that might be present. If you can’t get one, or need other help, please reach out to us at SpartanburgTRHT@wofford.edu.
Download and print the Continuum. Hand it out to participants and give them some time to look over it. Ask them to circle the column (level) where they think the organization is and to make either mental or actual notes on WHY they placed the organization there, what evidence they considered as support for the level they circled.
Facilitate a respectful, honest dialog, with people sharing where they placed the organization and why. It’s important that you got step #1 right, because you need to hear all of the perspectives. When going through this exercise, people almost always deepen their understanding of and connection to the organization, the progress that has been made, and the work/change agenda still to be done. Usually, those who began the conversation thinking the organization was closer to level 6 are persuaded by evidence colleagues bring forth that suggests the organization still has a lot of room for improvement, and they are energized to be part of that improvement. Once a consensus has been reached about at what level the organization is currently (including listening and valuing the input of all participants), the group can look at the attributes of an organization that has reached the next level up; and identify some specific, strategic change efforts to undertake to help move the organization up to that level.
This could be a one-and-done kind of discussion, or it could form the basis for strategic change initiatives and be re-visited often.
Ideally, organizations will share results of those discussions in some kind of public forum, so that other organizations can support them with moral support, tools, technical assistance, cheerleading, and eventually an Anchor Institution Dashboard Project for Spartanburg, using the Democracy Collaborative and Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Anchor Institution Dashboard Project (link) as a model.