Empower Your Organization with Our
Equity assessment toolkit
Course
Class
Thank you for investing in your organization's equity practices internally and externally. We strongly believe that we cannot achieve better health outcomes for our community members without a strong understanding of equity, and we cannot be good practitioners of policy work without prioritizing ethical practice. The process we have built isn’t exactly ‘one size fits all’. This journey must be adaptable, and it is impossible to create one practice that will work for every situation. We also want to lean away from any illusion of judgement. We all have places we can grow our equity skills, and we all have things we are doing well. Choosing to take this journey is already a positive step, so don’t feel disheartened. Below we have a suggested structure for your process of Shifting Power.
Assessment
Find out where you are by completing the evaluation assessment. To get a clear picture, we recommend different people in different levels of responsibility complete this assessment. Leadership may have a different idea about how the policies they wrote are being implemented, and community facing staff have valuable insight into how an organization is perceived by the public. There isn’t exactly a perfect mix, small organizations may request their entire staff and board complete the evaluation process. Larger organizations may aim for a proportional mix of staff all along your org chart. More data is better in this step of the process. One thing that we always recommend across the board for every participating organization: the surveys should be anonymous. All staff should be able to respond freely and openly without risk for any hurt feelings or retribution.
The tool makes it easy to anonymously send each person’s evaluation to a board member or staff (for larger organizations) to compile the data. The MO Advocate Network does not keep or compile this data. For best results, participants should send a copy to their own email as well as to whoever is collecting the data. It will arrive from a non-monitored MAN email address. It is important to look at this information as valuable feedback, and work to keep our emotions in check. It is human to react negatively or positively. Everything you will learn about your current practices help you shape real solutions to creating a more equitable organization. No feedback from this step will absolve you of your responsibilities, and no feedback should be viewed as a condemnation that the organization is failing. This work, as well as so much of what we do in the helping field, must be outcome driven. We cannot adequately adjust for good outcomes without reliable data.
Pledge and Plan:
We encourage organizations to compile the data and make it available to as many stakeholders as possible. This may be your full network, it certainly should include the staff who were invited to participate in the assessment. Most organizations usually find that there are places where their Intention and the Practice scores do not match. This is helpful information, telling you that policy isn’t being implemented adequately across all sectors. It may be that there is a large discrepancy between some Intention scores and other Intention scores within the same section. That kind of outcome usually shows that there are communication issues within the organization. Once we accept that there is no bad or wrong data, only information, it becomes much easier to create and execute a reasonable plan.
Leadership and a small group of stakeholders should look at the data clearly and create a plan for any sections that may be lacking. You can use many resources to develop your plan. We’ve included some helpful ideas within the assessment itself which may be a good start. Some organizations may want to reach out to equity focused organizations for technical assistance. There are many good ideas already offered online. As a rule, we recommend resourcing individuals when you use their labor. That is especially important for minority led groups. Even when a resource is free, if your organization has an ability to provide a small donation or offer an hourly rate for technical assistance- do so.
Our team found 3, 6, 9, and 12 month goals to be the most helpful structure. This may or may not be true for how your organization works. We do encourage you to set SMART goals as much as possible, including ways to evaluate your success. This means goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. When your plan is complete, sign the pledge affirming your intention and dedication to this work.
Accountability
Make your pledge and plan readily available to stakeholders, especially to staff and board. Transparency helps increase our commitment and begins the process of accountability. Our team has found success with partnering with a small group of similar non-profit organizations not only has helped us to make substantive progress on our goals, it has also provided us rich community connections that have improved our organizations success. The MO Advocates Network has created an online meeting place for organizations seeking to build their own accountability table, though certainly this is not the only way of achieving this goal. Your pledge and plan may be the most thoughtful and intentional plan your organization has ever created, and it will not work to improve your equity practices by sitting in an online folder somewhere.
Purpose of the Tool
This assessment seeks to provide organizations with a starting point to begin conversations surrounding equity, develop equity action plans, and track organizational change.