Advancing Racial Equity at KLC
Building a more equitable KLC
About
Overview
Welcome to KLC's 2023 Racial Equity Campaign
At the core of our journey toward KLC 5.0 lies Strategic Objective 5 - to make inclusion and racial equity central to KLC’s work. This includes:
- Increase our rate of experimentation related to engaging individuals and communities of color in leadership development and civic engagement.
- Implement a process to build KLC staff competence related to diversity, equity and inclusion.
- Create policies and norms related to inclusion and racial equity.
- Achieve diversity and inclusion goal of at least 25% of Kansas participants across initiatives identify as people of color.
Our collective adaptive challenge is this: Starting from where we are, how do we advance greater racial equity at KLC, both for our employees and our participants? This challenge encompasses both internal and external dimensions:
- For Internal Focus: What types of experiments can we take on to promote equity among KLC staff?
- For External Focus: What types of experiments can we take on to promote how equitably KLC participants experience our offerings?
Depending on your role and the context of your work, you may find yourself more aligned with equity efforts either within or outside of KLC.
We invite you to use Actioneer to guide you through the process of building a team, defining the challenge you want to work on, considering multiple perspectives, designing and launching your project, and sharing your progress with each other. We hope all KLC staff members will interact with Actioneer as part of an experiment.
Our long-term vision is to create a culture where, whenever someone identifies a racial equity challenge or opportunity, they have the capacity and connections to exercise leadership, mobilizing others to experiment and make progress. We aim to make trusting relationships, or at least trustworthy processes, the driving force behind our progress.
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How do we team up?
Leadership involves engaging others, considering multiple perspectives, and experimenting.
Consider creating a group with other employees who…
- Share a similar internal/external focus
- Don’t usually work with you
- Have different perspectives than you do
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What are some examples of action projects in this campaign?
- Learning about the culture of a racial group with which KLC seeks to connect with more closely
- Identifying procedures at KLC that would benefit from clearer communication
- Testing interpretations related to specific KLC processes
- Surveying staff to inform capacity building efforts
- Defining how racial equity shows up in your work
- Experimenting with the way you invite people to a program
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How do we avoid common pitfalls of equity work?
Let's do this authentically.
Let's do this authentically.
We acknowledge that, in the landscape of organizational equity efforts, there are unfortunate tales of well-intentioned initiatives gone awry, resulting in discomfort, skepticism, and further division. We are committed to charting a different course. Our hope is to approach this in authenticity—to create an environment where employees are not told what to do, but rather are encouraged and supported to organically contribute to progress in their own ways. By fostering a culture of genuine engagement, dialogue, and shared responsibility, we aim to avoid the pitfalls of performative equity work. Equity isn't a mandate, but a collective journey towards a more welcoming workplace that honors people of all backgrounds.
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Why does equity matter?
- We aspire for our colleagues to be valued and heard, which inspires their motivation and engagement.
- Our leadership framework teaches that diversity of background and thought foster stronger paths forward, and the same is true for our organization.
- We want our workforce to mirror the increasing diversity of our society, which allows us to connect with our audience on a deeper level and better understand their needs and preferences.
We encourage you to ask questions and seek clarification about equity concepts. If concerns or questions about your involvement in this work, please reach out to Lucy - she will connect you with someone from our advisory team.
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What do we hope to see as a result of this work?
- Externally, we aspire to observe an increased presence of people of color in KLC programs, coupled with a higher number of diverse organizations applying for Leadership Transformation Grants.
- Internally, we aspire to a heightened sense of equity reported by people of color within our organization, more colleagues applying an equity lens in their work and spending time with others of different backgrounds and races, and more people changing their perspectives and work habits as a result of their learning from this campaign.
- Internally, we also hope that KLC staff become familiar with Actioneer, can provide feedback about how to strengthen the software, and can begin to see where it applies in the context of their work.
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Supplementary Materials:
Details
Organized by Kansas Leadership Center
- Campaign timeline
- Oct 16 – Jan 12, 2024
- Project deadline
- Jan 12, 2024
Action Projects
Create a project
Designing, delivering, and executing accessible programs.
Dashboard
- Collaborators
- 25
- Projects Created
- 10
- Total Investment
- $20
- People impacted
- 755
| Name | Location | Collaborators | Investment | People impacted | Created |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anisah’s Action Project | – | 1 | $10 | 10 | |
| Anisah’s Action Project | – | 1 | $10 | 10 | |
| Equity en Acción: Bridging Communities with Bilingual Books | – | 4 | $0 | 500 | |
| Narratives for Equity | – | 4 | $0 | 30 | |
| Pre-Podcast Pondering | – | 3 | $0 | 30 | |
| Program and Curriculum Accessibility | – | 3 | $0 | 15 | |
| Rebuilding Bridges | – | 2 | $0 | 15 | |
| Reviewing Racial Inequities in KLC's Policies, Procedures and Norms | – | 4 | $0 | 30 | |
| Systematizing the Collection and Use of DEI-focused Data | – | 2 | $0 | 100 | |
| The Body Is Not an Apology Book Club | – | 1 | $0 | 15 |
AI summary of the biggest barriers to progress
- Explicit, resourced, and culturally competent outreach to Spanish-speaking communities is essential to overcome language barriers, awareness gaps, and internal biases, rather than treating it as an afterthought or novelty.
- Fostering authentic, cross-cultural dialogue requires addressing cultural norms, bias, and political sensitivities; success hinges on inclusive language and ensuring broad participation rather than tokenism.
- Embedding accessibility and equity considerations early in design and planning is critical to avoid afterthought practices; organizations need knowledge, norms, and processes that normalize accessibility across all interventions.
- Building trust with target communities (including faith-based and culturally specific groups) demands culturally aware engagement, alignment with local beliefs, and careful handling of jargon and leadership dynamics.
- Equity work is multi-dimensional and may trigger competing priorities (racial equity vs. accessibility, hiring, materials, programs); a coherent, integrated prioritization approach is needed to avoid diluting impact.
- Data strategy is often fragmented, with inconsistent collection and unclear timing of micro- vs. macro-data; clear governance is required to align data collection with each intervention’s needs.
- Acknowledging systemic racism and fostering accountable action requires moving beyond denial, addressing privileges, and enabling proactive participation to dismantle white-supremacy–influenced norms rather than accepting the status quo.
AI summary of learnings
- Center storytelling and actively surface voices from Latino and other communities, with careful thematic analysis to organize responses.
- Align DEI work to clearly defined strategic goals, dedicating time to diagnosis and leveraging existing work to avoid duplication.
- Prioritize intentional external relationship-building (e.g., with African American pastors/clergy) and use shared resources like leadership books to introduce and normalize the framework.
- Institutionalize equity through policy updates (e.g., employee handbook) and robust, data-driven practices, including establishing baseline demographic data.
- Proactively broaden representation by engaging new voices to fill gaps in perspectives and leadership.
- Address data collection barriers head-on by standardizing what, when, and how data is collected, clarifying purpose, and navigating consent/logistical constraints.
- Improve collaboration and planning processes (earlier meetings, better notice, and clear norms around race conversations) to enable difficult discussions and more consistent participation.