Educational Modules

Vision, Values and Strategy

This training focuses on how we engage our communities at a deep cultural level in our work. Many policies and programs are implemented while ignoring the culture of the impacted population, the long timeline of cultural change or the unintended consequences that uninvited engagement can bring.

This workshop introduces tools to connect staff, volunteers and communities: how we vision the future, the values that drive people to engage and a clear strategy for success.

Power, Place and People: Equity and Diversity in our Work

This workshop will introduce justice-based concepts and frameworks in order to create shared language and understanding amongst staff. We discuss how and why the terms equity, inclusion and diversity came to frame the work do and how to ground these concepts in our practice.

We put justice into practice when we understand: Power – the systems we engage, Place – the land we occupy, and People – the culture of who we are.

Equity Tool Evaluation

The Equity Tool helps evaluate policies, strategies, processes and protocols. By implementing this tool, you will gain practice in producing knowledge that is anti-oppressive. With regular use, you will begin to see the oppression in systems and procedures without the tool. Use the knowledge to develop someone else’s leadership and your own.

This session is an introduction to the key concepts and values of the tool and applies them to analyze the culture and practice of the workplace.

Leadership and Management for Equity

Management and Leadership hold unique challenges and opportunities for doing Equity work. There are many popular trainings for management and leadership and others around Equity. This session brings key aspects of both equity and leadership together to help management navigate the challenges and use the opportunities to transform the work of the collective.

Community Organizing and Outreach for Institutions – an anti-racist approach

Outreach and community impact are often the most sought-after skills and practices that institutions seek. In this workshop, participants will have opportunities to practice developing community outreach to extend the values and practices developed in the workplace in to the community at large.

Decolonizing Anti-Racism

Racism and Anti-racism are among the most discussed topics in the country today. It seems that every organization is trying to implement some sort of anti-racist policies whether Diversity, Inclusion, Equity or fighting bias – these types of trainings are as widespread as they are diverse in their approach and impact.

This training is designed to locate “Equity Washing” and other types of processes that are ill-fitted to address real structural change and open up space for real transformative processes in the organization. This session is designed for existing Equity groups within institutions are not indented for people in the early stages of their anti-racism journeys.

Ecology and Racism

In this training, Tane Ward explores the connections between environmentalism, ecology and structural racism, and how these ideas have shaped society in Austin, Texas and beyond. Building on years of work protecting lands, indigenous cultures and the history of Texas, we will explore the ways that ecology and connecting to nature hold unique keys for doing equity work in communities and as a global society.

This is a Conversation, not a Listening Session

Often when programs focus on listening, they do not get useful information, or what they do get comes at great costs of time and resources. An expert can give a detailed analysis of the needs of a community. An expert can give a clear analysis of the equity concerns in a project more than a program officer having sat through a listening session. It is more useful to get people together and have a facilitated conversation.

Leadership and Management for Equity

Management and Leadership hold unique challenges and opportunities for doing Equity work. There are many popular trainings for management and leadership and others around Equity. This session brings key aspects of both equity and leadership together to help management navigate the challenges and use the opportunities to transform the work of the collective.

Community Organizing and Outreach for Institutions – an anti-racist approach

Outreach and community impact are often the most sought-after skills and practices that institutions seek. In this workshop, participants will have opportunities to practice developing community outreach to extend the values and practices developed in the workplace in to the community at large.