How Equity is Winning – Part 2

Just Solutions Team

Since its inception in 2020, Just Solutions has partnered with dozens of clients across the American South, including nonprofits, government agencies, philanthropic groups, coalitions, and community groups, to begin the hard and necessary work of making “Equity a WAY and not a what.”

PSE’s signature equity training, Racial Equity 101, is designed for leaders and their teams, ready to collectively build their capacity, understanding, and analysis of racial equity.  Our Just Solutions portfolio has had the pleasure of training over 1,000 people in the American South this year alone. The training is the first step on a long, intentional journey to advance equity. Our partners know that our training is not a “check-the-box” moment.

Atlanta Community Food Bank

Over a year ago, the CEO of the Atlanta Community Food Bank (ACFB) partnered with PSE to launch a three-year equity journey to assess their internal policies and practices, ensuring they are equitable and applied equitably to all ACFB team members, partners, and community members. Through this process, PSE has supported the development of ACFB’s first Equity Steering Committee (ESC), a small internal team of diverse employees comprised of a cross-section of leadership, management, and frontline staff and respectfully representative of race and gender.  This team of leaders is instrumental in building a culture of equity at the Food Bank that strengthens the organization from the inside out and ultimately benefit the communities they serve. 

In May 2021, Just Solutions offered ACFB our Racial Equity 101 Training to the entire 170-member staff. The training led with the data landscape of hunger in metro Atlanta, disaggregated by race and the intersectionality of social factors that perpetuate food inequities. Staff members also explored their definitions of equity, race, racism, and structural racism, and worked together to collectively address ACFB’s barriers and opportunities to advance a racial equity agenda in metro Atlanta.  The training concluded with a deep dive into the history of Atlanta and how that history has impacted the present.  

The training also sparked an internal ESC-led movement to create sub-committees to prioritize the work of embedding equity into every facet of the organization.  They began with Just Solutions guiding them through a process to examine the results of PSE Equity Discovery Survey data and key informant interviews and to co-develop a set of equity guiding principles and core beliefs.  ESC members also began developing an internal communications strategy and let voices from the qualitative data drive the policies, practices, and programs they would assess during the Equity Audit phase of the project.

Are you ready to begin the necessary and impactful work of Equity
in the institution or community you serve?
WE WOULD LIKE TO BE YOUR TRUSTED EQUITY PARTNER

Contact Jennifer Cobb, Manager, Just Solutions, at [email protected]
to learn more about how to spark equity wins with our Racial Equity 101 Training.