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For more information about the synthesis please contact Deborah Meehan.
Section 2: Why are leadership strategies vital to achieving racial justice?
Section 3: What leadership development approaches support racial equity?
Section 4: What changes in our evaluation work will support racial equity outcomes?
Section 5: References for this report
In this section we will attempt to answer the following questions:
In a discussion about leadership and race, it is important to begin by making explicit some of the assumptions of the dominant culture in the United States. By dominant culture we are referring to views that have gained dominance, been shaped by those who have had the most influence and power (historically, although not exclusively, wealthy men of northern European descent), and often serve to perpetuate the continued advantage of this group. The Aspen Institute describes some of these popularly held assumptions that influence among other things the ways we think and talk about leadership:
What impact do the beliefs of the dominant culture have, in general, in the ways we think about leadership; and in particular, about leadership and race?
In a review of leadership theory, Sonia Ospina and Celina Su talk about the influence of whiteness (beliefs that are thought to define the American experience based primarily on the experiences of those who hold power) in traditional theory and the emphasis on leader styles, behaviors, motivations, and actions. Most leadership programs focus heavily on the individual and subtly or overtly are designed on the premise that with training and development a dedicated participant/leader will have the skills and resources to accomplish great things. On face value this sounds good, who would not benefit from additional resources, skills, and attention? But these expectations are informed by the dominant cultural beliefs that individuals have had, and continue to have, equitable access to resources that support their success in achieving desired outcomes by virtue of individual perseverance or talent. While some programs that are fee based may provide subsidy with some recognition that all do not have equal means to support their participation, few programs provide different levels of support within the program design based on disparities among participants. The assumption is that all leadership program participants who have the benefit of the same skills development or program resources, will be capable of achieving the same results. Programs generally do not recognize that some participants enter with a leg up based on their education and economic background, especially if they are white and middle class.
In a cost benefit analysis of leadership programs conducted by the Leadership Learning Community, early findings suggest that there are assumptions that people who have attained higher levels of income, stature, position, etc. require higher levels of investment in their leadership development, e.g. more is invested per participant in cultivating health professionals (doctors, directors, executives, researchers) than in community health advocates. To invest more in the development of people who have already had the benefit of more life opportunities will perpetuate distribution of resources inequitably along already established patterns of advantage. Because these assumptions do not get examined explicitly its hard to guess at the thinking behind them however it does seem likely that assumptions are made that people have attained positions of influence based predominantly on merit and a proven leadership track record and that its a good idea to put money on a demonstrated winner. Ideas about equal opportunity and meritocracy get expressed both in the design assumptions of leadership programs and more globally in the investment patterns in the field of leadership development.
Using a race conscious lens, how do we understand the limitations and cost of this “individual leader” approach to leadership?
Opportunity structures within society: The focus on the individual often fails to recognize the racialization of advantage and disadvantage. The Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE) and Applied Research Center explain structural racism as the accumulative impact of racism encompassing: 1. History that provides the foundation of white racial advantage; 2. Culture which serves to normalize and replicate racist images and ideas and; 3. Interconnected institutions and policies that perpetuate and reinforce racial power disparities.
In their exploration of youth development and structural racism, the Aspen Institute, and the work of the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity, mosaic and the Youth and Racial Equity Project describe the problems of a color blind approach to youth development that fails to take into account a history of structural racism. To focus on a young person or a leader as the primary unit of change places the burden of success on that person without addressing structural racism that may undermine his/her achievement, e.g. telling a young person how to dress or behave in a job interview, without considering or talking about racial barriers (prejudice, organizational culture, old boy networks) that are stacked up against them implies that they are fully responsible for their success or failure. The Aspen Institute project on youth has statistically documented the disadvantage of race along a number of dimensions: likelihood of owning a home; likelihood of going to college; likelihood of going to prison.
Rinku Sen of the Applied Research Center talks about how the “individual responsibility” belief system of the dominant culture affects the ways in which we understand race, “The average American, of any color, sees racism as intentional, explicit action of one individual against another. …A purely individual definition of racism obstructs sustained collective action. If hateful is ’just how some people are,’ and if we outlawed explicit racism through civil rights laws, then, the logic goes, we’ve done all we can as a society. Interpersonal racism is down while structural racism gathers strength. But this is only one way in which racism works. It has terrible effects, from lost education to death, but it is enabled by rules and structures that appear on the surface to be race-neutral.“ Mainstream leadership work focusing on individuals may help white people understand their privilege and biases or provide people of color with space for healing. While dealing with the individual impact and expression of racism is important it is not enough. We will not be able to mobilize collective action for racial equity without bringing an understanding of structural racism to our leadership work.
Systems change: The Kirwan Institute applies a systems framework to understand the perpetuation of racial inequality today. This approach again draws attention to the limitations of a focus on individual behaviors as the significant source of the problem or the remedy, “Although bigoted, interpersonal discrimination persists, racial disadvantage is primarily a product of opportunity structures within society. A systems perspective helps us to understand how racial disadvantages manifest, accumulate, and resist efforts to address them by allowing us to see the world in terms of wholes, rather than in single event snapshots and how parts of a system work together to produce system outcome.” They use the example of redlining the subprime mortgage crisis to demonstrate the cumulative and self perpetuating nature of the system of structural advantage and disadvantage.
Many current leadership approaches take a linear view of how change occurs. If the skills of an individual are developed they will become a stronger leader in their organizational context and their organization will become more effective in serving a specific community or in advocating for a specific change. This approach often selects one problem to address such as the quality of education without looking at complex factors and dynamics, for example, the role of housing stock. In the U.S., a school with a good reputation increases the value of housing. This means that home buyers with higher income levels will also be creating a higher tax base for supporting the quality of the school. Approaching an issue with a view of changing the system will require understanding multiple relationships and factors. A leadership program that focuses on strengthening schools with a general leadership curriculum for principals will not be able to support a breakthrough without understanding the complex context and system in which these schools operate, e.g. what is the history of the neighborhood, what are the dynamics among potential stakeholders in the school's success (parents, realtors, churches, community groups, unions, school boards, teachers), what are the politics of the schools system, what are the demographics of the school, what are the economic realities. Strategies that connect and build relationships with people in different parts of the system (e.g a leadership strategy that connects multiple stakeholders around a shared problem analysis and vision for change) will increase the likelihood of identifying leverage points and implementing strategies that create a positive feedback loop (an action that begins to change the system's ability to self correct and perpetuate itself in a positive direction). Beginning with a focus on one individual is far less likely to build or leverage connections needed to change a system that is creating or perpetuating racial disadvantage.
Social identity and meaning making: In their work on leadership and race, Ospina and Su build on new leadership theory in the field that has been developed by Drath, et al. This theory looks at the collective dimensions of leadership as a relational process. In their research, Ospina and Su identify the important role of the context in which leadership takes place. Traditional leadership theory pays little attention to social identity. The authors point out that the role of social identity is critical, not just because one’s race and ethnicity may create specific obstacles to be addressed or serve as a resource to be tapped, but because social identity actually shapes the emergent process of leadership among social actors, “. . . social identities create communities with collective grievances and aspirations that must be addressed from within.” An important part of this process is meaning-making of lived experiences that take into account issues of power and intersecting identities as a collective identity is formed in social movement building and racial justice work.
The Youth and Racial Equity Project also links the meaning-making process to leadership development, explaining that the work of youth development organizations is to help youth analyze and comprehend the world around them at a critical stage in their development. As young people better understand how their lives and opportunities are influenced by racism they can become a collective voice and advocate for themselves. YREP emphasizes the importance of the collective action component linked to meaning-making to help young people think and act in ways that challenge structural racism.
There are currently more [more than what? than those that don't? than there used to be?] leadership programs that integrate an understanding of social identity into their recruitment, content and results strategies. There are also many programs that maintain a specific individual focus that is presumably identity neutrality [this is a HUGE presumption; on what is it based? Need some examples or statistics other indication of how this is known]. Yet there is no neutral social identity space in the work of leadership. Unless the process of making meaning of lived experience is made explicit and draws on the values and beliefs of each participant, the default set of values, beliefs and assumptions that underlie leadership approaches will be those of the dominant culture.
Without a race conscious approach to leadership we will continue, through leadership work, to impose the values of the dominant culture promoting leadership models of boundless individual opportunity that exclude the lived experience, perspectives and potential organizing ability of those who have experienced structural disadvantage. Current thinking privileges leadership that looks and behaves in specific ways, e.g. directive, heroic, high profile, authoritative, and positional. Research that the Leadership Learning Community conducted for the Annie E. Casey Foundation explores this problem. Participants in focus groups tackling the question of why there were not more people of color in leadership positions in the nonprofit sector gave examples of feeling that their leadership was rendered invisible if it did not look like the more directive models of the dominant culture. One participant shared a story about being considered a weak leader because she did not claim full responsibility for success and shared the credit for results with her team. This is not to say that people of all races and both genders don't also effectively adapt their leadership styles to be successful within the specific context of an organization. Unfortunately though, the normative culture values the charismatic, take charge leader who is often credited with achievements that are the work of many, in ways that often undermine team work. Thus placing her open and distributed leadip style and the organizational culture at addos with the external system of recognition and reward.
Social identity is a collective experience that creates a strong basis for coalescing around shared vision and action. As we expand our current thinking about leadership to understand it as a relational and collective process the entire field will benefit with the potential to reach new scale and impact.
Leadership to what end: The Leadership for a New Era work is grounded in the context of supporting leadership thinking and approaches that create social equity. Many mainstream leadership approaches seek to develop better educational leaders or healthcare providers without being explicit about the specific changes they expect to see in the condition of people’s lives as a result of the particular approach. Fortunately, there are also a number of programs using a results-based framework that develop a leadership strategy in the context of community, systems and societal level results.
To support racial equity, we have to be clear that this is a result we are seeking. In their assessment of racial justice grant making, the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity and the Applied Research Center, found that to be effective in promoting racial equity it is important to move beyond diversity and develop a shared framework on racism: to see racial justice as a core part of mission, goals and strategies. Leadership programs focusing on individuals have begun to place greater priority on diversity in their recruitment and targets of who to serve. While this is important, recruitment of people of color, without a program alignment around racial equity goals will not necessarily provide leadership program participants with the skills to conduct a racial impact analysis of their policy or service work. For example Van Jones was a very successful graduate of leadership programs and yet when he was undermined in a racialized attack, many of the environmental organizations he had worked with failed to understand or respond to the racial underpinnings of the attack on his leadership.
In a presentation at the 2nd Annual – A Gathering of Leaders, john a. powell spoke about the need for a new social justice paradigm. The Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA) and Leadership Development in Interethnic Relations (LDIR) program both talk about the intersection of race with a number of other dimensions such as class, gender, sexual orientation, etc. that operate within the system of disadvantage. The new social justice paradigm needs to understand the interconnectedness of our fate as a basis for collaboration and coalition building. This work begins with an understanding of structural disadvantage and with clear attention to social identity that creates the basis for understanding the intersections of multiple identities and that identify collective grievances as a foundation for connected action. To achieve social equity a leadership focus is needed that moves us beyond the emphasis on the power of individuals to a philosophy of interdependence where the work of the individual is building connection.
This section will address the following questions about how leadership programs can strengthen racial equity work:
The Leadership Learning Community, PolicyLink, and the Greenlining Institute have all found that people of color are underrepresented in staff and board leadership of non-profit organizations, philanthropy and the policy arena. All three organizations cite many obstacles that have created this problem: institutional racism; lack of access to equitable education and training opportunities; exclusive networks that perpetuate white leadership; discrimination in recruitment, selection and advancement; unwelcoming or hostile environments; exclusive assumptions about what leadership looks like based on the white culture, economic status; student loans that preclude internships; or work in low paid jobs. More leadership programs and strategies that are effectively serving and reaching out to recruit people of color and address these obstacles are needed.
The Applied Research Center and the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity have found that programs led by people of color are more likely to bring a racial equity frame to the work. PolicyLink has made a compelling case for the need for more people of color determining the policy decisions that will improve the quality of life in their communities. "We cannot have an authentic democracy when large segments of the population, because of their race and economic means, have no voice in determining how society organizes resources, conducts its business, and expresses its values." The Greenlining Institute draws a strong correlation in their research of California foundations between the staff diversity and the investments being made in communities of color. They found that of 50 California foundations only 9 were providing more than 20% of their funds to communities of color, in a state where people of color comprise nearly 60% of the population. The Diversity in Philanthropy Project Case Study places importance on data-driven research to draw attention to the lack of diversity. There is little quantitative data about the demographics of leadership positions in the public benefit sector that reveals the actual state of under-representation of different ethnic groups which could help to generate attention to diversity work and measure our progress. The Greenlining Institute has begun to collect data on the diversity and investment practices of California foundations.
Leadership programs can mitigate historical disadvantage by providing access to opportunities and resources:
The cost of excluding people from leadership by race/ethnicity is clear [Then make it clear to the reader. Draw the connections between the issues explored so far -- individuals beeing seen as the levers rather than individuals as the builders and connectors in a larger system; not enough people of color; lack of explicit social equity goals/stated desired results in l.d. programs -- with the costs of these issues -- subprime, Van Jones, etc. Right now this has not been made clear.] We need strategies that address the issues and conditions that have kept people out of leadership positions based on their race/ethnicity. Leadership programs that provide participants with access to networks, financial resources, and positions of influence, recognition, desirable skill sets, credentials, peer support groups, friends in high places and other advantages cannot reverse years of historical disadvantage but they can provide targeted support to help reduce its impact. One foundation that understood this opportunity created a community leadership program that they referred to as the poor person's 'MacArthur Awards'. They provided $25,000 awards to community organizers who were doing an amazing job under conditions of great personal hardship and sacrifice. The foundation president explained that, "there are no strings attached to these awards. If people need to use the money to fix their car, put a down payment on a house, pay off student loans or even give there kids a vacation that's what they should do. We want to help provide these folks with the opportunity to create more financial stability that will enable them to continue their good work."
There has been a lot of great work done on the issues of diversity and inclusion by the Denver Foundation and Third Sector New England. According to the Denver Foundation, “Diversity and inclusion – often treated synonymously – are actually concepts that each profoundly impact organizations. Promoting diversity is about encouraging greater institutional representation of a broad range of age, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability and socio-economic status in ways that alter the workforce composition (and potential) of organizations and professional fields. This process is about bringing more people of diverse backgrounds to lead institutions whose work substantially impacts the common good. Inclusion, on the other hand, is about actively engaging the differences of all people in the organization to create a culture of belonging in which all people are valued and honored for who they are, and the broad range of talents and skills they bring to their work, no matter their background. This process allows everyone in the organization to participate in fulfilling their potential, from the Board leadership to the entry-level staff member.” Leadership programs can support the diversity goals of organizations by creating new networks and skills that help people of color gain a more competitive advantage. Helping people who have been excluded gain access to organizations does not mean that the environment will be inclusive or conducive to their success. Leadership programs can also work with organizational leadership to increase their cultural competency; their ability to advocate for inclusivity and to create welcoming environments; and, their willingness to utilize technical assistance providers as needed to engage the entire organization in the work of creating an inclusive environment.
Leadership programs can help participants deepen their understanding of structural racism and collectively develop and test strategies for creating racial and social equity
Leadership programs can help participants deepen their understanding and application of a structural racism framework to make meaning of their experiences of disadvantage or advantage, and use a more comprehensive understanding of how racial advantage is perpetuated as a lens for analyzing the impact of their work in policy, community organizing, and coalition building. Leadership programs that provide a political and historical education about race will help groups to talk about race and build relationships across different social identities. These connections that are not often nurtured in the context of an organization's work can lay the groundwork for new relationships, connections and coalitions. Leadership programs can bring multiple parts of a system into the room to foster connections and analysis for leveraging change within a system. In this way leadership programs can help move individuals from a focus on organizational improvements and single issue fragmentation to a complex analysis of how to work together to create racial equity.
Leadership strategies can be coordinated to support a comprehensive approach to racial equity work
Within the field, there is appreciation for and great respect of work being done to advance diversity and inclusion. There is also the concern that while this is important work, it is not sufficient. In some cases, arguments made for diversity are framed as moral arguments, that hiring people of color is the right thing to do, or that having more diversity will increase the creativity and problem solving capacity of an organization. However to truly advace social equity, diversity has to be placed in the context of a strong racial equity framework. In her work, Maggie Potopchak describes a process by which programs working to address racial equity can map themselves in order to understand the value of multiple approaches as part of a needed comprehensive approach. This places the various stages of work on diversity, inclusion and racial equity into a coordinated framework that enables groups to leverage each other’s work and look for gaps. The framework includes: individual approaches that help individuals to increase racial awareness and to confront prejudice, power structures and internalized racism; inter-group approaches that bring people of different ethnic identity groups together to build trust, engage stereotypes and work together; institutional approaches that build the capacity of organizations and institutions to understand structural inequality, and organize around policy and practices that create racial equity. Leadership programs in fact provide an opportunity to work in all of these spheres and to coordinate this work within a comprehensive strategy for dismantling structural racism.
A number of organizations, including RCLA, PolicyLink, LLC, YREP, PRE, ARC and APALC, have looked at leadership development and those practices that effectively recruit and support people of color, in addition to leadership development approaches that are integral to supporting leadership as a strategy for achieving racial equity. The following practices have been highlighted by these organizations:
Strategic outreach and recruitment: To diversify leadership of the sector requires a set of strategies for intentional outreach and recruitment. Success in recruitment may require moving outside of traditional pipelines, e.g. away from Ivy League institutions to community colleges; providing financial support to create equitable access; producing recruitment materials and programming in different languages; insuring that the selection process is led and implemented by a group that reflects the diversity sought; making expectations for increased diversity an explicit part of how a program will evaluate itself, and an explicit part of the leadership programs values and staff recruitment.
Systems thinking: Leadership programs can help participants develop their capacity for understanding systems change as an important tool for tackling structural racism. The environmental movement can contribute curriculum to the leadership work of cultivating systems thinking. [How? I don't believe this is untrue, however there needs to be some reasoning/examples/proof. Also the environmental movement is not the only analogy/metaphor for showing interdendence. Without an explanation added, this should be taken out.] This approach can help move individuals from a focus on organizational improvements and single issue fragmentation to a complex analysis of how to work together to create racial equity.
A Structural Racism Framework and Racial impact analysis: It is critical to provide a strong framework for understanding structural racism. In a survey of more than 120 representatives of leadership training programs around the nation, the Center For Assessment and Policy Development (CAPD) determined that only slightly more than half (50.6%) include the a discussion of Structural Racism in their planned activities. The Youth and Racial Equity Project suggests that resources be invested in developing a curriculum that could be shared. A strong racial impact analysis will enable participants to also place inequity in a historical context that underscores the need for targeted universalism. Many engaged in leadership work believe that a general policy meant to improve the quality of education will help everyone equitably and that specialized programs should not be necessary for any specific ethnic groups. These ideas about universal approaches fail to understand structural racism and how it has resulted in higher suspension rates for a specific group or a lower tax base for a school in a predominantly African American community. Within a plan to improve the quality of education, it will be critical for leadership program participants to understand the extra measures needed to correct historical disadvantage within an education reform plan.
Talking about race: There is universal agreement that we need to talk openly about race. As john powell said [when? where?] , “The question is not should we talk about race; the question is how to talk about race constructively.” The popular idea that we are beyond race (post-racial) or that talking about race creates more conflict also plays out in leadership programs – programs that could become important incubators for learning to talk about race. As RCLA has learned, “Those conversations that contain a potential for conflict or allow people to test uncharted waters can be opportunities for participants to learn something new and even transform their own thoughts and feelings”. In a cooperative inquiry project with leaders of color, participants identified the need to take back the language of race to accurately describe their values and reality. They gave examples of language like “risk”, “deprivation”, “damage”, “hate crimes” that strip away the racial aspect of violence and inequity. [What happened as a result of changing/taking back the languaege of race? And how does this relate to the need to talk about race and provide frameworks for talking about it? We can probably each make our own assumptions about the connections but perhaps the connections should be explicit here on screen/paper].
Healing and inner work: RCLA, PRE, YREP and LLC have all found, in their research, that creating a safe environment for emotional exploration of racism, healing, and support is an important part of nurturing racial justice leadership. For this work, it is important to set aside time for reflection. A paradigm that focuses on collective leadership does not negate the need for individual work. It’s really a question of the context in which this work takes place, and whether the inner work is done to help individuals more effectively build connections.
Inter-generational models: RCLA talks about the importance of intergenerational models that enable people of color to pass wisdom and knowledge from one generation to the next and to “grow our own leadership”. The need for passing wisdom, knowledge, skills and access to flow the other direction has also been identified in multi-generational dialogues conducted by the Buiding Movment Project, Change Makers for the American South and other intergenerational initiatives. PolicyLink recommends mentoring programs and RCLA’s cooperative inquiry participants suggest writing personal histories. Intergenerational work can also help to build new networks to extend influence and access to resources addressing the historic exclusion of communities of color from power networks. From a systemic perspective with common commitment to a common problem, everyone is a peer with different relationships with and levels of access to power in different contexts.
Relationship and coalition building: Leadership development convenings can provide an opportunity for different racial and ethnic groups to leverage their work to achieve common goals. john powell offers the need for an approach grounded in our interconnectedness so that we can together re-conceptualize society to promote the economic, political, and spiritual health of all. PolicyLink has pointed out the importance of place in situating this work. RCLA refers to this as the shared context for meaning making and relationship building. [Where is the TCE, PILA, APALC...work in here?]
Policy training: Leadership programs can be an opportunity to provide more equitable access to the types of skills that enable people of color to participate at policy tables where they can bring a racial impact analysis and a stronger relationship of community accountability.
Peer learning and network development: Connected to the need for truly intergenerational leadership initiatives, peer learning is an asset based approach to leadership development based on the premise that much of the knowledge and creative capacity for solutions resides among those closest to the problem. Building leadership networks creates opportunities for peer learning, leveraging resources within the group, and collaborative work. Leadership networks can hypothesize, test and adapt attempts to create racial inequity.
This section will answer the following questions:
Many leadership program evaluations are based on a theory of change rooted in a believe that an investment in building specific skills and capabilities in an individual will deliver organizational and/or community results. Therefore, many leadership programs evaluate their success by asking participants to report on increased mastery and/or behavioral changes. For example, if your theory of change is that more culturally competent healthcare providers will improve health access, then the description of acquired cultural understanding or sensitivities of participants is seen as a benchmark of progress towards accessible health care. Over the past few years, more programs are looking for community level indicators such as increased collaboration among organizations or policy changes that individuals have participated in as a result of a leadership intervention. Even in these cases, the individual’s role remains the starting point for understanding and assessing community or systems level change. [Seems like this section is saying that the point of analysis is either individual OR community level. I'm not sure it's an either or but rather a both and. Even if the focus of a program is on collective systemic understanding and action toward community social equity results, there may still be some indicators at the individual level that would be valuable to measure in addition to community level results...hmmm....]
As pointed out in earlier sections, monitoring individual behavior and attitude changes resulting from a deeper understanding of race and privilege will only speak to one dimension of dismantling racial advantage [So we should be speaking to additional dimensions not eliminating the individual dimension, yes?]. Research by ARC shows that even though interpersonal bias is declining, structural racism is on the rise. While supporting work that helps leadership participants in the personal work of dealing with privilege or internalized racism, we need to expand the unit of our analysis from the individual to relationships, connections, organizations, and systems within communities where we are trying to achieve racial equity. For example, Social Policy Research Associates (SPR) has developed an institutional change model that focuses on the required organizational context for any individual leaders' efforts to address racial equity to succeed. This framework focuses on three major institutional support areas that include: a focus on a shared vision behind the organization's racial equity work, an authorizing culture to support multiculturalism, and appropriate organizational policies, procedures and systems to implement the work. Attention to ensure that these three areas are aligned with diversity and racial equity principles have been instrumental in transforming not only individual values and practices, but whole institutions' (such as philanthropic foundations) understanding, buy-in, policies, and approaches to racial equity work in the community.
The Evaluation Tools for Racial Equity site provides a set of questions that help participants in an evaluation place their attention on their analysis of the problem, goals and strategies. Engaging the subjects in making their assumptions and desired results explicit will help to shift the unit of analysis from specific individuals to community and systems level results. Starting with racial equity as an outcome creates the context for understanding and strengthening leadership processes that contribute to specific racial equity, e.g. a leadership program focused on educators with an anticipated outcome of improved quality of education might consider “test scores” an important indicator. This will not necessarily take into account inequality among schools in resources based on racial composition. Starting with specific racial equity outcomes will help leadership educators bring a racial impact lens to the problem and a comprehensive set of strategies.
The impact of race on evaluation
The Evaluation Tools for Racial Equity website (www.evaluationtoolsforracialequity.org/) acknowledges how the influence of race on our experiences and personal and professional lives affects evaluation. The site states that “Racism, oppression, privilege and access to power always influence evaluation. They influence the questions we choose to ask, which findings we decide are important or unimportant, how we make meaning of results and many other things.” It is important to be explicit about race in all phases of the evaluation’s development and implementation. The creators of Evaluation Tools for Racial Equity (MP Associates and CAPD) have also created, with contributions from Donna Bivens of the Women's Theological Center and Barbara Major of the St. Thomas Health Clinic, a monograph entitled 'Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building' that further addresses many of these issues. In addition to re-emphasizing the necessity of an explicitly a racial lens in all stages of evaluation, 'Flipping the Script also recommends providing power analyses (to document any potential changes in racially imbalanced power dynamics) and a thorough contextual discussion of the sources of any racial disparities documented (in order to avoid the trap of 'blaming the victim').
Social Policy Research Associates (SPR) produced a report on multicultural evaluation that raises questions about how evaluations that are strongly rooted in the dominant culture function across diverse cultural contexts. They describe a multicultural evaluation as one that, “integrates cultural considerations into its theory, measures, analysis and practice. In operational terms, a multicultural evaluation requires conceptual frameworks that incorporate different world views and value systems. It engages data collection strategies that take into account potential cultural and linguistic barriers, includes a reexamination of established evaluation measure for culturally competent analysis and creative dissemination of findings to diverse audiences.”
Who has power in an evaluation?
There is power in evaluation and who gets to define success or make meaning of data. In fact, an important first question should be, “Who is the evaluation for?” Often, the subjects themselves are not the primary beneficiaries of an evaluation. An evaluation may serve different populations who have different needs. The Diversity in Philanthropy Project Case Study, Evaluation with a Diversity Lens (EDL) strongly advocates for participatory evaluations “incorporating diverse voices (especially of intended beneficiaries) to identify problems, engage in program design, implementation and data analysis.” The Evaluation Tools for Racial Equity site suggests engaging many stakeholders who represent diverse perspectives in the actual design, implementation and analysis of data. Without involving the subjects of the evaluation, there is the danger of imposing an external set of benchmarks that do not align with the experience and expectations of those involved in the work, e.g. a group may place high value on its collective process and find that specific individuals in the group are being evaluated on their own advancement or public recognition. This is where the values of funders or specific programs might differ with the cultural experiences and values of participants.
Learning and meaning-making in evaluation
Earlier in the [?] section leadership was described as an emergent process of meaning-making among groups engaged in collective work. SPRA describes the importance of an evaluation approach that takes into account historical and social systems that contribute to power and outcome disparities across racial groups. Both this understanding of leadership and this crucial approach to evaluation can be supported through a participatory approach where the evaluation itself becomes part of this leadership development process by supporting reflection and data to test ideas. The evaluation tools for racial equity site provides an accessible guide that can help groups identify the questions that will move their work forward, understand what they can learn and how to collect information. Engaging participants in the process of understanding the data will help to prevent culture bias in the analysis as they bring their own cultural framework and understanding of structural racism to learning about the impact of their work.
References for this Report
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For more information about the synthesis please contact Deborah Meehan.
Synthesis Sections:
Section 1: Does current leadership thinking and practice contribute to structural racism?Section 2: Why are leadership strategies vital to achieving racial justice?
Section 3: What leadership development approaches support racial equity?
Section 4: What changes in our evaluation work will support racial equity outcomes?
Section 5: References for this report
Does Current Leadership Thinking and Practice Contribute to Structural Racism?
In this section we will attempt to answer the following questions:
- Does the dominant culture’s influence on our leadership work serve to reinforce structural racism?
- How does a focus on the individual absent of a focus on the interconnected systemic limit our ability to mobilize collective action for systemic change that creates racial equity?
- What is the cost of not talking about race and neglecting the role of social identity ?
In a discussion about leadership and race, it is important to begin by making explicit some of the assumptions of the dominant culture in the United States. By dominant culture we are referring to views that have gained dominance, been shaped by those who have had the most influence and power (historically, although not exclusively, wealthy men of northern European descent), and often serve to perpetuate the continued advantage of this group. The Aspen Institute describes some of these popularly held assumptions that influence among other things the ways we think and talk about leadership:
- Personal responsibility and individualism: The belief that people control their fates regardless of social position, and that individual behaviors and choices determine material outcomes.
- Meritocracy: The belief that resources and opportunities are distributed according to talent and effort and that social components of “merit”—such as access to inside information of powerful social networks, are of lesser importance or do not matter.
- Equal opportunity: The belief that employment, education and wealth accumulation are “level playing fields” and that race is no longer a barrier to progress in these areas.
What impact do the beliefs of the dominant culture have, in general, in the ways we think about leadership; and in particular, about leadership and race?
In a review of leadership theory, Sonia Ospina and Celina Su talk about the influence of whiteness (beliefs that are thought to define the American experience based primarily on the experiences of those who hold power) in traditional theory and the emphasis on leader styles, behaviors, motivations, and actions. Most leadership programs focus heavily on the individual and subtly or overtly are designed on the premise that with training and development a dedicated participant/leader will have the skills and resources to accomplish great things. On face value this sounds good, who would not benefit from additional resources, skills, and attention? But these expectations are informed by the dominant cultural beliefs that individuals have had, and continue to have, equitable access to resources that support their success in achieving desired outcomes by virtue of individual perseverance or talent. While some programs that are fee based may provide subsidy with some recognition that all do not have equal means to support their participation, few programs provide different levels of support within the program design based on disparities among participants. The assumption is that all leadership program participants who have the benefit of the same skills development or program resources, will be capable of achieving the same results. Programs generally do not recognize that some participants enter with a leg up based on their education and economic background, especially if they are white and middle class.
In a cost benefit analysis of leadership programs conducted by the Leadership Learning Community, early findings suggest that there are assumptions that people who have attained higher levels of income, stature, position, etc. require higher levels of investment in their leadership development, e.g. more is invested per participant in cultivating health professionals (doctors, directors, executives, researchers) than in community health advocates. To invest more in the development of people who have already had the benefit of more life opportunities will perpetuate distribution of resources inequitably along already established patterns of advantage. Because these assumptions do not get examined explicitly its hard to guess at the thinking behind them however it does seem likely that assumptions are made that people have attained positions of influence based predominantly on merit and a proven leadership track record and that its a good idea to put money on a demonstrated winner. Ideas about equal opportunity and meritocracy get expressed both in the design assumptions of leadership programs and more globally in the investment patterns in the field of leadership development.
Using a race conscious lens, how do we understand the limitations and cost of this “individual leader” approach to leadership?
Opportunity structures within society: The focus on the individual often fails to recognize the racialization of advantage and disadvantage. The Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE) and Applied Research Center explain structural racism as the accumulative impact of racism encompassing: 1. History that provides the foundation of white racial advantage; 2. Culture which serves to normalize and replicate racist images and ideas and; 3. Interconnected institutions and policies that perpetuate and reinforce racial power disparities.
In their exploration of youth development and structural racism, the Aspen Institute, and the work of the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity, mosaic and the Youth and Racial Equity Project describe the problems of a color blind approach to youth development that fails to take into account a history of structural racism. To focus on a young person or a leader as the primary unit of change places the burden of success on that person without addressing structural racism that may undermine his/her achievement, e.g. telling a young person how to dress or behave in a job interview, without considering or talking about racial barriers (prejudice, organizational culture, old boy networks) that are stacked up against them implies that they are fully responsible for their success or failure. The Aspen Institute project on youth has statistically documented the disadvantage of race along a number of dimensions: likelihood of owning a home; likelihood of going to college; likelihood of going to prison.
Rinku Sen of the Applied Research Center talks about how the “individual responsibility” belief system of the dominant culture affects the ways in which we understand race, “The average American, of any color, sees racism as intentional, explicit action of one individual against another. …A purely individual definition of racism obstructs sustained collective action. If hateful is ’just how some people are,’ and if we outlawed explicit racism through civil rights laws, then, the logic goes, we’ve done all we can as a society. Interpersonal racism is down while structural racism gathers strength. But this is only one way in which racism works. It has terrible effects, from lost education to death, but it is enabled by rules and structures that appear on the surface to be race-neutral.“ Mainstream leadership work focusing on individuals may help white people understand their privilege and biases or provide people of color with space for healing. While dealing with the individual impact and expression of racism is important it is not enough. We will not be able to mobilize collective action for racial equity without bringing an understanding of structural racism to our leadership work.
Systems change: The Kirwan Institute applies a systems framework to understand the perpetuation of racial inequality today. This approach again draws attention to the limitations of a focus on individual behaviors as the significant source of the problem or the remedy, “Although bigoted, interpersonal discrimination persists, racial disadvantage is primarily a product of opportunity structures within society. A systems perspective helps us to understand how racial disadvantages manifest, accumulate, and resist efforts to address them by allowing us to see the world in terms of wholes, rather than in single event snapshots and how parts of a system work together to produce system outcome.” They use the example of redlining the subprime mortgage crisis to demonstrate the cumulative and self perpetuating nature of the system of structural advantage and disadvantage.
Many current leadership approaches take a linear view of how change occurs. If the skills of an individual are developed they will become a stronger leader in their organizational context and their organization will become more effective in serving a specific community or in advocating for a specific change. This approach often selects one problem to address such as the quality of education without looking at complex factors and dynamics, for example, the role of housing stock. In the U.S., a school with a good reputation increases the value of housing. This means that home buyers with higher income levels will also be creating a higher tax base for supporting the quality of the school. Approaching an issue with a view of changing the system will require understanding multiple relationships and factors. A leadership program that focuses on strengthening schools with a general leadership curriculum for principals will not be able to support a breakthrough without understanding the complex context and system in which these schools operate, e.g. what is the history of the neighborhood, what are the dynamics among potential stakeholders in the school's success (parents, realtors, churches, community groups, unions, school boards, teachers), what are the politics of the schools system, what are the demographics of the school, what are the economic realities. Strategies that connect and build relationships with people in different parts of the system (e.g a leadership strategy that connects multiple stakeholders around a shared problem analysis and vision for change) will increase the likelihood of identifying leverage points and implementing strategies that create a positive feedback loop (an action that begins to change the system's ability to self correct and perpetuate itself in a positive direction). Beginning with a focus on one individual is far less likely to build or leverage connections needed to change a system that is creating or perpetuating racial disadvantage.
Social identity and meaning making: In their work on leadership and race, Ospina and Su build on new leadership theory in the field that has been developed by Drath, et al. This theory looks at the collective dimensions of leadership as a relational process. In their research, Ospina and Su identify the important role of the context in which leadership takes place. Traditional leadership theory pays little attention to social identity. The authors point out that the role of social identity is critical, not just because one’s race and ethnicity may create specific obstacles to be addressed or serve as a resource to be tapped, but because social identity actually shapes the emergent process of leadership among social actors, “. . . social identities create communities with collective grievances and aspirations that must be addressed from within.” An important part of this process is meaning-making of lived experiences that take into account issues of power and intersecting identities as a collective identity is formed in social movement building and racial justice work.
The Youth and Racial Equity Project also links the meaning-making process to leadership development, explaining that the work of youth development organizations is to help youth analyze and comprehend the world around them at a critical stage in their development. As young people better understand how their lives and opportunities are influenced by racism they can become a collective voice and advocate for themselves. YREP emphasizes the importance of the collective action component linked to meaning-making to help young people think and act in ways that challenge structural racism.
There are currently more [more than what? than those that don't? than there used to be?] leadership programs that integrate an understanding of social identity into their recruitment, content and results strategies. There are also many programs that maintain a specific individual focus that is presumably identity neutrality [this is a HUGE presumption; on what is it based? Need some examples or statistics other indication of how this is known]. Yet there is no neutral social identity space in the work of leadership. Unless the process of making meaning of lived experience is made explicit and draws on the values and beliefs of each participant, the default set of values, beliefs and assumptions that underlie leadership approaches will be those of the dominant culture.
Without a race conscious approach to leadership we will continue, through leadership work, to impose the values of the dominant culture promoting leadership models of boundless individual opportunity that exclude the lived experience, perspectives and potential organizing ability of those who have experienced structural disadvantage. Current thinking privileges leadership that looks and behaves in specific ways, e.g. directive, heroic, high profile, authoritative, and positional. Research that the Leadership Learning Community conducted for the Annie E. Casey Foundation explores this problem. Participants in focus groups tackling the question of why there were not more people of color in leadership positions in the nonprofit sector gave examples of feeling that their leadership was rendered invisible if it did not look like the more directive models of the dominant culture. One participant shared a story about being considered a weak leader because she did not claim full responsibility for success and shared the credit for results with her team. This is not to say that people of all races and both genders don't also effectively adapt their leadership styles to be successful within the specific context of an organization. Unfortunately though, the normative culture values the charismatic, take charge leader who is often credited with achievements that are the work of many, in ways that often undermine team work. Thus placing her open and distributed leadip style and the organizational culture at addos with the external system of recognition and reward.
Social identity is a collective experience that creates a strong basis for coalescing around shared vision and action. As we expand our current thinking about leadership to understand it as a relational and collective process the entire field will benefit with the potential to reach new scale and impact.
Leadership to what end: The Leadership for a New Era work is grounded in the context of supporting leadership thinking and approaches that create social equity. Many mainstream leadership approaches seek to develop better educational leaders or healthcare providers without being explicit about the specific changes they expect to see in the condition of people’s lives as a result of the particular approach. Fortunately, there are also a number of programs using a results-based framework that develop a leadership strategy in the context of community, systems and societal level results.
To support racial equity, we have to be clear that this is a result we are seeking. In their assessment of racial justice grant making, the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity and the Applied Research Center, found that to be effective in promoting racial equity it is important to move beyond diversity and develop a shared framework on racism: to see racial justice as a core part of mission, goals and strategies. Leadership programs focusing on individuals have begun to place greater priority on diversity in their recruitment and targets of who to serve. While this is important, recruitment of people of color, without a program alignment around racial equity goals will not necessarily provide leadership program participants with the skills to conduct a racial impact analysis of their policy or service work. For example Van Jones was a very successful graduate of leadership programs and yet when he was undermined in a racialized attack, many of the environmental organizations he had worked with failed to understand or respond to the racial underpinnings of the attack on his leadership.
In a presentation at the 2nd Annual – A Gathering of Leaders, john a. powell spoke about the need for a new social justice paradigm. The Research Center for Leadership in Action (RCLA) and Leadership Development in Interethnic Relations (LDIR) program both talk about the intersection of race with a number of other dimensions such as class, gender, sexual orientation, etc. that operate within the system of disadvantage. The new social justice paradigm needs to understand the interconnectedness of our fate as a basis for collaboration and coalition building. This work begins with an understanding of structural disadvantage and with clear attention to social identity that creates the basis for understanding the intersections of multiple identities and that identify collective grievances as a foundation for connected action. To achieve social equity a leadership focus is needed that moves us beyond the emphasis on the power of individuals to a philosophy of interdependence where the work of the individual is building connection.
Why are Leadership Strategies vital to our efforts to achieve Racial Justice?
This section will address the following questions about how leadership programs can strengthen racial equity work:
- Why do we need to increase the representation of people of color in the non profit sector to strengthen racial equity work?
- How can leadership programs help to mitigate a history of structural disadvantage?
- How can leadership programs help participants build understanding, analyses and connections that create racial and social equity?
- What role can leadership strategies play in supporting a comprehensive approach to racial equity work?
The Leadership Learning Community, PolicyLink, and the Greenlining Institute have all found that people of color are underrepresented in staff and board leadership of non-profit organizations, philanthropy and the policy arena. All three organizations cite many obstacles that have created this problem: institutional racism; lack of access to equitable education and training opportunities; exclusive networks that perpetuate white leadership; discrimination in recruitment, selection and advancement; unwelcoming or hostile environments; exclusive assumptions about what leadership looks like based on the white culture, economic status; student loans that preclude internships; or work in low paid jobs. More leadership programs and strategies that are effectively serving and reaching out to recruit people of color and address these obstacles are needed.
The Applied Research Center and the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity have found that programs led by people of color are more likely to bring a racial equity frame to the work. PolicyLink has made a compelling case for the need for more people of color determining the policy decisions that will improve the quality of life in their communities. "We cannot have an authentic democracy when large segments of the population, because of their race and economic means, have no voice in determining how society organizes resources, conducts its business, and expresses its values." The Greenlining Institute draws a strong correlation in their research of California foundations between the staff diversity and the investments being made in communities of color. They found that of 50 California foundations only 9 were providing more than 20% of their funds to communities of color, in a state where people of color comprise nearly 60% of the population. The Diversity in Philanthropy Project Case Study places importance on data-driven research to draw attention to the lack of diversity. There is little quantitative data about the demographics of leadership positions in the public benefit sector that reveals the actual state of under-representation of different ethnic groups which could help to generate attention to diversity work and measure our progress. The Greenlining Institute has begun to collect data on the diversity and investment practices of California foundations.
Leadership programs can mitigate historical disadvantage by providing access to opportunities and resources:
The cost of excluding people from leadership by race/ethnicity is clear [Then make it clear to the reader. Draw the connections between the issues explored so far -- individuals beeing seen as the levers rather than individuals as the builders and connectors in a larger system; not enough people of color; lack of explicit social equity goals/stated desired results in l.d. programs -- with the costs of these issues -- subprime, Van Jones, etc. Right now this has not been made clear.] We need strategies that address the issues and conditions that have kept people out of leadership positions based on their race/ethnicity. Leadership programs that provide participants with access to networks, financial resources, and positions of influence, recognition, desirable skill sets, credentials, peer support groups, friends in high places and other advantages cannot reverse years of historical disadvantage but they can provide targeted support to help reduce its impact. One foundation that understood this opportunity created a community leadership program that they referred to as the poor person's 'MacArthur Awards'. They provided $25,000 awards to community organizers who were doing an amazing job under conditions of great personal hardship and sacrifice. The foundation president explained that, "there are no strings attached to these awards. If people need to use the money to fix their car, put a down payment on a house, pay off student loans or even give there kids a vacation that's what they should do. We want to help provide these folks with the opportunity to create more financial stability that will enable them to continue their good work."
There has been a lot of great work done on the issues of diversity and inclusion by the Denver Foundation and Third Sector New England. According to the Denver Foundation, “Diversity and inclusion – often treated synonymously – are actually concepts that each profoundly impact organizations. Promoting diversity is about encouraging greater institutional representation of a broad range of age, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability and socio-economic status in ways that alter the workforce composition (and potential) of organizations and professional fields. This process is about bringing more people of diverse backgrounds to lead institutions whose work substantially impacts the common good. Inclusion, on the other hand, is about actively engaging the differences of all people in the organization to create a culture of belonging in which all people are valued and honored for who they are, and the broad range of talents and skills they bring to their work, no matter their background. This process allows everyone in the organization to participate in fulfilling their potential, from the Board leadership to the entry-level staff member.” Leadership programs can support the diversity goals of organizations by creating new networks and skills that help people of color gain a more competitive advantage. Helping people who have been excluded gain access to organizations does not mean that the environment will be inclusive or conducive to their success. Leadership programs can also work with organizational leadership to increase their cultural competency; their ability to advocate for inclusivity and to create welcoming environments; and, their willingness to utilize technical assistance providers as needed to engage the entire organization in the work of creating an inclusive environment.
Leadership programs can help participants deepen their understanding of structural racism and collectively develop and test strategies for creating racial and social equity
Leadership programs can help participants deepen their understanding and application of a structural racism framework to make meaning of their experiences of disadvantage or advantage, and use a more comprehensive understanding of how racial advantage is perpetuated as a lens for analyzing the impact of their work in policy, community organizing, and coalition building. Leadership programs that provide a political and historical education about race will help groups to talk about race and build relationships across different social identities. These connections that are not often nurtured in the context of an organization's work can lay the groundwork for new relationships, connections and coalitions. Leadership programs can bring multiple parts of a system into the room to foster connections and analysis for leveraging change within a system. In this way leadership programs can help move individuals from a focus on organizational improvements and single issue fragmentation to a complex analysis of how to work together to create racial equity.
Leadership strategies can be coordinated to support a comprehensive approach to racial equity work
Within the field, there is appreciation for and great respect of work being done to advance diversity and inclusion. There is also the concern that while this is important work, it is not sufficient. In some cases, arguments made for diversity are framed as moral arguments, that hiring people of color is the right thing to do, or that having more diversity will increase the creativity and problem solving capacity of an organization. However to truly advace social equity, diversity has to be placed in the context of a strong racial equity framework. In her work, Maggie Potopchak describes a process by which programs working to address racial equity can map themselves in order to understand the value of multiple approaches as part of a needed comprehensive approach. This places the various stages of work on diversity, inclusion and racial equity into a coordinated framework that enables groups to leverage each other’s work and look for gaps. The framework includes: individual approaches that help individuals to increase racial awareness and to confront prejudice, power structures and internalized racism; inter-group approaches that bring people of different ethnic identity groups together to build trust, engage stereotypes and work together; institutional approaches that build the capacity of organizations and institutions to understand structural inequality, and organize around policy and practices that create racial equity. Leadership programs in fact provide an opportunity to work in all of these spheres and to coordinate this work within a comprehensive strategy for dismantling structural racism.
What Leadership Development Strategies and Approaches Support Racial Equity Work?
A number of organizations, including RCLA, PolicyLink, LLC, YREP, PRE, ARC and APALC, have looked at leadership development and those practices that effectively recruit and support people of color, in addition to leadership development approaches that are integral to supporting leadership as a strategy for achieving racial equity. The following practices have been highlighted by these organizations:
Strategic outreach and recruitment: To diversify leadership of the sector requires a set of strategies for intentional outreach and recruitment. Success in recruitment may require moving outside of traditional pipelines, e.g. away from Ivy League institutions to community colleges; providing financial support to create equitable access; producing recruitment materials and programming in different languages; insuring that the selection process is led and implemented by a group that reflects the diversity sought; making expectations for increased diversity an explicit part of how a program will evaluate itself, and an explicit part of the leadership programs values and staff recruitment.
Systems thinking: Leadership programs can help participants develop their capacity for understanding systems change as an important tool for tackling structural racism. The environmental movement can contribute curriculum to the leadership work of cultivating systems thinking. [How? I don't believe this is untrue, however there needs to be some reasoning/examples/proof. Also the environmental movement is not the only analogy/metaphor for showing interdendence. Without an explanation added, this should be taken out.] This approach can help move individuals from a focus on organizational improvements and single issue fragmentation to a complex analysis of how to work together to create racial equity.
A Structural Racism Framework and Racial impact analysis: It is critical to provide a strong framework for understanding structural racism. In a survey of more than 120 representatives of leadership training programs around the nation, the Center For Assessment and Policy Development (CAPD) determined that only slightly more than half (50.6%) include the a discussion of Structural Racism in their planned activities. The Youth and Racial Equity Project suggests that resources be invested in developing a curriculum that could be shared. A strong racial impact analysis will enable participants to also place inequity in a historical context that underscores the need for targeted universalism. Many engaged in leadership work believe that a general policy meant to improve the quality of education will help everyone equitably and that specialized programs should not be necessary for any specific ethnic groups. These ideas about universal approaches fail to understand structural racism and how it has resulted in higher suspension rates for a specific group or a lower tax base for a school in a predominantly African American community. Within a plan to improve the quality of education, it will be critical for leadership program participants to understand the extra measures needed to correct historical disadvantage within an education reform plan.
Talking about race: There is universal agreement that we need to talk openly about race. As john powell said [when? where?] , “The question is not should we talk about race; the question is how to talk about race constructively.” The popular idea that we are beyond race (post-racial) or that talking about race creates more conflict also plays out in leadership programs – programs that could become important incubators for learning to talk about race. As RCLA has learned, “Those conversations that contain a potential for conflict or allow people to test uncharted waters can be opportunities for participants to learn something new and even transform their own thoughts and feelings”. In a cooperative inquiry project with leaders of color, participants identified the need to take back the language of race to accurately describe their values and reality. They gave examples of language like “risk”, “deprivation”, “damage”, “hate crimes” that strip away the racial aspect of violence and inequity. [What happened as a result of changing/taking back the languaege of race? And how does this relate to the need to talk about race and provide frameworks for talking about it? We can probably each make our own assumptions about the connections but perhaps the connections should be explicit here on screen/paper].
Healing and inner work: RCLA, PRE, YREP and LLC have all found, in their research, that creating a safe environment for emotional exploration of racism, healing, and support is an important part of nurturing racial justice leadership. For this work, it is important to set aside time for reflection. A paradigm that focuses on collective leadership does not negate the need for individual work. It’s really a question of the context in which this work takes place, and whether the inner work is done to help individuals more effectively build connections.
Inter-generational models: RCLA talks about the importance of intergenerational models that enable people of color to pass wisdom and knowledge from one generation to the next and to “grow our own leadership”. The need for passing wisdom, knowledge, skills and access to flow the other direction has also been identified in multi-generational dialogues conducted by the Buiding Movment Project, Change Makers for the American South and other intergenerational initiatives. PolicyLink recommends mentoring programs and RCLA’s cooperative inquiry participants suggest writing personal histories. Intergenerational work can also help to build new networks to extend influence and access to resources addressing the historic exclusion of communities of color from power networks. From a systemic perspective with common commitment to a common problem, everyone is a peer with different relationships with and levels of access to power in different contexts.
Relationship and coalition building: Leadership development convenings can provide an opportunity for different racial and ethnic groups to leverage their work to achieve common goals. john powell offers the need for an approach grounded in our interconnectedness so that we can together re-conceptualize society to promote the economic, political, and spiritual health of all. PolicyLink has pointed out the importance of place in situating this work. RCLA refers to this as the shared context for meaning making and relationship building. [Where is the TCE, PILA, APALC...work in here?]
Policy training: Leadership programs can be an opportunity to provide more equitable access to the types of skills that enable people of color to participate at policy tables where they can bring a racial impact analysis and a stronger relationship of community accountability.
Peer learning and network development: Connected to the need for truly intergenerational leadership initiatives, peer learning is an asset based approach to leadership development based on the premise that much of the knowledge and creative capacity for solutions resides among those closest to the problem. Building leadership networks creates opportunities for peer learning, leveraging resources within the group, and collaborative work. Leadership networks can hypothesize, test and adapt attempts to create racial inequity.
What Changes in Our Evaluation Work Will Support Racial Equity Outcomes?
This section will answer the following questions:
- What implications does a shift in the leadership development field from an emphasis on individuals towards an understanding of leadership as a collective process within a system have for the way we evaluate this work?
- How should racial equity outcomes be identified, documented and measured to monitor progress and impact?
- How do racism and privilege influence evaluation?
Many leadership program evaluations are based on a theory of change rooted in a believe that an investment in building specific skills and capabilities in an individual will deliver organizational and/or community results. Therefore, many leadership programs evaluate their success by asking participants to report on increased mastery and/or behavioral changes. For example, if your theory of change is that more culturally competent healthcare providers will improve health access, then the description of acquired cultural understanding or sensitivities of participants is seen as a benchmark of progress towards accessible health care. Over the past few years, more programs are looking for community level indicators such as increased collaboration among organizations or policy changes that individuals have participated in as a result of a leadership intervention. Even in these cases, the individual’s role remains the starting point for understanding and assessing community or systems level change. [Seems like this section is saying that the point of analysis is either individual OR community level. I'm not sure it's an either or but rather a both and. Even if the focus of a program is on collective systemic understanding and action toward community social equity results, there may still be some indicators at the individual level that would be valuable to measure in addition to community level results...hmmm....]
As pointed out in earlier sections, monitoring individual behavior and attitude changes resulting from a deeper understanding of race and privilege will only speak to one dimension of dismantling racial advantage [So we should be speaking to additional dimensions not eliminating the individual dimension, yes?]. Research by ARC shows that even though interpersonal bias is declining, structural racism is on the rise. While supporting work that helps leadership participants in the personal work of dealing with privilege or internalized racism, we need to expand the unit of our analysis from the individual to relationships, connections, organizations, and systems within communities where we are trying to achieve racial equity. For example, Social Policy Research Associates (SPR) has developed an institutional change model that focuses on the required organizational context for any individual leaders' efforts to address racial equity to succeed. This framework focuses on three major institutional support areas that include: a focus on a shared vision behind the organization's racial equity work, an authorizing culture to support multiculturalism, and appropriate organizational policies, procedures and systems to implement the work. Attention to ensure that these three areas are aligned with diversity and racial equity principles have been instrumental in transforming not only individual values and practices, but whole institutions' (such as philanthropic foundations) understanding, buy-in, policies, and approaches to racial equity work in the community.
The Evaluation Tools for Racial Equity site provides a set of questions that help participants in an evaluation place their attention on their analysis of the problem, goals and strategies. Engaging the subjects in making their assumptions and desired results explicit will help to shift the unit of analysis from specific individuals to community and systems level results. Starting with racial equity as an outcome creates the context for understanding and strengthening leadership processes that contribute to specific racial equity, e.g. a leadership program focused on educators with an anticipated outcome of improved quality of education might consider “test scores” an important indicator. This will not necessarily take into account inequality among schools in resources based on racial composition. Starting with specific racial equity outcomes will help leadership educators bring a racial impact lens to the problem and a comprehensive set of strategies.
The impact of race on evaluation
The Evaluation Tools for Racial Equity website (www.evaluationtoolsforracialequity.org/) acknowledges how the influence of race on our experiences and personal and professional lives affects evaluation. The site states that “Racism, oppression, privilege and access to power always influence evaluation. They influence the questions we choose to ask, which findings we decide are important or unimportant, how we make meaning of results and many other things.” It is important to be explicit about race in all phases of the evaluation’s development and implementation. The creators of Evaluation Tools for Racial Equity (MP Associates and CAPD) have also created, with contributions from Donna Bivens of the Women's Theological Center and Barbara Major of the St. Thomas Health Clinic, a monograph entitled 'Flipping the Script: White Privilege and Community Building' that further addresses many of these issues. In addition to re-emphasizing the necessity of an explicitly a racial lens in all stages of evaluation, 'Flipping the Script also recommends providing power analyses (to document any potential changes in racially imbalanced power dynamics) and a thorough contextual discussion of the sources of any racial disparities documented (in order to avoid the trap of 'blaming the victim').
Social Policy Research Associates (SPR) produced a report on multicultural evaluation that raises questions about how evaluations that are strongly rooted in the dominant culture function across diverse cultural contexts. They describe a multicultural evaluation as one that, “integrates cultural considerations into its theory, measures, analysis and practice. In operational terms, a multicultural evaluation requires conceptual frameworks that incorporate different world views and value systems. It engages data collection strategies that take into account potential cultural and linguistic barriers, includes a reexamination of established evaluation measure for culturally competent analysis and creative dissemination of findings to diverse audiences.”
Who has power in an evaluation?
There is power in evaluation and who gets to define success or make meaning of data. In fact, an important first question should be, “Who is the evaluation for?” Often, the subjects themselves are not the primary beneficiaries of an evaluation. An evaluation may serve different populations who have different needs. The Diversity in Philanthropy Project Case Study, Evaluation with a Diversity Lens (EDL) strongly advocates for participatory evaluations “incorporating diverse voices (especially of intended beneficiaries) to identify problems, engage in program design, implementation and data analysis.” The Evaluation Tools for Racial Equity site suggests engaging many stakeholders who represent diverse perspectives in the actual design, implementation and analysis of data. Without involving the subjects of the evaluation, there is the danger of imposing an external set of benchmarks that do not align with the experience and expectations of those involved in the work, e.g. a group may place high value on its collective process and find that specific individuals in the group are being evaluated on their own advancement or public recognition. This is where the values of funders or specific programs might differ with the cultural experiences and values of participants.
Learning and meaning-making in evaluation
Earlier in the [?] section leadership was described as an emergent process of meaning-making among groups engaged in collective work. SPRA describes the importance of an evaluation approach that takes into account historical and social systems that contribute to power and outcome disparities across racial groups. Both this understanding of leadership and this crucial approach to evaluation can be supported through a participatory approach where the evaluation itself becomes part of this leadership development process by supporting reflection and data to test ideas. The evaluation tools for racial equity site provides an accessible guide that can help groups identify the questions that will move their work forward, understand what they can learn and how to collect information. Engaging participants in the process of understanding the data will help to prevent culture bias in the analysis as they bring their own cultural framework and understanding of structural racism to learning about the impact of their work.
References for this Report
- Applied Research Center (ARC) and the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE), Catalytic Change: Lessons Learned from the Racial Justice Grantmaking Assessment, May 2009.
- Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change (Karen Fulbright-Anderson, Keith Lawrence, Stacey Sutton, Gretchen Susi, and Anne Kubisch, authors), Structural Racism and Youth Development: Issues, Challenges, and Implications, Washington, D.C.: The Aspen Institute, 2005.
- The Denver Foundation, Inside Inclusiveness: Race, Ethnicity and Nonprofit Organizations, Prepared by Katherine Pease & Associates, July 2003.
- The Denver Foundation, A Report from the Pipeline, Reflections on the Nonprofit Sector from People of Color in Metro Denver, 2007.
- Diversity in Philanthropy Project, Diversity in Philanthropy Project Case Study, Evaluation with a Diversity Lens: Exploring its Functions and Utility to Inform Philanthropic Effectiveness, Millett, Ricardo, et al.
- Evaluation Tools for Racial Equity, website: http://www.evaluationtoolsforracialequity.org/
- GrantCraft: Grantmaking with a Racial Equity Lens, prepared in partnership with the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity, 2007.
- The Greenlining Institute, Funding the New Majority: Philanthropic Investment in Minority-Led Nonprofits.
- Endo Inouye, Traci, Cao Yu, Hanh and Adefuin, Jo-Ann in partnership with Social Policy Research Associates with the support of The California Endowment’s Diversity in Health Evaluation Project, Commissioning Multicultural Evaluation: A Foundation Resource Guide.
- Leadership Learning Community, Developing a Racial Justice and Leadership Framework to Promote Racial Equity, Address Structural Racism, and Heal Racial and Ethnic Divisions in Communities, Meehan, Reinelt, Perry, Prepared for and Supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation & Center for Ethical Leadership, July 2009.
- Leadership Learning Community, Multiple Styles of Leadership: Increasing the Participation of People of Color in the Leadership of the Nonprofit Sector, Elissa Perry with Jamie Schenker supported by and prepared for Annie E. Casey Foundation, Fall 2005.
- Menendian, Stephen and Watt, Caitlin, Systems Primer, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, December 2008.
- Ospina, Sonia M. and Foldy, Erica G., A Critical Review of Race and Ethnicity in the Leadership Literature: Surfacing Context, Power and the Collective Dimensions of Leadership, June 2009.
- Ospina, Sonia and Su, Celina, Weaving Color Lines: Race, Ethnicity, and the Work of Leadership in Social Change Organizations in Leadership 2009, Sage Publications, 2009.
- PolicyLink, Leadership for Policy Change, Strengthening Communities of Color through Leadership Development, 2003.
- Potapchuk, Maggie, Leiderman, Sally, with Donna Bivens and Barbara Major. Flipping the Script: White Privilege in Community Building, MP Associates and CAPD, 2005.
- Potapchuk, Maggie, Villarosa, Lori, Cultivating Interdependence, A Guide for Race Relations and Racial Justice Organizations, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 2004.
- powell, john a., Holding the Whole: Transformative Leadership, PowerPoint presentation at the 2nd Annual: A Gathering of Leaders, Academy for Leadership and Governance, Columbus State Community College, November 2008.
- Quiroz-Martinez, J., HoSang, D., & Villarosa, L., Changing the Rules of the Game: Youth Development & Structural Racism, Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE), 2004.
- Research Center for Leadership in Action, Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, Taking Back the Work, A Cooperative Inquiry into the Work of Leaders of Color in Movement-Building Organizations, 2009.
- Third Sector New England, Nonprofit Effectiveness – Inclusiveness Matters, The Case for Dialogues that Reach Across Difference (Executive Summary), The Diversity Initiative, Fall 2003.
- Yu, Hanh Cao and Traci Endo, “Learning Plan for the Integration of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Capitalizing on Diversity Cross-Cutting Theme,” W.K. Kellogg Foundation, February 18, 2000.
