2024 Program:
Power to Transform Institutions

Government agencies typically design programs for people in need. But what happens when we design programs with people in need?

For the City of Boulder, a new direct cash assistance program, Elevate Boulder, offered an opportunity to engage community members as collaborative decision-makers. The result so far has been a dignified, trusted program with greater power to transform the lives of program participants, and transform other city processes.

In this session, participants will hear about how the city centered the Elevate Boulder decision making process in the lived experience of community members; and established goals for a dignified, equitable process.

Participants will also engage in small groups to explore how the same elements of success could be applied to other kinds of city policies and processes. We will also explore how we can measure trust and transformative impacts to keep doing what works best for the people we serve.

We invite Facing Race attendees to join us for a session exploring the creation process and lessons learned from the Reparations Grantmaking Blueprint, a tool designed by reparations movement leaders to guide a donor collaborative in investing in the reparations movement in a strategic, effective, and equity-centered manner. This will include:

- Grounding the session in the three key roles that philanthropy can play in catalyzing the reparations movement and a culture of repair
- Discussing our approach to movement-led strategy development, including reflections from movement leaders that are part of the Blueprint Steering Committee
- Engaging with the draft Blueprint, including some of the strategic milestones, activities, and tradeoffs that emerged in the process
- Discussing and reflecting on opportunities for participants to advance collaborative/movement-led strategy development and/or the reparations movement from their institutional contexts.

Our hope is that session participants feel more prepared action to change grantmaking strategy development practices in their own institutions, in the form of:

- Identifying specific and creative ideas about how they can implement similar frameworks in their institutions (e.g., particular program areas, potential partners, etc.)
- Analyzing their field’s landscape to clarify how and where collaboration will be valuable
- Understanding opportunities to deepen their institutions’ engagement with reparations and racial repair

The Inflation Reduction Act’s (IRA) Direct Pay program allows tax-exempt entities including states, counties, cities, tribes, schools, houses of worship, and non-profit organizations to receive tax-free cash funding. This comes in the form of a refund covering 30–70% of the cost of renewable energy projects like solar, wind, EV chargers, commercial EV vehicles like EV, batteries, and more.

Imagine solar panels on every public building lowering energy costs with publicly-owned clean energy or EV school buses that clean up diesel emissions and reduce childhood asthma or EV chargers that help neighbors access EV vehicles and fund community initiatives.

This funding can supercharge publicly-owned power, community institutions, good green jobs, and community-led demands—but only if communities are in the driver's seat. Big corporations are already lined up to take advantage of free federal funds, and greedy for-profit utilities are digging in their heels.

Join the Congressional Progressive Caucus Center (CPCC) and the Missouri Workers Center for an interactive workshop to imagine how your community can pull tax-free cash funding out of the federal government for sustainable energy projects—and leave with a plan to make it happen. We’ll share lessons from communities across the country, break down this new opportunity, and explore how sustainable energy can help us dismantle systemic racism—if we do it right.

Despite its ability to provide financial stability and close racial wealth gaps, the pathway to homeownership is fraught with deep-seated legacies of discrimination. This session will delve into the complexities of homeownership as a crucial wealth-building tool, particularly for households of color.

Through discussion and an activity, the speakers will share data and community-informed strategies to expand affordable and sustainable homeownership for Black, Indigenous, Latine, and Asian American communities.

Angela Gravely-Smith will share an overview of Living Cities’ Closing the Gaps Cohort’s work to close homeownership gaps by leveraging resources such as community needs assessments, data, and technical assistance.

Kellee Coleman, a cohort member from the City of Austin, will reflect on their experience engaging local residents to shape the city’s programs and policies. They will also share an overview of the City of Austin’s work with targeted financial assistance programs and community land trusts to expand BIPOC homeownership.

Participants will walk away with an expanded toolkit of ways to collaborate with residents to name and address challenges in their respective communities, as well as a case study from the City of Austin about how they are leveraging community feedback to expand BIPOC homeownership. Join us to learn practical solutions for a more equitable housing landscape, where all individuals have the opportunity to thrive and build intergenerational wealth.

Since 2021, there have been a deluge of executive actions, legislation, court challenges, and other direct attacks on equity writ large with a special emphasis on racial equity via anti-CRT and DEI laws. Almost every state in the nation has at least seen a bill introduced. Most of these hostile statutes are more rhetorical than relevant and do not preclude real-world racial equity programs.

Similarly, even negative Court rulings have made clear that the vast majority of race-informed institutional strategies are legally sound. Yet, these legal attacks have had their intended effects, with political pressure and threats creating significant obstacles for racial equity work in many jurisdictions

During this breakout session, participants will hear from legal experts who are supporting racial equity practitioners in government. You will learn what initiatives and efforts these laws do and do not impact from a legal perspective, how to engage your general counsel, and what resources are available in the field to navigate this complicated landscape.

Participants in this breakout session will hear and walk through real-world examples of legal messaging, strategy, and interventions to protect and sustain racial equity work in government.

Government and other public sector agencies can no longer ignore the ways that antisemitism and misappropriated concerns about it harm Jews of all races and non-Jewish people of color, threatening our racial equity efforts and causing job loss and social isolation. Incidents of and concerns about antisemitism have risen dramatically recently, causing harm to Jews and stoking fear. Simultaneously, there is confusion about differences between antisemitism, legitimate criticism of the state of Israel, and support for equal and human rights for Palestinians. Those seeking to eliminate racial equity and DEI initiatives – from education to policies and practices designed to end racial and gender inequities – are successfully using (often unfounded) claims of antisemitism to achieve their goals. This session will explore these and other reasons why – and how – we need to integrate a proactive, solidaristic approach to dismantling antisemitism into our racial justice efforts. Through interactive presentation and small group discussion, we’ll explore the value of a racial equity strategy for fighting antisemitism through case studies of multi-racial, multi-religious groups of organizers working alongside and within local government and universities in Washington State and New York. We’ll review frameworks and practice ways to notice, name, and intervene in actual or potential incidents. Participants will also receive Diaspora Alliance resources that support their ongoing abilities to visualize, normalize, organize, and operationalize this approach in our policy, practice, decision-making, communications, and trainings.

Since Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Standing Rock and a resurgent labor movement, our movements continue to expand and grow stronger, but we need to keep sharpening our tactics to build and win lasting power. Organizers are finding creative ways to build governing power that brings BIPOC communities on the frontlines of injustice into direct participation with administrative agencies to shape and implement just, effective public policies. Co-governance between communities and public agencies can help ensure the sustainability of campaign wins, deepen democracy and equity and create transformative policies and more effective governance. However, it can be challenging to build trust and alignment, collaborate across institutions, build capacity and sustain co-governance through ever-changing conditions within government and communities.

In this workshop, we'll share an overview of co-governance strategies between BIPOC communities (anchored by power-building organizations) and local and state government agencies. We will explore lessons learned and hear from Tenants Transforming Greater St. Louis about their organizing to enforce building code protections for tenants while building tenant power. We'll also break out into small groups to enable participants to workshop co-governance scenarios including situations from their own work they want to workshop with others.

We will explore the critical role of psychological safety in enabling everyone – especially those most marginalized – to thrive. Through personal reflection and group discussion, we'll identify what psychological safety looks like and name institutional barriers to achieving it.

In particular, we'll discuss the influence of white supremacy culture as an impediment to psychological safety. We will define white supremacy culture and its implications. As Tema Okun tells us, “White supremacy culture trains us all to internalize attitudes and behaviors that do not serve any of us.”

We will explore these common attitudes and behaviors (e.g., perfectionism, either/or thinking, defensiveness) – how they show up in organizational culture and how we can interrupt them. Participants will leave with a greater understanding of these terms and will feel more empowered to build a more psychologically safe environment in their own institutional context.

Discover practical strategies to embed racial equity in local government through the power of data in this interactive breakout session. Drawing from Boulder's Equity Data Initiative, attendees will gain insights into crafting data-focused racial equity plans, conducting departmental equity assessments, and employing job aids for data-driven decision-making.

Engage in small group discussions to explore the effectiveness of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs measured through surveys and feedback. Dive into assessing institutional practices to foster practical application of racial equity principles within departments.

Explore the concept of decolonizing data, emphasizing community involvement in data collection, analysis, and ownership to enhance equity outcomes and foster a sense of belonging. This session will inspire participants to leverage data as a tool for transformative change, fostering environments of inclusivity and equity within governmental institutions.

Advancing racial justice is challenging, particularly in the midst of attacks on DEI, antagonistic Supreme Court decisions, and intensifying political divisions. This session is an opportunity to share experiences with other capacity builders and use the Systems Thinking Iceberg to explore factors that enable progress, even in this climate. We will explore:

A) Visions for racial justice work: what are you and the people you work with trying to achieve? We begin here because if we don’t know where we're going, any road will get us there! We will create space for you to share your dreams and goals with other participants.

B) Examples of where you’re making progress, holding ground, or losing ground as you work toward those visions. We know that progress toward racial justice isn’t a straight, upward-trending line. Even in the best of times, progress is uneven, and ground can be lost if we aren’t proactive in protecting our gains. We will create space for you to share highlights from how you are making progress, holding ground, and/or losing ground in your work.

C) Systems thinking tools to identify leverage points for enabling progress. We will introduce the Systems Thinking Iceberg and use it to explore examples of progress and determine where we can strengthen our approaches.

In 2014, a police officer killed Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson, MO. A global uprising followed, sparked by the region-wide uprising’s intensity and the compelling passion of local leaders demanding change. In 2016, Forward Through Ferguson (FTF), a social-impact 501(c) (3), was established to ensure that the legacy of the Ferguson Uprising remains in the collective consciousness and political strategy of the St. Louis region.

The Ferguson Commission recommended 189 actions, including creating a sustained, community-led fund to catalyze racial equity, community healing, and justice in the region. In 2019, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Missouri Foundation for Health, and Deaconess Foundation answered the call to launch a pilot version of this fund with FTF. Through this investment, the 2020–23 pilot enabled antiracist, trust-based grantmaking infrastructure to set the foundation for new practices of Justice philanthropy. The call for such a fund acknowledged the powerful systems-wide impact potential the philanthropic sector has to advance racial equity.

More and more philanthropic organizational leaders see this, but they struggle with the "how." This session will focus on tools and lessons of how FTF’s Build Racial Equity Capacity (BREC) team has worked with philanthropic leaders, including: organizational racial equity capacity assessments, education to build capacity, the philanthropy-specific Racial Equity Roundtable cohort model, and key lessons from the pilot fund.

Activities will engage key components of BREC’s approach: building a network of radically collaborative leaders to grapple with next practices, and infusing racial equity principles and processes into organizational transformation plans.

Since October 7, 2023, philanthropy has responded to the genocide in Palestine in shameful ways—continuing to raise money for illegal settlements, cutting funding for Palestinian-related activism, surveilling activists, weaponizing anti-Semitism to shut down criticism of Israel, and more.

There has also been unprecedented donor organizing, to support Palestinian movements in Palestine and in the US, while building with funders internationally. Grassroots International, Solidaire Network, and Women Donors Network have been on the forefront of organizing on this issue, and invite participants to strategize with us on how to disrupt entrenched philanthropic behavior in an interactive workshop to identify solutions together.

We will explore:
-What are the lessons we learned as a public foundation and donor networks as we raised funds and organized donors?
-How can funders and activists work more closely to address the harm caused by philanthropy, and accompany movements for Palestinian liberation?
-How do we integrate solidarity with Palestine into our work on racial justice and democracy?
-Can we nurture and grow internationalism in U.S. philanthropy through work on Palestine?
-What would you like to see in future strategies for mobilizing funding, donor organizing, working with frontline organizations, and integrating Palestine work into various sectors in philanthropy and activism?

This session will serve as an opportunity for participants to learn about DOT priorities in advancing equity as it relates to project delivery and wealth creation. Participants will have the opportunity to hear how DOT is leveraging billions of dollars of infrastructure funding to advance wealth creation in communities across the nation. Participants will also have an opportunity to engage with DOT leadership, allowing for a mutual exchange of information for the betterment of delivering federally funded projects that begin and end with equity considerations.

The California Endowment plays an influential role within the field of philanthropy, taking bold stances to advance health and racial justice through grassroots power building of those most impacted. In the spring of 2018, foundation staff brought to executive leadership’s attention the need to activate its leadership by becoming explicit about the direct connection between U.S. structural racism, racial capitalism, and persistent poor health and life outcomes, particularly for Black, Native, and other people of color. Doing so would address the historical harms and power imbalances inherent in philanthropy and negatively impacting grantee partners and their communities. This call was especially true for grantees who were on the frontlines of movement work organizing those most impacted to advance meaningful change.

In 2018, the Endowment began its journey to build organizational anti-racist culture. The first phase of Advancing Racial Equity (A.R.E.) ushered in organization-wide commitment and learnings and increasing staff understanding of anti-Blackness and systemic racism as the driver of poor health and life outcomes. In 2020 the foundation recruited the inaugural director who led the development of "The Five Elements to a Thriving Anti-Racist Health Foundation," a set of mutually reinforcing, interdependent capacities for transforming culture and operationalizing ant-racist practice.

Presenters will share the foundation’s journey and how it has embodied democratic participation by directly engaging staff at all levels of the organization. Core to this plan is the development of a Somatic Abolitionism practice to build embodied fortitude to metabolize the historical and deeply oppressive system of white body supremacy. The work to become an anti-racist health foundation is hard but necessary. We must become the transformation we need to see in the sector and share power and truly walk in trust with our partners in the broader movement building ecosystem. This interrogation is active, constant, and necessary to fully live into values and have clarity about the foundation’s proper role as a philanthropic leader.

Communities working with municipal agencies to advance a project are likely to encounter inequitable processes that can stunt the success of these projects. Equitable Cities has worked with government agencies from the federal to the local level and across sectors. Over time, we have developed a framework that centers equity in all our work.

Providing an opportunity to practice this approach, Equitable Cities will facilitate a role-playing activity to simulate a community planning process involving a local government agency. Prior to the activity, EC will briefly introduce their equity approach and framework.

Groups of no more than eight participants will choose between 3–4 scenarios, then attempt to reach a resolution on a community project plan using self-selected roles associated with their chosen scenario. Each role will also be assigned its own values, goals, and limitations to create a realistic discourse, with one of the required roles being a local municipal representative.

Following the activity, participants will share their resolutions with the full group, highlighting their process and how they overcame limitations.

The goal is for participants to navigate their scenario by applying aspects of the equity framework while allowing them to see their issue through some additional perspectives they are likely to encounter. Many participants have likely taken part in this process already and will be able to share past experiences with their group. Those who have not had this opportunity will be able to use this space to practice approaches that center equity in community projects.

Today in Los Angeles, a group of committed people—organizers, justice system stakeholders, young people, and everyday folk—are working to shrink and eliminate Los Angeles County’s Youth Probation Department, the nation’s largest. This is a massive undertaking with seismic impact on the human services landscape and service to communities.

This group includes staff and leadership from the newly established Department of Youth Development. The presentation will share perspectives and experiences, challenges, and successes as they move from justice administered by punitive, inefficient bureaucracies to values-driven institutions steeped in supporting the well-being of young people.

The Los Angeles experience is an important story to tell for anyone trying to achieve system transformation. From the organizing that led to the initial political mandate imposed by the five-person county Board of Supervisors that started the shift, to the challenge of standing up a new Department of Youth Development.

Attendees of this session will learn about the key components necessary to move large systems for application in their own local experience.

Centering equity in public policy is critical to the economic growth and development of healthy, welcoming, resilient communities, where all residents can thrive. This workshop will support public administrators with key takeaways on social equity as a core value of service and alignment in day-to-day operations, policies, budgets, and other essential decision-making processes. Using Dallas’ first comprehensive Racial Equity Plan as a case study, this session will:

Outline big-picture approaches of leading equity in local government; describe practical ways to support understanding around the collective positive impact and need for equity in city government; identify key components to drive equity in your organization; offer real applications on how to use a variety of tools and strategies to advance social equity. Join us to learn more about how to advance equity through policies, procedures and practices as we highlight successes, lessons learned, and next steps to close disparities in Dallas, Texas.

Local government staff actively seek resources to help advance their internal and external racial equity efforts, such as resources on conducting equity-related assessments, engaging and empowering community members, and equitably allocating resources, among others. To meet this need, the Urban Institute’s Office of Race and Equity Research (ORER) launched the Equity Resource Navigator: an open-access, user-centric tool for local government officials to find resources to help them embed equity into different areas of their work. Ongoing discussions with our GARE colleagues have also informed the development of a Racial Equity Continuum that grounds this work in several stages and focus areas for practitioners to contextualize where they are along their racial equity journeys, as well as to help them define resources and supports needed to advance. In this interactive workshop, ORER will introduce the Navigator and connect local practitioners and other stakeholders to a wide range of resources meant to facilitate and advance racial equity efforts. We will first contextualize this work using insights and stories we have heard from localities that drove the need for the Navigator. Then, we’ll demo the Navigator and introduce some use cases for resources in the Navigator before moving to small groups to discuss potential applications of tools in practitioners’ daily work, as well as to have a broader discussion on equity work at the local level, gaps and opportunities in the field, and ways in which Urban can support this work. This session is for local practitioners and other organizations seeking resources to support their teams as they conduct racial equity work. We hope this workshop further contextualizes participants’ understandings of their community’s racial equity work and presents useful and actionable resources that practitioners can take away and share with their teams.

We will be sharing two stories of coalitions working alongside agency staff to achieve significant wins for communities facing the brunt of the housing and displacement crises. We will devote a substantial portion of the breakout to questions and an active conversation about the lessons learned in both cities. In Seattle, organizers were able to leverage the update to the City’s Comprehensive plan in 2015 to win $16 million in funding for community-led anti-displacement projects.

Speakers will share stories from the initial formation of the Equitable Development Initiative, how a few rogue planners shifted the conversation, and how a one-time allocation grew to $25 million in annual funding from progressive revenue. In NYC, organizers built power by raising awareness about racialized displacement and inequality in land use decision-making. This led to passing new land use reporting requirements and creating a comprehensive data tool. The tool analyzes changes in lived environments and demographics across time, geography, and race.

Speakers will share stories about the organizing strategy that led to the passage of Local Law 78. They will also discuss how collaboration with key members of the Departments of City Planning and Housing and Preservation resulted in a robust new data tool for building community power.

"Transforming Local Government through Equity-Centered Coaching" will focus on the ways the Department of Race & Equity at the City of San Diego has implemented an equity-centered coaching program. A portion of this session will be dedicated to sharing the system that was created to shift the organization’s thinking about equity in departmental decisions on policy, budget, and programming.

Participants will then be broken out into small groups to engage in an experiential activity that will help demonstrate the importance of coaching and the skills needed to effectively coach department leaders. Lastly, session attendees will walk away with ideas on how they might begin to set up a coaching program in their organization or government entity. This will include some tools that can be replicated in their own institution.

In this impactful breakout session, we will delve into the complex issue of systemic racism within the context of homelessness, with a focus on centering the voices and experiences of those with lived experience.

Through interactive discussions, and personal reflections, participants will explore the root causes of racial inequities in homelessness and the importance of centering lived experience in creating effective solutions. We will examine the intersectionality of race, homelessness, and systemic oppression, recognizing that individuals experiencing homelessness often face multiple forms of discrimination.

By centering the voices of those with lived experience, we can gain valuable insights into the unique challenges faced by marginalized communities and develop more inclusive and equitable approaches to solving homelessness and creating an adaptable system.

This workshop will provide government racial equity officers, policymakers, and administrators with practical tools and strategies to advance racial equity within government agencies by integrating restorative practices into the local government landscape.

Restorative Practices is an indigenous power-sharing framework that can improve authentic communication, acknowledge the harms of institutional racism, develop equitable staff and community engagement, and strengthen institutional accountability—critical components of racial equity work. Restorative practices offer a framework to build community and institutional capacity to achieve a more equitable future.

In this interactive workshop, participants will:
1. Comprehensively understand restorative practices, including their principles, values, and applications within government settings;
2. Identify specific areas within their government agencies where restorative practices can promote racial equity and address systemic injustices;
3. Learn strategies for fostering inclusive and supportive environments within government agencies, emphasizing collaboration, empathy, and power-shifting;
4. Work collaboratively to create actionable plans for implementing restorative practices within their respective government departments, including identifying key stakeholders, setting goals, and establishing metrics for success;
5. Discuss common challenges and resistance to implementing restorative practices within government settings and develop strategies for overcoming them; and
6. Assess the effects of restorative practices on advancing racial equity within their agencies, including collecting feedback, measuring outcomes, and making necessary adjustments.

By incorporating these principles into government policies and procedures, participants will learn how to create more inclusive and equitable environments that prioritize the needs of marginalized communities. Join us!

Help shape the future of California’s new Racial Equity Commission. In this interactive session, participants will learn about this new body and share wisdom and experience to help advance racial equity in government.

Participants will learn about the multi-year advocacy efforts to establish the Commission, get an update on progress so far, and provide guidance as the Commission seeks to develop a racial equity framework for the state. As this work is underway, we seek guidance from you—racial equity practitioners across the nation—so we can capture the best ideas, tools, strategies, and resources and bring them back as we move this work forward.

In 2024, California Governor Gavin Newsom established the state’s first Racial Equity Commission via Executive Order N-16-22, after two years of tireless advocacy from the independent Coalition for the California Racial Equity Coalition (C-REC)—consisting of grassroots organizations, racial justice and equity-focused nonprofits, and community advocates.

The Executive Order outlines the Commission’s roles and responsibilities, which include developing a framework, best practices, technical assistance, and resources to address the legacy of institutional and systemic racism in California’s government policies and programs.

Presenters include:
1) Dr. Larissa Estes, inaugural Executive Director of the Commission
2) Julia Caplan, Executive Director of State of Equity, which has provided racial equity capacity building to over 50 California state government entities through the Capitol Collaborative on Race and Equity
3) Maria Barakat of the Greenlining Institute, who co-leads the grassroots coalition C-REC