Focus on Equity

Over the past year, we have engaged in strategic reflection, collective learning, and transformation. Much of our work in 2021 focused on lifting up community voices. We looked at current practices and reflected on what it would look like to truly co-create with rather than for, our community. In addition to deepening our relationships within the community, we also took guidance from our 2021 Community Power Consultant, Auntavia Jackson, as we established core values. 

Higher Expectations Core Values

Transformative: We work to disrupt the status quo so that systems will support and shift power to low-income individuals and communities of color. 

Community: We amplify community power by sharing our access to high-level spaces and developing local leaders’ capacity to make collaborative decisions with the community. 

Strategic: Through the use of data and analysis, and in partnership with community and key stakeholders, we prioritize major goals and initiatives that lead to systems transformation.

What’s Next?

In response to these solidified values, as a team and as individuals, we have evaluated the ways that systemic racism and bias continue to impair our community and identified where we can shift power. Along with our search for two additional Community Power Consultants, we are also embarking on a transformational pathway to equitable power-sharing. 

Our internal Equity work will be led by our Collaborative Partnership Director, Yalanda Ludtke. Our goal is to establish and maintain alignment internally and share this plan with our Partners. We plan to engage our Leadership Table and Executive Committee in this journey, as key players in the distribution of power and opportunity in our community.

We value feedback from our community and our partners. We know that language can play an important role in the process of decision-making and engagement. That is why, alongside our work to be disruptive and push back against the status quo, we also honor the value of vulnerability in uncomfortable conversations and do our best to meet others with empathy.

We invite you to become agents of change with us.

Written by Yalanda Ludtke, Collaborative Partnerships Director