DEI Toolkit

Whether we are repairing harm or building and fortifying relationships, there are three consistent considerations we must start with.

• Listen. Listen to your colleagues about their experiences. Listen to your community and the directly impacted people who share their insights and feedback with you. You will spend most of the time listening. Listening to the people closest to the issue or topic and its solutions yields the most meaningful outcomes.
• Analyze what you have heard and check for understanding. Are there clear messages from the directly impacted people in your community? Share what you have learned and the action items associated with this knowledge. Share your action plan with other members of your organization, in organizations near you or that have affinity with you, and share it back with the community members who you listened to.
• Build feedback loops. Create communication systems within your organization, with other organizations, and with the people who use and visit your organization or site, in order to continuously improve the quality of your organization’s actions and the quality of outcomes for directly impacted people.

Justice is the result of repairing harm caused from previous injustice.

In efforts to repair harm, practitioners in organizations should consider:

• What is my organization’s legacy in relation to marginalized communities?
• Who have we excluded? When and why?
• What efforts have we made to connect or reconnect with the groups and people we have excluded?
• What was our motivation for connecting or reconnecting with them?
• How successful have we been in connecting with those groups?

This personal/interpersonal/organizational reflection is important. It allows us to take actionable steps to remediate harm and advance justice in our organizations and communities.

Like repairing harm, building and fortifying relationships relies on our commitment to centering the lived experiences of directly impacted people, believing what they tell us, and committing to acting on the solutions they identify. Listening, acting on the feedback we receive, and standing in solidarity with marginalized communities are powerful tools in building and fortifying relationships.

In efforts to build and fortify relationships, organizations should consider:

• Who has been harmed by the legacies of my organization?
• Where are those groups and individuals now?
• What connections does my organization have to them? What personal connections do I or my colleagues have with them?
• How successful has my organization been in engaging them?
• Where do those groups and people spend time? How can I or my organization appropriately interact with them in their own spaces?
• What is our motivation for connecting or reconnecting with them?
• How do I prepare for beginning or continuing a relationship with them?
• How can I build and fortify relationships that will help repair harm and promote justice?

Understanding the historical and current contexts of our organization’s relationships prepares us for intentional conversations and relationship-building with directly impacted people, particularly those harmed by legacies of our organizations.

• Prepare yourself and your organization. Understand who has been harmed, in what ways, the historical context, and relevant actions by your organization over time. This work is difficult because we have to reckon with actions and ideas that may have occurred before our own families were even in the United States. Having a clear idea of where we have been, where we are now, and where we hope to go is a good place to start.
• Identify your goals for these relationships. Do you want directly impacted people to inform your collections, exhibitions, and programming? Do you want them to visit your site? Do you want them to contribute to the story of your organization through material culture, historical records, or oral histories? Know what you want and why you want it before extending yourself and your organization to directly impacted people.
• Go where they are. People who have been harmed by an organization's policies, practices, actions, or legacies are less likely to come to you for a conversation. Directly impacted people, and those who have been intentionally and historically excluded, have developed their own systems, communities, and organizations. Find respectful ways to show up for these communities and people where they already are.
• Practice reciprocity. Exchange ideas, information, care, and financial support that benefit directly impacted people and groups. These organizational and community relationships must benefit both your organization and the marginalized community.
• Stay humble. Directly impacted people know more about their lived experiences and the effects of harmful legacies than you or your organization does. Commit to the lifelong process of self-reflection and personal critique, acknowledging your own biases, and evaluating how those biases manifest at an organizational level. Recognize the shifting nature of intersecting identities and develop sustained curiosity.

Repairing harm, and building and fortifying relationships can seem daunting when your organization is particularly small or resourced in a way that limits paid staff capacity. You can still do this work!

In addition to the guidance shared above, all-volunteer organizations, small shops, and rural organizations can pursue these practical approaches to repairing harm, and building and fortifying relationships.

• Understand your community. Use recent census and school district data to develop a comprehensive picture of who lives near your organization.
• Pay attention to school district demographics⁸. The PreK through 12th grade students in your community are the workforce, visitors, Board members, volunteers, and donors of tomorrow. They will help you begin to plan and engage in DEI work.
• Identify the networks of your organization’s volunteers and staff. This exercise will help your organization identify where there are affinities with difficult to reach communities.
• See diversity everywhere by embracing a broader concept of diversity. This is particularly important for organizations with limited staff, volunteer, and financial capacity, as well as organizations who may be isolated due to geography or population. We can find diverse communities all over New York State when we acknowledge that diversity means more than racial and ethnic background, and extends to ability, age, gender, and so much more.