Organization Staff Exchange
Strengthening relationships between organizations serving different cultural and racial communities can amplify existing cross-racial initiatives and create fertile ground for new collaborations. Organizations may already know each other and have worked with each other in the past, but it is helpful to continually strengthen relationships outside of crises or formal collaborations. These relationships can give rise to additional collaborations and avoid tokenistic participation.
Event Skeleton
Facilitators
Aim to have 1 to 2 facilitators to help manage group dynamics. Facilitators should encourage a diversity of voices across class, race, and leadership lines to speak. If a few voices dominate the conversation, facilitators can quickly and gently point out the dynamic and encourage additional voices.
Notetakers
Designate a notetaker to document conversations and learnings in whole group settings. Have participants self select notetakers in small group discussions. This documentation can help with post-event reflections and planning for future sessions.
Community agreements
Offer community agreements at the start of the event and invite participants to add or comment to the agreements. Potential agreements include:
Be curious about each others’ lived experiences and histories.
Be open to complexity and contradictions.
Don’t be silenced by each others’ pains or compare pains.
Listen to understand, not to agree to believe
Take off your organizer (or job) hat
Feedback
Leave room at the end of the event to ask participants for feedback. You can ask participants to write on post-its and stick them on easels with different prompts. The prompts might include
what you liked (kiss)
what you didn’t like (miss)
and what you wish for the future (wish)
Or ask respondents to complete the sentences
I like…
I wish…
I wonder…
You could also ask participants to rate a few statements using post-its such as:
“I feel that this session helped me sharpen my political analysis of the local landscape as it relates to cross-racial solidarity”
“I feel that this session helped me sharpen my political analysis of the local landscape as it relates to safety”
“I feel that I’ve made relationships with staff from other organizations”
Example Activity Formats and Discussion Topics
Journaling
Give participants a set of guiding questions and time to write down their reflections. These reflections can then be shared in small or large groups.
Think-pair-share with rotations
Invite people to pair up with someone they do not know yet or do not have a lot of chances to talk to. Provide a list of questions to guide the discussion. After four minutes, ask people to find new pairs.
World cafes
Organize multiple tables with each table focusing on a theme or question. Prior to the event, designate one or two people to facilitate the discussion at each table. Have each table facilitation team explain the topic for their table. In each round, ask participants to choose a new table to join.
Active listening circles
Divide attendees into groups of four. Participants take turns to share their reflections on a set of questions while one participant listens and the other two take notes. Each participant has 10 minutes to share.
Fishbowl
Participants sit in two concentric circles, one small and one larger. In each round of the activity, the people sitting in the smaller inner circle will hold a conversation while people in the larger circle will listen. At the end of the round, participants will rotate into the smaller circle. The people participating in the previous small circle will join the large circle. Allow for at least 10 minutes per round, depending on group size, and encourage a diversity of voices to participate each round.
Example discussion topics
What draws you to organizing?
What are some experiences that shaped your understanding of race and class?
What do other people assume about you and what is one thing you wish people knew?
Honest conversations around community tensions and stereotypes
Examination of power: what are the different kinds of power and what power do I hold?
Where’s your safe/happy place? Where do you feel the safest and what about it makes it feel good to you?
What concerns do you or your membership base have about safety in the city?
Are there any bright spots or hopes about safety in the city?
What are 1-2 things that your organization is doing to get ready for the next year?
What do we need in this moment in order to move together towards true safety for all and true cross racial solidarity?
Keys to Success
Start small
The first iteration of the staff exchange was between CPA and Coleman Advocates, two organizations that have worked closely together in the past. After piloting the format, CPA and Coleman were able to develop additional exchanges with more organizations. Later, we expanded participation in the exchanges to include more organizations serving Arab, Black, Brown, East Asian, and Southeast Asian communities.
Diverse organizing team
The organizing team consisted of staff from organizations serving different communities. The core organizing group was able to talk through potential landmines for their respective communities and how to navigate them. It also helped make the event more engaging and relevant to a diverse set of participants.
Build the foundation to have hard conversations
Relationship-building is important to navigate difficult conversations. Start the session with an activity that helps participants connect on shared values and humanity. Acknowledging the need for honest conversations and that imperfections are inevitable can help reduce the pressure to wait until one has the complete, perfect thought to share. It is also important to acknowledge important perspectives that are not in the room to put the session in perspective. For example, if the only Asian-serving organizations represented primarily serve Chinese communities, acknowledge that the perspectives of non-Chinese Asian American voices are not present in discussions of Asian-Black relations.
Remember that building trust takes time
It is important to acknowledge this early on with both the organizing team and participants. This helps participants approach the sessions as a work in progress. It may also help the organizing team plan multi-session exchanges that build on each other over time.
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