There has been a lot of talk over the last few years about the need to focus on Diversity and Inclusion. I think many of us know we need to do more, but HOW do we do it? How do we create safe spaces for everyone to feel like they belong? How do we ensure people from ALL historically marginalized communities get access to the services and support they deserve?

At A Fresh Chapter, we have been grappling with this question. What can we—as a small nonprofit—do that might create actual change?

We realized we had to start with learning what we didn’t know. Last year, we partnered with Julye Williams of The Project 2043 Institute to host a 4-part training for staff and members of our 2021-2022 I.D.E.A. (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access) team. We learned a lot in just a few sessions, and then we worked together to make strides towards implementation through our Empower Workshop Series and ongoing team meetings. These early steps felt important, but we all felt like we were barely scratching the surface.

We knew we weren’t alone. So many people—including members of our amazing community of cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, and advocates—have a passion for this work, but it can be daunting to know where to start and how to find the time and resources to really move from Awareness into Action.

And so we found ourselves wondering: What if we could approach I.D.E.A. from a new perspective?

We began to envision an interactive learning experience, unlike anything we’d seen before. This experience would build on AFC’s core curriculum and track record of creating transformational experiences and would integrate a powerfully tailored racial justice curriculum from Project 2043. AFC would recruit and select a diverse cohort of people who could make lasting connections while learning from each other. Together, our cohort would immediately apply our learning by designing an actionable plan for AFC to ensure that people from all races, all types of cancer, all stages of the disease, all sexual orientations, all ages, and all genders feel at home with our organization.

We would build out and document all of the wrap-around systems and processes so that once the model yielded real impact, we could offer it to other nonprofits and advocates to help them explore and apply I.D.E.A. to their work in a meaningful, tangible way. 

At AFC, we are all about possibilities and actioning our values, so after a lot of exploratory work, we decided to make this dream a reality, and our I.D.E.A. into Action initiative was born. This summer, we recruited an exceptional team of AFC Alumni and staff who have committed themselves for the next year to this project, and we officially launched our first virtual session last week. 

In addition to meeting virtually every two weeks, we will be convening in Los Angeles, CA from Nov. 3-5, where we will participate in an interactive learning experience with Project 2043 centered around the four phases of the Liberatory Consciousness Framework – Awareness, Analysis, Action, and Accountable Allyship. Together as a team, we will work to better understand the psychosocial support needs of people from a variety of historically marginalized communities and determine what actions AFC can and should take in 2023 to create real change. We will fold these actions into our 2023 strategic plans and develop accountability strategies to ensure they happen, while also laying the foundation for scaling this model to other organizations. 

Thank you to our sponsoring partners, Gilead Sciences Inc. and Genentech, for helping to make this important work possible. We are seeking additional partners to be able to scale this work and bring tools for advancing inclusion, diversity, equity, and access into the broader nonprofit community. If you would like to learn more or get involved, we would love to hear from you.