ACT for Alexandria is embarking on a journey with our colleagues across the City to achieve a future when race no longer predicts one’s outcomes in life; when everyone has what they need to thrive, no matter what neighborhood they live in, the color of their skin, their gender, or where they were born.

As Alexandria’s community foundation, this vision of a vibrant community is core to our work.  To move this vision forward, we are launching our Racial Equity Capacity Building Initiative.  This will include:

• Workshops that address what it means to be an ally for racial equity and build bridges to ensure equity, opportunity and inclusion for everyone. These one-day workshops will be open to everyone in the community.
• A Design Lab with participants from the workshops to capture feedback about their desired continued learnings around racial equity with the goal of creating a peer cohort group to begin in October 2019.
• A six-month Learning Lab to equip leaders in effective racial equity implementation in their organizations.
• Community conversations that bring people together for dialogue to build deeper understanding and surface new ideas and solutions.
• Capacity-building grants that help nonprofits build know-how and knowledge about racial equity with their staff, board and constituents.

ACT’s Racial Equity Initiative is made possible by the generous support of the Meyer Foundation, Bruhn Morris Family Foundation, and Kaiser Permanente.

Participate in Our Racial Equity Capacity Building Initiative Events:

Allyship workshops, presented by Whitney Parnell of Service Never Sleeps were offered five times – May 23, June 3, 4, 19 and 21 and the cost is $50.  Due to the overwhelming interest and response from these workshops, ACT would like to host additional sessions later this summer.  Contact Brandi Yee at brandi.yee@actforalexandria.org for updates.  

Ask the Grantees – Learn from organizations making a commitment to equity.  Ask the Grantees will feature Executive Directors Shannon Steene from Carpenter’s Shelter and Elizabeth Jones from OAR (ACT 2018 Capacity Building grantees), who will share how they are building a racial equity culture in their organizations. We will have time for Q&A so be sure to bring your questions!  This event is open to anyone interested in learning more about how to build a racial equity lens into your work.  Tuesday, June 25 from 9-10:30am at Casa Chirilagua Community Center.  RSVP here:  https://actaskthegrantees2019.eventbrite.com

Design Lab Workshop – Interested in diving deeper into racial equity work with your nonprofit organization?  Help us design our Learning Lab (racial equity cohort) on Wednesday, June 26 from 9am-noon at Alexandria Renew, led by Whitney Parnell and ACT.  Sign up here:  https://actredesignlab.eventbrite.com.  Note: Participation in the Allyship workshop is not required.