May 8, 2015

The LGBT movement is shifting. We are seeing the tides changing from a focus on marriage to one of states working for protections in nondiscrimination, safe schools, immigration, healthcare, and beyond. But what is constant throughout this change is the intersectionality of our work, and the need to look at each issue through multiple lenses.

At Equality Federation, we are constantly striving to look at our work through these multiple lenses, and provide support and resources to our members that will help elevate the intersectional work they are doing in the states. We are committed not only to supporting our members in prioritizing racial justice in their work but also to doing the same within our own organization.

Thanks to the support of the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund via the Flexible Leadership Award, we enlisted Race Forward to help us develop our own racial justice framework. Race Forward (formerly known as the Applied Research Center) advances racial justice through research, media, and practice. Founded in 1981, Race Forward brings systematic analysis and an innovative approach to complex race issues to help people take effective action toward racial equity. They also conduct cutting edge research and push the conversation on race forward through Colorlines, an award-winning, daily new site where race matters.

Two members of Race Forward’s Leadership Action Network, Paris Hatcher and Rosana Cruz, led us in a day-long workshop on integrating racial justice into an organizational framework and helping us plot out steps in our own work to make our organizational decisions more race-conscious. We are excited to bring what we have learned to our members in our future organizational development and training work.

We hear from many of our partner organizations and members that the LGBT movement sometimes struggles with truly addressing race and racism. By working with Race Forward, the Federation is taking an active step to address race and incorporate racial justice into our strategic plan and our programs, and your organization can do this too.

We are looking forward to bringing what we have learned to our work with state groups. We will be integrating this into the State Leadership Project, our organizational development and leadership program, starting with Summer Meeting, where we will offer many workshops with an intersectional, racial justice framework. We will use this as a building block for our Lived Equality program. And we will be happy to share with individual state leaders the strategies we have found most effective for taking the first step in addressing race and racism.

The LGBT movement is intersectional. In order to make progress, we must work across issue areas and incorporate all people into our efforts.

Federation Members: If you want to make racial justice a priority for you and your organization, make sure to attend those workshops at Summer Meeting, or talk to a Federation staff member about how to get started.

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