Creating Cultures and Practices for Racial Equity is a toolkit that can be used to make strategic and equitable decisions in assessing existing or proposed policies, practices, plans, programs, grant-making, contracting, budgets, and more.
How to use this Toolkit
In order to develop racial equity policies, practices, and culture in your arts organization, we recommend following four sequential steps, listed in the chart below. Each step has corresponding curated tools and primes.
Racial Equity Tools & Primes
Step 1: Aim for Racial Equity Outcomes and Impact. Get clear about the specific internal and/or external outcomes and impacts that you’d like to work towards in your organization. Organizational Equity Impacts and Outcomes Assessment. This tool can help you pause and envision what racial equity could look and feel like in your organization. It includes a list of specific possible impacts or outcomes for different areas of your organization’s work.
Step 2: Use Choice Points to Counteract Racial Inequities. Identify specific decision-making opportunities where you can consciously apply a race lens. Choice Points Criteria and Selection Worksheet. This tool provides a set of five criteria for identifying, prioritizing, and selecting choice points in your work.
Step 3: Use Equity Primes. This provides you an immediate prompt or short-term visual reminder to center racial equity and BIPOC. Race Forward Equity Prime. This is a beautiful poster you can pull out, print, and post in your workspace to remind you to pay attention to racial equity considerations. DreamYard Equity Prime. Co-developed by staff at DreamYard, an arts organization in the Bronx, NY, this visual reminder helps redirect attention to racial equity dynamics.
Step 4: Use a Racial Equity Tool to generate creative strategies and tactics. This helps you analyze institutional racism and its root causes, generate solutions, assess impacts, and develop strategies and actions. There are lots of different types of tools. You can use one from this Toolbox, from other sources, or create your own. Use the tool for building generative and creative space to develop new ideas and actions.