The room went silent as Angela Glover Blackwell, CEO and founder of PolicyLink, started tospeak at the 2017 Shared Value Leadership Summit. Over 400 corporate leaders listened as she made a clear case for why corporate and societal prosperity hinges on creating opportunities for communities of color.

The social sector is increasingly recognizing the ways in which racism and other forms of marginalization impact the systems, structures, and issues we are working to address in our work, and FSG is no exception.  Members of FSG’s leadership have begun examining individual and organizational privilege and power and operationalizing this change within FSG in a number of ways.

We are more consistently analyzing disparities and assessing whether impact is equitable. We are working hard to ensure that all members of our team have a baseline understanding of how to analyze and address bias and structural barriers in our work.

We are being more intentional about addressing gaps we may have. We are working to more intentionally and fully engage with people and organizations who understand the issues or communities we are working with and who can complement areas where we may not have important skills or knowledge.

We are leveraging our platforms to better spotlight how marginalization hinders progress. In 2015, we partnered with the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions and PolicyLink to increase attention to the need for an explicit focus on equity as part of all collective impact efforts, and to share suggestions for how to put this into practice.

We are strengthening partnerships in pursuit of justice. Our increasing emphasis on equity has led us to a range of ways of partnering with others—from collaborating on speaking events to co-delivering on consulting projects.

Read the full article about making intentional progress towards more equitable practices by Veronica Borgonovi, Efrain Gutierrez, John Kania, and Admas Kanyagia at FSG.