We are glad that you are on a path toward learning and action on becoming an anti-racist and racial equity-focused organization. IISC is taking on limited clients at this time, mostly focusing on longer term racial equity change processes or working with those who are interested in one of our online offerings to build skills and capacity as racial justice facilitators and change implementers.
Given that we may not be able to work with you, we want to offer other resources that may be of interest or use to you. This is not a complete list but it does offer a few other options of folks who are working on racial equity and change processes. Please be in touch with them directly. And please note they all are likely to be facing unprecedented levels of demand at this time.
We are also happy to share the “Racial Equity Capacity Builders Directory,” as published by The Boston Foundation.
Consulting/Training Organizations
Note: There are many, many others who do this work, as well. This list is not intended to be exhaustive or to reflect recommendations by IISC for one resource over another. Where possible, we pulled general descriptions from these websites; however, in some cases, a succinct statement was not easily available.
Achieve Mission
HR/talent management consulting with a racial equity focus
Anti-Oppression Resource & Training Alliance (AORTA)
“AORTA is a worker-owned cooperative devoted to strengthening movements for social justice and a solidarity economy. We work as consultants and facilitators to expand the capacity of cooperative, collective, and community based projects through education, training, and planning.”
Building Movement Project
“The Building Movement Project (BMP) supports and pushes the nonprofit sector to tackle the most significant social issues of our times by developing research, creating tools and training materials, providing guidance, and facilitating networks for social change. If your organization seeks more customized, hands-on support, Building Movement Project conducts keynotes, workshops, presentations, and also offers consulting services for nonprofit organizations.”
Center to Support Immigrant Organizing (CSIO)
Focused on supporting immigrant organizers, leaders, directors, activists and their organizations to overcome barriers to achieving social, political and economic justice for immigrant communities.
Change Elemental
“In partnership with leaders, organizations, networks, and funders, we explore what is needed to spark transformative, equitable change. Together, we work to overcome habits and practices that hold us back and we craft creative, nimble, and authentic strategies for change. We ground our engagements in our values and the essential elements of deep change.”
Circle Forward
Circle Forward is a system for collaborative governance. Its methods and tools enable networks and organizations to design their own inclusive and equitable governance systems around the principle of Consent.
ClassMatters
Cross-class organizing and has some popular ed type materials.
Community Wealth Partners
CWP works with both nonprofits and grantmakers to “turn bold visions into goals, goals into plans, and plans into actions to address some of today’s most pressing challenges.” Services include strategic planning, capacity building, and coaching.
CompassPoint
“CompassPoint helps leaders, nonprofit organizations, and movements
committed to social justice realize their full power. We connect leaders with essential skills and knowledge, cultivate powerful learning communities, and create time and space for people to explore the emotional dimensions of leadership so that we can shift ourselves, our organizations, and our world toward greater justice and equity.”
Crossroads Anti-Racism
“Training and education are powerful tools for organizing to dismantle racism. Depending on your institution’s organizing outcomes and goals, Crossroads organizers will work with your institutional leaders to determine the best steps for moving forward. This may include providing keynote presentations, consultations, leading retreats or facilitating one of our many anti racism workshops.”
Disruptive Equity Education Project (DEEP)
The Disruptive Equity Education Project (DEEP) is a professional development and strategy organization that is focused on the intentional, developmental, and complex work that is associated with changing mindsets around equity and dismantling systemic oppression and racism. DEEP offers strategic long-term partnerships for individuals, teams and organizations seeking personal, professional and culture changes related to diversity, belonging, inclusion and equity.
Equity in the Center
Offerings include So You Want to Hire an Equity Consultant: A Guide for Leaders and Organizations and monthly open enrollment workshops on the “Awake to Woke to Work: Building a Race Equity Culture” research (individuals and organizational teams of up to 49 staff can participate).
Frontline Solutions
“Our team helps organizations working on the front lines of change to define goals, execute plans, and evaluate impact. We are a Black-owned consulting firm that serves the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors. We work with our clients to achieve their wildest dreams. We also build tools, models, and ventures that create far-reaching impact.”
The Genius Group
The Genius Group/ TGG provides organization strategy and grant-making design support to private foundations; technical assistance and capacity building support to the grantees of foundation-funded initiatives; and solutions for managing growth & change, strategic planning, financial management and diversity & inclusion to nonprofits and social enterprises.
Higher Ground Change Strategies
Higher Ground’s comprehensive approach helps partners integrate authentic engagement, systems analysis, framing and narrative strategy, resource development and more for powerful, vision-based change. Higher Ground Change Strategies include change communications, strategic planning, convening design and facilitation for organizations, agencies and philanthropic institutions working to advance social justice.
Ibis Consulting Group
“IBIS Consulting Group is a Diversity & Inclusion industry leader, offering customized, results-oriented global D&I consulting and training services to organizations across all sectors. Whether we’re delivering unconscious bias training to a Fortune 100 company or helping a Higher-Ed institution develop their D&I strategic plan, we meet our clients where they are on their diversity journeys, adapting our approaches and solutions to their goals, needs, and cultural norms.”
Kemp Whitfield
Strategic and hands on, their consultants are able to develop key initiatives from concept to execution. They have an expertise in identifying critical issues that need to be addressed, building coalitions and communities of practice around those issues, developing and executing programs for strategic intervention, and identifying a sustainability plan. Services include diversity and equity audits, assessments, and initiative design.
Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
They believe that quality trainings on topics related to race, racism, and anti-racism is one important aspect—along with systemic change—of creating anti-racist societies, organizations, and individuals.
Liberatory Power Consulting Group
The Liberatory Consulting Group is an intentionally multiracial group of Black feminist and antiracist learners and guides who are committed to liberatory power and embodiment of antiracist culture. Their offerings can be found detailed here.
The Management Center
The Management Center offers managers some specific trainings with a racial equity focus.
The Mediation Group
The Mediation Group is one-stop shopping for conflict resolution and organizational development. With 30-plus years of experience, the multi-disciplinary team provides individuals and organizations with support to move forward constructively and with improved functionality. Services include: facilitation, mediation, training and coaching, leadership development, cultural competency, independent workplace investigations, stakeholder assessments, public engagement and process design.
MP Associates
MP Associates works with organizations to align their value of racial equity with their policies, practices and culture, through training,
technical assistance, coaching, and mediation. They do not offer one-off trainings, but do offer equity coaching (specifically with whites) and white caucus facilitation, as well as facilitation of racial equity organizational change processes, including providing technical assistance on specific tasks of an implementation plan (excluding human resources).
The National Equity Project
“We support leaders to transform their systems into equitable, resilient, and liberating environments. We provide consulting and coaching to help leaders and teams make informed decisions and take more effective action. We design and facilitate professional learning experiences for educators and other leaders to reimagine and redesign their systems for equity. Our services build culture, conditions, and competencies for excellence and equity in districts, organizations, foundations, and communities.”
The Opportunity Agenda
“The Opportunity Agenda is a social justice communication lab that works to advance the impact of the social justice community. We do this by:
– Shaping compelling narratives and messages
– Building the communication capacity of leaders through training and resources
– Engaging with artists, creatives, and culture makers as powerful storytellers to shift the public discourse”
Open Source Leadership
“OpenSource Leadership Strategies, Inc. addresses the leadership and organization development needs of nonprofits and other social change agents across the nation and globe who want to be the change they seek in the world. OpenSource works with Client Partners to align mission-driven outcomes (i.e., what you want to accomplish) with strategy, structure, and culture (i.e., how you accomplish it) for greater impact and integrity.”
Partners for Collaborative Change
PFCC works with organizations to become more equitable through a two-fold approach: democratizing research, planning and design, and anti-oppression facilitation and coaching
The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond
“The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PISAB) focuses on understanding what racism is, where it comes from, how it functions, why it persists and how it can be undone. Our Undoing Racism workshops utilize a systemic approach that emphasizes learning from history, developing leadership, maintaining accountability to communities, creating networks, undoing internalized racial oppression and understanding the role of organizational gate keeping as a mechanism for perpetuating racism.”
The Perception Institute
“We offer tailored services related to reducing discrimination and harmful practices including needs assessments, affinity spaces, connection circles, Mind Science workshops, research and evaluation, and communications strategies.”
Praxis Project
“The Praxis Project is a national movement support intermediary committed to capacity building for social change. Our emphasis is on developing fields of work in ways that encourage multi-level, trans-disciplinary learning and collaboration across issues, across the country, and across the globe.”
ProInspire
“We design and deliver programs and resources to help social sector leaders build the competencies, confidence, and connections to accelerate equity and leadership.”
Race Forward
Race Forward’s Building Racial Equity series is a collection of interactive trainings for those who wish to sharpen their skills and strategies to address structural racism and advance racial equity. Unlike “diversity trainings” which primarily focus on interpersonal relations and understanding, the Building Racial Equity trainings emphasize how to challenge and change institutional racial inequities.
Race Matters Institute
“Our customized training, technical assistance, coaching, and product development advance concrete actions in both operations and programming that strengthen an organization’s mission performance. We focus specifically on promoting racial equity in organizational strategies, policies, and practices as a complement to the work of others who focus on racial equity at the individual and interpersonal levels.”
Racial Equity Institute
The 18-month to two-year process is designed to help leaders and organizations who want to proactively understand and address racism, both in their organization and in the community where the organization is working. Can start with short-form and one or more days of training.
The Social Transformation Project
STP offers a directory of the 175+ alumni of the Art of Transformational Consulting, a five-day training for experienced consultants who serve progressive social change clients.
Trinity Connects
“Our mission is to unlock opportunities and change the odds for youth of color in Boston. Our goal is to help them succeed by increasing available resources that lower systemic barriers to their achievement and wellbeing. This is vital and unique work for youth of color who are subject to the pervasive trauma of systemic racism.”
Visions, Inc.
“Our multicultural organizational development process incorporates a variety of approaches and techniques that address what people think, what they do, and how they feel about cultural differences and changes. Training is most often a component of organizational development.”
Specific offering: DEI Essentials
YW Boston
YW Boston helps individuals and organizations change policies, practices, attitudes, and behaviors with the goal of creating more inclusive environments where women, people of color, and especially women of color can succeed.
Other Resources and Tools
IISC: Resources for the Field:
- Affinity Group Field Guide
- Resources and Tools for Your Racial Equity Journey
- Preparing Yourself to Serve
- Fight The Return of the Old Normal: A Guidebook for Envisioning a Racially Just & Transformative Future
Awake to Woke to Work: Building a Race Equity Culture
Useful self-help resource
Courageous Conversations About Race Protocol
Developed by Glenn Singleton
DEI Expert Hub
“Thinking about centering your organization around diversity, equity, and inclusion? Whether you’re a school leader, nonprofit advocate, funder or ed tech entrepreneur, the DEI Expert Hub can connect you with DEI specialists who can help you achieve your DEI goals.”
Government Alliance for Race & Equity (GARE)
Public sector organization-focused. Robust set of planning and learning tools and practical materials. Racial Equity Toolkit.
Grantmaking with a Racial Justice Lens
Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity
Navigating Race and Class Dynamics in Fundraising
Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training
PolicyLink
“Through the approach of ‘Lifting Up What Works,’ our programmatic initiatives are organized within three interlocking, mutually reinforcing areas of work. Through these initiatives, we advance policies that enable everyone to participate in an equitable economy, live in a community of opportunity, and thrive in a just society.”
Race Equity and Inclusion Action Guide
Embracing Equity: 7 Steps to Advance and Embed Race Equity and Inclusion Within Your Organization
RacialEquityTools.Org
Racialequitytools.org has more than 2500 tools to learn, plan, and train.
A Social Justice Communication Toolkit: Vision, Values, and Voice
The Opportunity Agenda