I served as an orchestra administrator for 15 years and I deeply understand the daily working world of orchestras.  My experience has taught me that the equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging (“EDIB”- a label for work that can and should extend to justice) efforts of a nonprofit performing arts organization can be similar- yet vastly different- from corporate settings.  I believe that effective EDIB work at an orchestra shares common themes with EDIB work at a corporation: priority placement within the organization, dedicated resource allocation, shared and honest discussion, strategic planning, and examination of best practices.  At the same time, it differs due to the unique cultural context that frames the world of orchestras.  This means addressing needs including but not limited to:

• Naming and creating shared understanding of concepts such as systemic oppression, implicit bias and power and privilege/advantage (a process which takes courage and regular practice)

• Building stakeholder participation and buy-in across multiple constituencies (including Board, Musicians and Staff)

• Building communications and conflict navigation skills

• Navigating resistance

• Examining the misconception that arts organization are “naturally diverse”

• Addressing the harmful misconception that a commitment to EDIB represents a lessening of standards and/or artistic excellence

• Building understanding of the ways that authentic EDIB work informs and benefits a performing arts organization

• Creating and maintaining an atmosphere of shared behavioral expectations, internally and externally

• Building EDIB efforts simultaneously with education community engagement efforts; being sure that education and community engagement programs are a key part of an organization's EDIB work, but not where EDIB efforts begin and end

• Considering performance environments, marketing materials, and programming and the message each sends about the organization’s commitment to EDIB

• Addressing the reality of staffing and resource challenges

How I See My Place in EDIB and Anti-Opppression Work as a White, Cisgender, Heterosexual, Able-Bodied Woman:

A major part of my work in the world of EDIB efforts and anti-oppression has been, and continues to be, naming my identities and the power and advantage they bring to me and to the process of moving EDIB work forward in our field. Specifically, as a white person, I endeavor to play a role in naming and addressing systems of oppression, helping my client organizations name and begin to do the hard, ongoing work of building understanding and self-awareness around EDIB and the need to become agents of anti-oppression.

I’ve found that naming the fact that I am a white woman in this sector is helpful in allowing others to begin to label and own their own whiteness and the systemic advantages that comes with this piece of identity. I wish to mindfully apply the unique intersection of my whiteness and depth of experience in the orchestra field to advance conversations that might not otherwise be had amongst our peers, naming and dismantling practices of oppression.

(Unsure about the words “white supremacy”? This definition from Racial Equity Tools can be a helpful start:

“The idea (ideology) that white people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions of white people are superior to People of Color and their ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions. While most people associate white supremacy with extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis, white supremacy is ever present in our institutional and cultural assumptions that assign value, morality, goodness, and humanity to the white group while casting people and communities of color as worthless (worth less), immoral, bad, and inhuman and "undeserving." Drawing from critical race theory, the term "white supremacy" also refers to a political or socio-economic system where white people enjoy structural advantage and rights that other racial and ethnic groups do not, both at a collective and an individual level”)

The Importance of Building Broad Ownership of and Engagement With EDIB Work:

One of my learnings has been the importance of allowing every person to find their unique place in EDIB work. Do you wish to make your organization stronger through not only the representation, but deep inclusion of different experiences and viewpoints?  Then you have a place in this work.

I support client partners in defining “diversity” (a measure of difference) broadly, often including race, ethnicity and cultural background, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity/expression, age, socio-economic status, differing abilities, education, geography, family status, neurodiversity, and faith beliefs.  After building a shared definition of what EDIB means for their organization, I work with my clients to articulate their focus within the definition and the rationale behind this choice. We discuss the fact that in the United States, racism is the "ism” from which all other “isms” stem (Racial Equity Institute). Over time, we identify and name the structural inequities we wish to address through EDIB work at our organizations.

My Values and Approach:

SERVING AS YOUR PARTNER

My consulting style includes a commitment to collaboration over the long-term. I want you and your organization to succeed and I will walk through the process with you as a guide, coach and partner. I will not drop a strategic plan at your feet and run away; I’m here to help you move through the tough decisions that need to be made in regard to action steps, resource allocation and sustainability. When I say that you can pick up the phone to call me with a question or concern at any point in our work together, I mean it.

PROMOTING SHARED LEARNING

We can’t create meaningful change if we don’t understand the nuances of what needs to be changed and why.  I believe that shared learning and sustained conversation are vital to the personal and organizational change process.  My style includes a commitment to creating ongoing opportunities for learning and discussion. 

CENTERING THE VOICES OF THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN MARGINALIZED

I have spent my career working with communities and individuals across the broadest possible scope of ethnic, socio-economic and cultural backgrounds. My guiding principal in EDIB and community engagement work is “nothing for us without us.”  I recognize the power and advantage I carry as a white woman and I am committed to using my advantage to center the voices of individuals and communities that have been marginalized.

BUILDING SUSTAINABILITY

For too long, individuals and communities that have been marginalized have seen our organizations start and stop authentic community engagement and EDIB work, building and then breaking the trust of individuals and communities we wish to serve. In order to end this cycle, I believe in an approach to EDIB work that is highly strategic in nature. Establishing shared language, identifying organizational priority areas, articulating action steps and setting metrics for measuring progress are all imperative steps in charting and implementing sustainable action and culture change.

EXAMINING POWER AND PRIVILEGE/ADVANTAGE

EDIB work will only succeed at our organizations when we make the space to talk about the impact of (often hidden and entrenched) power and advantage dynamics. It is time for orchestras to acknowledge the need for change in these dynamics as a key part of our EDIB efforts. I am committed to facilitating conversations around the topics of power and advantage with my clients.

INCORPORATING HUMOR

EDI work can be intense, personal and challenging. Orchestras can have the reputation of being serious places. All the more reason to maintain perspective and approach this work with some personal lightness! I believe in a consulting approach that includes humor (where appropriate and helpful) and creativity.

My Teachers:

My on-the-ground experience prior to becoming a consultant was 15 years of working in and leading Education and Community Engagement Departments at orchestras, where I learned from countless board, staff and orchestra musician colleagues and community partners. While I was in Pittsburgh, I was fortunate to have initial mentorship in the EDIB work that was realizing was my passion from Dr. Audrey Murrell at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Murrell advised the process of creating a plan for equity and inclusion work at the Pittsburgh Symphony— in-kind work I knew was special at the time and which deeply informed the consulting work I do now. 

It’s important to me to engage in ongoing professional development from various sources to build my understanding of EDIB/justice work. My formal learning work to date has included:

• Participation in the 2015 LeadBoston Program, an executive leadership program focused on social responsibility administered by the YWCA Boston

• Completion of Interaction Institute for Social Change’s Fundamentals of Facilitation for Racial Justice Work training (via Madison Thompson and Susan Naimark)

• Completion of Racial Equity Institute’s Groundwater and Phase 1 Workshops (Groundwater via Deena Hayes-Greene)

• Completion of AORTA’s Facilitate for Freedom: Anti-Oppresson Facilitation Fundamentals Training

• Completion of formal mediation training (2020) in accordance with M.G.L. ch.233 § 23C with MWI in Boston

I draw from these courses and teachers in my own work (and acknowledge them at the top of my workshops), and have also found inspiration and other ways of considering in the “from a distance” work, words and leadership of people such as adrienne marie brown, Loretta Ross, Carmen Morgan, Ijeoma Olua, Angela Park, Layla Saad, Nina Simon and Bryan Stevenson. 

My Accountability:

As white independent consultant, I need to pay special attention to who I am accountable to and HOW I am held accountable/hold myself accountable. My relationships with clients are critical in this. As we build trust with each other, I ask my clients and their team members to name concerns and mistakes in a spirit of shared learning and respect— just as I will do as their partners. I also turn to consultant colleagues— specifically, Colleagues of Color with whom I collaborate— to offer constructive feedback if and as they feel comfortable doing so/as it doesn’t add burden to their work and lived experience; it’s a practice to constantly explore how this can be done in ways that are mutually supportive and come from places of reciprocity in relationships. 

In the spirit of continuing to build the skills to check myself as a white person doing this work, I had the opportunity 2021 to participate in YW Boston’s Anti-Racist Leadership Pilot Program, a regular virtual gathering specifically for white people in management positions to continue to learn, explore whiteness, and to share challenges and questions specifically from our work lenses in our shared efforts to advance anti-racist practice in our spheres of influence. It was an important and beneficial experience in advancing my own learning in a space designed for white people and building an additional layer of accountability among white colleagues

I’m committed to being a work in progress. I find myself in this space and in this world with the experience and identities that are unique to me and I have much to learn. I’m committed to mindfully examining on a daily basis how I want to apply my advantage and identity to advance justice work within the orchestra field.