It’s been more than seven months since the worldwide protests for racial justice spurred GOPC board and staff to more deeply reflect on the ways our work to revitalize Ohio intersects with questions of race, class, and inequality.
I am proud that GOPC issued a statement on equity and made a public commitment in June 2020 to do a better job of fighting inequities from our unique position as a research and policy organization. Through the summer of 2020, staff and I had more than 10 hours of discussions that resulted in an organizational definition of equity that we now use in our research and advising. We also did a critical self-assessment of past work to improve future work. The discussions in those meetings were just as important as the final products themselves.
As a result of our self-assessments, GOPC now includes a clause in all our fee-for-service contracts that requests our local partners compose advisory groups and interviewee lists that are as racially diverse as their local territories. We are also beginning to analyze data along racial lines as much as possible (given limitations of various data sets). In spring 2021, GOPC staff will attend Third Space Action Lab’s Groundwater training and incorporate those learnings into our daily work.
At the board level, GOPC’s board had numerous discussions on how best to institutionalize an active and ongoing commitment to equity, racial equity, and justice. After many conversations, the board decided against establishing a Racial Diversity and Inclusion committee and instead made a board-wide commitment to hold racial equity, diversity, inclusion and justice as a priority in all board committees. Additionally, the GOPC board has started reserving 10-15 minutes in every board meeting to discuss a board member-submitted article on racial equity. In creating this space in the Board agenda, the intention is to continue reinforcing the Board’s commitment to learn and lead on GOPC’s racial diversity and inclusion goals. I and the GOPC Finance Committee have also reviewed our organizational budget to identify opportunities to better leverage our spending power to support minority-owned, women-owned, GLBTQA-owned, and veteran-owned companies.
GOPC’s equity, racial equity, and inclusion work is not done. However, I am proud that GOPC staff and board are taking seriously our June 2020 pledge to “do a better job acknowledging how racism has created and maintained [disinvested neighborhoods of color]. And we commit to do our part in dismantling these structures through our continued statewide research and advocacy, and our business practices.” We will continue to hold ourselves to this pledge as we help Ohio’s communities revitalize and thrive.