Auditing Your Equity Commitments

In Microdosing on the Margins, Episode 5 on our Gather at the Well podcast series, Lindsey talks about the importance of conducting an Equity Audit to ensure that your policies and values are being actualized AND align with the needs of your team. Here are a few recommendations and an action plan to get you started.

A framework to guide your practice:

Nodding back to the blog post associated with episode 4 of the podcast, Lindsey introduced the concept of moving in the order of  “Me, We, World”. We recommend that you approach reflections to gear up for this equity audit in a similar cadence. First, check in with yourself about your own DEIJ (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice) values and the ways in which you are equipped and willing to engage in this work, especially as a leader. Second, spend time as a team reflecting on your collective organizational values and whether all of the members of your work community are being represented in an equitable way. Lastly, intentionally dive into one area you want to focus on for the year to collectively establish the policies and practices that will guide the way your organization publicly shares your equity commitments to the world.

An overview of the Equity Audit action steps:

We offer the following process steps to anchor your equity exploration in a continuous cycle of reflecting, learning, testing, executing, monitoring and realigning. This can be applied to focus on any subgroup within your organization and may require multiple loops to strive towards more equitable practices and policies.  

STEP 1: Leadership reflections and team dialogue

STEP 2: Conduct your Equity Audit

STEP 3: Leader and team integration of findings

STEP 4: Align on next steps, then take action

STEP 5: Progress monitor across the next year

Step 1: Reflecting

Here are a few questions that might guide your own personal or internal org reflections:

• What is my work to do here?

• What are my equity edges? 

• What are the biases that I hold and where do they store in my body, behavior or communication?

• How do I prepare myself to lead equity  work authentically and effectively? 

• Where am I leading my team and what is our contribution to society and the greater world?

• Who is most on the margins in our organization? What data do I have to inform this? 

• Is there a clear case for an equity & belonging deep dive? 

• How can we center the needs of that group and what actions need to be taken to do so? 

Step 2: Conduct the Audit

Once you have personally gained clarity about your orientation to this work and committed as an organization to an equity & belonging deep dive, schedule intentional time to audit your internal practices, procedure and policies to assess where you are and are not meeting the needs of your team. Some of the categories you might review for an Equity Audit may include workplace belonging, kinship preferences, financial mobility, health support, and pay equity among others. Click here to download a printable PDF of our Equity Audit worksheet which provides sample guiding questions and examples of equity-focused policies you may want to consider.

Step 3: Integrate the findings

Integrating the findings both as a leadership team and whole team is an essential step in the audit process. It is an opportunity to invite in rich conversations, identify where your org culture or policies may be misaligned to your values, agree the desired outcomes to more adequately support those on the margins, and land on the adequate interventions or shifts to bring things back into alignment.

Step 4: Align on Next Steps and Take Action

Once you have completed the Equity Audit, you may find that there are several areas that require action. However, we recommend that you identify one subgroup that is farthest from the sphere of success and center that group for a full year of study. That does not mean that you can’t have several parallel lines of impact or support another subgroup as needed, it just focuses your efforts and communicates to this group (and everyone else) that you are committed to their thriving. Further, when you identify a subgroup, you can more clearly identify the necessary key metrics and correlated actions to drive impact and are more likely to follow through with greater consistency, fidelity, and sustainability. 

Step 5: Progress Monitoring

Inequities in your organization are not always going to be eradicated overnight. We recommend that you approach the audit process with intentionality and give it the time that is warranted. Which is why we suggest that you make it a year long study and not just a meeting. 

To conclude

Committing to an internal Equity Audit may sound daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. We have watched many organizations shy away from this important work because they don’t feel equipped to manage the process internally, or don’t have a budget to tackle it “the right way”. We hear that, and still in the spirit of collective liberation and community care, we want to encourage you to take micro-steps in the right direction. 

If you feel ill equipped to manage the Equity Audit internally, engage the services of a qualified consultant that specializes in this work. If financial barriers exist, perhaps you can find a committed community advocate or Board member that is willing to fund an audit. Get creative! Maybe there is another non-profit or school site that you can partner with to go half on a training to lighten the cost burden. 

Either way, keep moving in the direction of a healthy, inclusive workplace. To be a change leader means you need multiple at bats. This is a steady practice, living your values consistently, and staying committed to growth.