*IDEA Institute: Inclusive Leadership Cohort for Social Change
A partnership of BRIDGE, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Greylock Federal Credit Union, and Berkshire Bank.
Launching in January 2021, Inclusive Leadership as a Force for Change will support 60 leaders across sectors in being catalysts for embedding diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) within their organizations and companies. This peer-learning program aims to support leaders who see a strategic imperative and a human calling to adopt DEI principles and practices as a path to increased effectiveness, competitive advantage, and mission fulfillment.
An Urgent Call for Leadership
Recent events serve as painful reminders of the inequities and disparities that remain so prevalent in society. As Americans reckon with racial injustice amid an urgent drive for change, leaders across sectors must heed a moral imperative to critically examine the role they can play in addressing equity and inclusion in their organizations and companies, and the communities they serve.
Locally, this movement is underway as the nonwhite and foreign-born populations in Berkshire County continue to increase, providing a source of energy and entrepreneurship, and helping to mitigate the effects of an aging population. Members of these growing, diverse communities possess the skills and ambition to be meaningful participants in the economy, workplaces, and neighborhoods. Future economic and community vitality depend on intentional and lasting efforts to promote this participation, advance DEI and create cultural change.
Leaders of every business, school, municipality, and nonprofit are accountable for responding to these changes in their operating environments, the cultures they create, and the systems they use for decision-making and resource allocation. As our workplaces become more diverse, cultural competency and change management skills are essential for leaders to be effective in embedding DEI as a mission and/or business imperative, and in the context of wider community efforts.
An Invitation to Join a Network and Learn with Peers
This yearlong program will employ a cohort-based, experiential learning format to intentionally engage and support teams of leaders across sectors. The experiences, insights, and connections forged in this type of peer-learning environment, along with the mutual accountability it encourages, will help leaders to grow and gain a supportive peer network for future success.
Participating organizations will designate a team of two for the program, including one member of senior leadership, who will identify a business or mission imperative within their organization or company for which DEI is a central consideration and/or contributor to solutions. At the program’s start, participants will consider the scope of this leadership imperative and the steps needed to address it, while defining success in measurable terms.
With the help of a tailored curriculum, peer learning, and targeted coaching throughout the program, participating teams will relate what they are learning about leadership in the context of DEI and how this re-imagined leadership can advancing the identified business or mission imperative within their organization or company.
Program Elements
Based on BRIDGE’s model of sequenced learning and capacity building, the program begins by fostering preparedness for effective leadership through increasing cultural competency. This component is followed by skill building to empower leaders to strategically embed DEI principles and practices into their organizations and companies. The model’s shared learning experience will create a network of leadership that can also contribute to our communities, helping to confront and correct persistent injustices and disparities, especially for communities of color and other underrepresented groups.
The program will be a mix of full group plenary sessions, smaller sector-specific group work, and individual coaching. Issue-based groups may be formed to explore new ways of exerting leadership in the areas of education, arts and culture, business and finance, public policy, community organizing, law enforcement, human service and public health, or the media, depending on participants and the theme and design of each session.
The program will kick off with participation in the New Pathways Social Justice Conference with activist and author Angela Davis on Sunday, November 8, with the cohort-based learning starting in January 2021.
For more information, contact: Cohort2021@multiculturalbridge.org
Gwendolyn VanSant
Chief Executive Officer & Founding Director, BRIDGE
Gwendolyn.hvs@multiculturalbridge.org
A partnership of BRIDGE, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, Greylock Federal Credit Union, and Berkshire Bank.
Launching in January 2021, Inclusive Leadership as a Force for Change will support 60 leaders across sectors in being catalysts for embedding diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) within their organizations and companies. This peer-learning program aims to support leaders who see a strategic imperative and a human calling to adopt DEI principles and practices as a path to increased effectiveness, competitive advantage, and mission fulfillment.
An Urgent Call for Leadership
Recent events serve as painful reminders of the inequities and disparities that remain so prevalent in society. As Americans reckon with racial injustice amid an urgent drive for change, leaders across sectors must heed a moral imperative to critically examine the role they can play in addressing equity and inclusion in their organizations and companies, and the communities they serve.
Locally, this movement is underway as the nonwhite and foreign-born populations in Berkshire County continue to increase, providing a source of energy and entrepreneurship, and helping to mitigate the effects of an aging population. Members of these growing, diverse communities possess the skills and ambition to be meaningful participants in the economy, workplaces, and neighborhoods. Future economic and community vitality depend on intentional and lasting efforts to promote this participation, advance DEI and create cultural change.
Leaders of every business, school, municipality, and nonprofit are accountable for responding to these changes in their operating environments, the cultures they create, and the systems they use for decision-making and resource allocation. As our workplaces become more diverse, cultural competency and change management skills are essential for leaders to be effective in embedding DEI as a mission and/or business imperative, and in the context of wider community efforts.
An Invitation to Join a Network and Learn with Peers
This yearlong program will employ a cohort-based, experiential learning format to intentionally engage and support teams of leaders across sectors. The experiences, insights, and connections forged in this type of peer-learning environment, along with the mutual accountability it encourages, will help leaders to grow and gain a supportive peer network for future success.
Participating organizations will designate a team of two for the program, including one member of senior leadership, who will identify a business or mission imperative within their organization or company for which DEI is a central consideration and/or contributor to solutions. At the program’s start, participants will consider the scope of this leadership imperative and the steps needed to address it, while defining success in measurable terms.
With the help of a tailored curriculum, peer learning, and targeted coaching throughout the program, participating teams will relate what they are learning about leadership in the context of DEI and how this re-imagined leadership can advancing the identified business or mission imperative within their organization or company.
Program Elements
Based on BRIDGE’s model of sequenced learning and capacity building, the program begins by fostering preparedness for effective leadership through increasing cultural competency. This component is followed by skill building to empower leaders to strategically embed DEI principles and practices into their organizations and companies. The model’s shared learning experience will create a network of leadership that can also contribute to our communities, helping to confront and correct persistent injustices and disparities, especially for communities of color and other underrepresented groups.
The program will be a mix of full group plenary sessions, smaller sector-specific group work, and individual coaching. Issue-based groups may be formed to explore new ways of exerting leadership in the areas of education, arts and culture, business and finance, public policy, community organizing, law enforcement, human service and public health, or the media, depending on participants and the theme and design of each session.
The program will kick off with participation in the New Pathways Social Justice Conference with activist and author Angela Davis on Sunday, November 8, with the cohort-based learning starting in January 2021.
For more information, contact: Cohort2021@multiculturalbridge.org
Gwendolyn VanSant
Chief Executive Officer & Founding Director, BRIDGE
Gwendolyn.hvs@multiculturalbridge.org