RACIAL EQUITY

CEO LETTER ● TIMELINE ● CASE STUDIES ● LOOKING AHEAD

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NOT EVERYTHING THAT IS FACED CAN BE CHANGED, BUT NOTHING CAN BE CHANGED UNTIL IT IS FACED.

-James Baldwin

When Mission Capital was founded twenty years ago, race and racism impacted the lives of our community as much as it does today. Yet, historically, Mission Capital’s work did not account for the racial disparities in the social sector and community-based work – disparities that we contributed to, intentionally or not. In 2018, Mission Capital began a journey to reflect, learn (and unlearn), and transform how we work internally and externally with an intentional race equity approach.

Over the last three years, Mission Capital made significant changes in our mission and priorities, our personal equity journeys, our internal processes, and our way of creating community within our workplace. We’ve made mistakes along the way, as we made space to recognize this kind of work first requires changing ourselves. It is, however, necessary work if we are to be the change we wish to see in the world.

TRANSFORMING OUR MISSION AND PRIORITIES

Mission Capital’s 2018 strategic planning process sharpened our focus on the systemic barriers faced by BIPOC and Global Majority communities in Central Texas who historically have been disenfranchised and today are left behind even as our local economy thrives.   

Approved in January 2019, our current strategic plan challenges the systemic barriers and disproportionate outcomes that exist in Central Texas, despite being a region of great growth and resources. Our new mission, to equip and connect mission-driven leaders, organizations, and networks advancing equity and opportunity through their work, is exciting work and it is challenging work.

Mission Capital also named three strategic goals that reflect our commitment to race equity and will guide our work in the years to come. These are big goals, and we know we can’t accomplish them alone. Today, we focus on aligning and operationalizing these goals and thinking critically about Mission Capital’s collaborative role to advance equity in the Central Texas nonprofit ecosystem. 

TRANSFORMING OURSELVES

The next step in our equity journey was “walking the talk” – an internal effort to build reflective capacity and racial stamina. The bold changes presented in our new mission and strategies prompted a recognition that significant internal work (both personally for staff and within Mission Capital) was required to bridge the gap between where we aspired to be and our starting point. Candid conversations and feedback generated constructive tensions that helped Mission Capital focus on a commitment to “build our house” internally first. Starting in 2018, Mission Capital staff and board explored the personal work of racial identity and lived experience as an organization-- a slow, but a transformative process.

Staff attended trainings (Beyond Diversity, Undoing Racism), read books (White Fragility, My Grandmother’s Hands), and continue to dialogue in race affinity groups. We created a common language and developed brave space norms for ongoing dialogue about race, racism, and white supremacy culture. We started building new internal structures to support equity-focused ways of working, as we interrogated the white dominant culture norms in our current structure.

Three internal teams supported this work. The Equity Advancement Team (EAT) brought together BIPOC and Global Majority staff to explore definitional equity questions and support DEI capacity building. The Equity Advancement Team PAC convened white staff working in solidarity with the EAT and led dialogue in white affinity spaces. Ultimately, these teams evolved into one Inclusion Council that continues to provide direction for how we work together to embed equity work and learning within our organization. 

Mission Capital’s internal shifts would not have been possible without the support of external partners who guided our path. We are especially grateful for the contributions of ProInspire, who introduced new resources like the Equity Assessment tool, and Fatima Mann, who facilitated healing sessions after staff read My Grandmother’s Hands by Resmaa Menakem.

MISSION: HR

Since 2018, Mission Capital’s race equity journey has shifted numerous ways we work. One key example? Our HR processes. In 2021, Mission Capital examined all internal HR policies and procedures to identify which could be refreshed with an equity lens, and which needed a complete rehaul to be people-centered and anti-racist. This year, we finalized an Equity Light Hiring Framework. It informs how we recruit and hire new staff -- integrating implicit bias into interview prep, creating an applicant-centered communications process, and adjusting for the disruptions that can happen in a virtual environment.

Mission Capital also focused on staff wellbeing, through a set of Wellbeing Principles that help us shift from a task-oriented to a people-centered culture. Burnout is impacting so many folks right now, and we are not immune. In 2021, we also developed the Beating Burnout Series to share ways that we can co-create a culture of belonging for everyone. Our staff used it for personal reflection, and we shared a version through the HR Toolkit – a membership resource.

TRANSFORMING HOW WE ENGAGE

Mission Capital also began to shift how we work externally. We hold a privileged position as a gatekeeper and influencer. We have a responsibility to evaluate our impact and recognize that without consideration of equity, we risk advancing inequitable solutions in the communities we serve.

In spring 2020, Mission Capital partnered with the Building Movement Project to facilitate 2020 Race to Lead Central Texas (R2L), a research initiative that investigates why there are so few leaders of color in the nonprofit sector and documents the challenges People of Color face as they reach for and attain senior leadership roles in nonprofit organizations. As Mission Capital and our partners began wrestling with what we learned, new national momentum for racial reckoning erupted following the murders of Ahmaud Arbury in February, Breonna Taylor in March, and George Floyd in May. At the same time, COVID-19 was impacting disproportionately BIPOC and Global Majority communities and underscored the criticality of centering racial equity -- for the social sector and across sectors.

The convergence created local momentum for social sector organizations to show up differently – in spaces for healing, community building, and sharing knowledge. The need to “meet the moment” created space for Mission Capital to step more explicitly into an equity-focused role as a convenor and platform.

We adopted new listening practices to inform program design, identifying where we should lean in and where we should create space for others. We changed our evaluation and data collection strategies so that we can disaggregate data, understand differences in experience, and ultimately, equitably support all members of our community.

Mission Capital’s community engagement has shifted in a variety of ways across our portfolio, including the stories shared below from our consulting services and membership community.

WHO’S WHO IN CONSULTING

Consulting and training services are Mission Capital’s bread and butter. For many years, our clients engaged with consultants or trainers based on which staff had the most validated experience (i.e., advanced degrees, prior work experience, legacy relationships) in a respective subject area. As more partners expressed interest in projects related to race and equity, our team, for better and worse, began prioritizing the lived experiences of project leads. Endeavors like the Racial Wealth Divide and Race to Lead reports and convenings were designed to prioritize and center the ideas and experiences of Austin’s Black and Indigenous community members and folks of color. We pulled off those engagements by co-conspiring with MEASURE, GAVA, The New Philanthropists, and countless leaders whose personal and professional expertise yielded key solutions and more importantly, sprouted meaningful connections across our sector. By intentionally engaging new partners in different ways, Mission Capital’s consulting and training teams grew their capacity for mindfulness around tokenism, mindsets on BIPOC mentorship co-design, community collaboration, allyship, and healing.

BUILDING OUR MEMBERSHIP COMMUNITY

Since our founding, Mission Capital’s membership community undergirded our work in Central Texas. Under our equity-focused mission, we identified three principles that guide our membership. First, equity is at the heart of our opportunity -- the needs and priorities of those most impacted by systemic disparities are prioritized in programming and decision-making. Second, relationships matter -- we must bring together people in brave spaces to share thoughts, feelings, ideas, and critiques. Third, resource distribution must shift -- information and introductions are key in navigating funding, hiring, and management challenges. Honoring our foundations and new principles, Mission Capital transformed our membership program. In 2020, we launched a “pay what you can” membership to ensure that ability to pay does not gatekeep resources. We invested in new technology to enhance the member experience, including a new jobs board and Teachable online learning platform with the HR Toolkit and Salary Data Guide. While uncertainty around COVID-19 lingers, we are focused on building a sustainable membership program that creates access to resources and is grounded in the sector’s needs and priorities.

NEW OFFERINGS

In addition, Mission Capital launched new equity-explicit offerings designed to support BIPOC and white leaders that are informed by research, data, and customer feedback. Our new equity workshops include Implicit Bias Learning Circles, Austin's Compounding Structural Racism, Implicit Bias and Hiring, and Privilege, Power, and Shared Leadership.

We also launched WeThrive cohorts and the WeThrive Storytelling sessions that bring together intimate groups of BIPOC CEOs and colleagues for peer learning and support.

As we reflect on twenty years supporting the Central Texas social sector and over three years of intentional race equity work, we recognize the ebbs and flows in our journey. Striving for race equity is a continuous process and Mission Capital is committed to ongoing unlearning and doing better.