Transform Organizational Culture & Invest in Transformative Relationships – San Francisco Opportunities for Advancing Racial Equity

Aspirational Values

The aspirational values reflect ways in which HSH can transform its culture and day-to-day practices of how the organizational members relate to each other.

Establish shared language across the department and a commitment to building ongoing knowledge, skills, and confidence to talk about racism and white supremacy and strategies to operationalize racial equity for every staff member at HSH and key stakeholders. This may include:

Establishing and supporting opportunities for brave spaces^(3),(4) to talk directly about racism and white supremacy. This can include modeling talking regularly when white dominant culture norms are practice and welcoming pivots as part meetings. In addition, consider caucus strategies based on racial identity (e.g. AAPI, Black, Latinx and other groups);
Building shared understanding and language of the historical and current-day impacts of white supremacy culture, systemic racism, anti-blackness, in community and in the workplace, as well as in the solutions designed to respond to people at risk of and/or experiencing homelessness;
Building shared community norms on how staff will engage in conversations about race, identity and other experiences and practice applying them in all meetings including practices of calling in colleagues when racial microaggressions⁽⁵⁾ and/or other explicit racist behavior and actions occur;
Centering learning around firsthand knowledge of what is happening on the ground through engaging with people with lived experience (e.g. Family Advisory Council & Youth Policy & Advisory Committee) and HSH direct service staff, including what works and what does not; while creating opportunities for this voice to be elevated across and outside of the division; and
Practicing addressing white fragility and creating spaces for white accountability for white staff (white staff in particular should practice leaning into discomfort).

Overtime we’ve recognized that this is work that we do as individuals and part of a committee, it has to be part of our department, our culture and is a huge job and takes time.
HSH Staff

Invest in resources, activities, and policies to increase a sense of belonging and inclusion across HSH departments and staff members, particularly for front line staff. These investments should include:

Co-designing and centering the experiences of frontline staff in all-staff huddle meetings, all staff newsletter communications and other broad-staff reaching meetings;
Promoting and encouraging community and cultural rituals and practices; making staff time accessible for department-wide events (e.g. a policy to cancel conflicting meetings);
Prioritizing wellness—pivot from the “grind culture” that is disproportionately harming BIPOC staff by creating both structural (policy) and tactical (modeled) drivers that promote the ability for staff to rest and restore;
Communicating often, in a consistent and inclusive way, using written and verbal methods
Cultivating formal and informal leadership opportunities;
Creating opportunities for cross-departmental culture building; and
Holding celebrations that do not require personal monetary contributions from staff and be consistent with how celebrations are offered across the department (e.g. avoid special treatment for certain roles, positions or individuals).

Practicing co-creating community agreements for meetings with staff;
Practicing checking in with team members regularly in a way that allows people to bring in their whole selves and build authentic relationships with one another;
Rebuilding broken trust through authentic apology, accountability and action; and
Creating caucus strategies⁽⁶⁾ based on racial identity for BIPOC staff to have the ability to process without white colleagues present⁽⁷⁾ and for white colleagues to create separate accountability spaces.

Notes

^{(1) Carruthers, Charlene, 2019. “The Three Commitments”. The Crisis Magazine. December 9, 2019. https://www.thecrisismagazine.com/single-post/2019/12/09/the-three-committments}

^{(2) Okun, Tema and Kenneth Jones, 1999. “White Dominant Culture & Something Different: A Worksheet.” https://www.cacgrants.org/assets/ce/Documents/2019/WhiteDominantCulture.pdf}

^{(3) Breakaway, 2017. “Do We Need Safe or Brave Spaces?”. BreakAway. December 1, 2017. https://alternativebreaks.org/safe-or-brave-spaces/}

^{(4) Zheng, Lily, 2016. “Why your brave space sucks.” The Stanford Daily. May 15, 2016. https://www.stanforddaily.com/2016/05/15/why-your-brave-space-sucks/}

^{(5) Limbong, Andrew, 2020. “ Microaggressions are a big deal: How to talk them out and when to walk away”. National Public Radio. June 9, 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/06/08/872371063/microaggressions-are-a-big-deal-how-to-talk-them-out-and-when-to-walk-away}

^{(6) Smith, Kad 2017. “Race Caucusing in an Organizational Context: A POC’s experience” Compasspoint. April 6, 2019. https://www.compasspoint.org/blog/race-caucusing-organizational-context-poc%E2%80%99s-experience}

^{(7) Blackwell, Kelsey, 2018. “Why People of Color Need Spaces Without White People.” The Arrow: A Journey of Wakeful Society Culture & Politics. August 9, 2018. https://arrow-journal.org/why-people-of-color-need-spaces-without-white-people/}

01Transform Organizational Culture & Invest in Transformative Relationships

Aspirational Values

Establish shared language across the department and a commitment to building ongoing knowledge, skills, and confidence to talk about racism and white supremacy and strategies to operationalize racial equity for every staff member at HSH and key stakeholders. This may include:

Invest in resources, activities, and policies to increase a sense of belonging and inclusion across HSH departments and staff members, particularly for front line staff. These investments should include:

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