21 Day Racial Equity Challenge – A Tale of Two Agencies

As many agencies look for ways to build awareness and engagement around diversity, equity, and inclusion, some have taken the 21 Day Racial Equity Challenge. The Challenge was originally created in 2014 by Dr. Eddie Moore, Jr. and Debby Irving as a way for people to make a habit out of anti-racist thinking and behavior. The idea is to create dedicated time and space to build more effective social justice habits, particularly for those dealing with issues of race, power, privilege, and leadership. Dr. Moore's work inspired a worldwide movement that caught fire in 2020, inspiring numerous iterations of the Challenge. Read on to learn about two different Challenge experiences from two members of the WRPA’s Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (EIB) Committee.

Have you done a 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge? Share your insights on social media #RacialEquityChallenge

Name / Pronouns / Agency / Title

Norinda Rosario Yancey / she, her, hers / Currently - Metro Parks Tacoma, Chief Equity Officer; At time of Challenge - United Way of Pierce County, Vice President of Community Impact

Olivia Salazar de Breaux / she, her, hers / City of Olympia Parks, Arts and Recreation, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Specialist

What was your role in implementing 21 Day Racial Equity Challenge?

Norinda: Equity Team Lead

Olivia: Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Committee Facilitator, Challenge Content Curator

Why did you / your agency choose to implement the 21 Day Racial Equity Challenge?

Norinda: During the pandemic, our focus was on meeting immediate needs. For social justice organizations that usually looks like food and shelter. But after the murder of George Floyd we saw a growing demand for understanding and human connection. The challenge was a great vehicle for us to serve those needs and the perfect opportunity to acculturate community in the community about the impacts of systemic racism primarily on Black and Brown people by providing participants with resources and tools they can use to become strong allies and advocates for racialized people.

Olivia: In January 2022, I had just been hired as our Parks department’s Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Specialist. I was researching trainings to help kick off our work; particularly along the lines of Equity 101 training that could help build shared knowledge around systemic racism, language, definitions, history, microaggressions, etc. The Challenge intrigued me because it could include all of those topics. We could curate resources and materials based on what makes sense for our work group. There was also little to no impact on our budget and it would be relatively easy to implement.

How did you go about launching the Challenge?

Norinda: While participating in United Way Worldwide’s 2020 21-Day Challenge for network affiliates I realized immediately that it was something we should do. But we were learning the hard way that when people don’t know who else to call for help, they call the United Way. And we got lots of calls. From mid-March 2020 until the Spring of 2021, our team worked feverishly to meet those needs with very little thought to our wellbeing. We simply didn’t have the bandwidth to do another thing, so we put it on the back burner. Then in January 2021, we realized that the need to connect and serve the community might best be served by the challenge beginning on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday or during Black History Month. So we convened a team based on interest and began collaborating on a vision and plan to get it designed and launched no later than February.

We originally planned to borrow the content from UWW’s network affiliate challenge, but our team decided that they wanted more creative control and the ability to customize the experience for Pierce County residents. We borrowed what we liked and curated a ton of resources and tools so that participants could register to receive 21 consecutive weekday emails organized by topic with an inspirational quote, an article, a video, and a podcast, as well as a link to additional resources on a community resource page hosted on our website. Collaborating with our marketing team we created branded social media assets and backgrounds for us to use on Zoom during four facilitated community conversations that we hosted weekly during mid and late afternoon, as well as early evening.

Olivia: Rather than launch the Challenge with our entire department, we wanted to pilot it with a small group of staff that included our EIB Committee, Parks supervisors and managers, and the City-wide Diversity and Equity Committee. While building a community of practice to further unpack these topics, having a smaller test group helped us learn how to better administer the Challenge, identify barriers to participation, and discuss what content worked and didn’t work.

We curated materials from the 21 Day Racial Equity Challenge website as well as materials from the National Park and Recreation Association’s Equity in Practice offerings. Every day had a theme and a leading question and a link to either an article, a video or a podcast. Some days had “extra credit” links for people who wanted to dive a little deeper. We also branded our Challenge documents so that they had a fun and cohesive look and feel. When sharing out everything prior to the Challenge launch, I posted a video of myself explaining what the Challenge was, why we are doing it, how it works, and some FAQ’s. While staff had access to all the materials in a source document, I also shared an email every day with links to serve as a reminder. Participants were provided with a reflection sheet to capture their thoughts and were told this was for them and not meant to be shared unless they wanted to share.

After we were finished, we scheduled debrief sessions with each group; along with setting up a separate debrief session in identity caucus groups.

What are some lessons learned / advice you can share about how you implemented the process?

Norinda: It never occurred to us to provide close captioning for the hearing impaired. We always provide an email address to a real person so that you can ask us a question or tell us about an accessibility need you have, but knowing what I know now close captioning should always be offered for any virtual meeting attended by the public. We did pay particular attention to learning styles and provided one video, one article, and one podcast for each daily topic.

A commitment to creating a quality experience for the community is critical. We pulled it off with a very short turnaround because the staff was so energized by this work that they did whatever it took to ensure its success. Having the right people at the table is key!

Olivia: To remove barriers to participation, we held the Challenge during the work week and asked supervisors and managers for their help in encouraging participation by allowing staff dedicated time to do the Challenge during their shifts. We also recognized that our field staff have limited access to computers and mostly use their work phones, so we printed out hard copies of the articles.

Next time we will build in weekly debrief sessions and have some of those ongoing sessions be in caucus. We are also considering recommending that participants have a “Challenge buddy” to help unpack things with during the Challenge that they might not want to do in a larger group debrief. Timing is also important. Our department’s busiest seasons are Spring / Summer, so we will implement the Challenge during the Winter when it is less of an impact on work projects.

Although I did review the materials before the launch, I still was not prepared for how emotional many of us would feel after engaging with some of the content. This was particularly true for people with lived experience as Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and LGBTQ+. When feeling triggered or emotional, it was difficult to transition into another work activity afterward. Intentionally building in time to pause, reflect, and for self-care will be important as we launch future Challenges.

Do you have any favorite activities or resources from the Challenge?

Norinda: My favorite thing about the Challenge was the music playlist we created on Spotify! We were one of the first to think of including it as another way to engage the community, and it worked! It helped us connect with a much younger crowd than we would have otherwise. I’ll never forget, Chris Tubig, Director of Operations for Tacoma Arts Live sent me a private message on LinkedIn saying, “I’m going to be honest. When I first saw that UWPC created a playlist I was expecting some corny list of songs that motivate Americans…and when I saw the list I felt like I was in a good place! Many of these songs inspired me throughout my life, and to imagine that an older white executive might be listening to Pac’s Keep Ya Head Up in their AirPods, and taking it seriously, makes my heart sing! Thank you, I’m excited to be a part of this with you!” As you can imagine, Chris and I made a powerful connection, and it was emblematic of the experience we were trying to create for each member of our community.

Olivia: There were a few activities that I really loved, for different reasons. Our first video (Jay Smooth – How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race) was a great one to start with because it framed the WHY about diversity, equity, and inclusion work so well. Racial equity awareness is a daily practice – not a destination. We watched a short video about stereotypes (Ken Tanaka - What Kind of Asian Are You?) that was informative and thought-provoking – and HILARIOUS. Another resource I really liked was a blog post about accountability (Dreaming Accountability by Mia Mingus) that explains accountability as a gift rather than something to be afraid of.

What was the overall outcome of the Challenge (i.e. initiatives, conversations, plans for another 21 Day Racial Equity Challenge)?

Norinda: We engaged 836 community members, the largest number of people to date for any event or activity hosted by UWPC.

After the surge in Asian hate crimes, we convened 11 Asian and Pacific Island community leaders to share our concerns and support. We asked them to tell us what was most important to them and implemented a 5-day AAPI Challenge in May 2021 that was largely informed by that collaboration.

As a Latina, I was invited to collaborate with the UWPC Equity Team and several Hispanic and Latin American Community leaders across the community to design and implement a 5-day Hispanic Heritage Challenge during Hispanic Heritage month and participate as one of four panelists in Perspectiva Latina: Sharing Our Stories with Community, a discussion with Latin American leaders. Spanish language interpretation was provided.

Olivia: For this pilot launch, there were 40 staff participants. We had a lot of “firsts”. It was the first time these work groups had gone through equity training together, it was the first time we engaged in deep and authentic conversation around racial equity, it was the first time we had shared language and understanding so that we could continue our conversations, and it was the first time we ever held identity caucus space. These were all significant steps in the right direction. We plan to launch the Challenge in early 2023 with our full department. There will also be a City-wide Challenge involving all of the other departments which will be facilitated and coordinated by our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Program Manager, our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator, and myself. There will also be a City-wide Challenge involving all of the other departments which will be facilitated and coordinated by our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Program Manager in Human Resources, our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator in the Assistant City Manager's Office, and myself.

If you would like to be part of the WRPA's Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Committee, visit our webpage.