Our Greenlight Process
Striving to make
intentional decisions
Our vision is to shift power and resources to BIPOC communities and other communities that have historically been kept furthest from resources and power. To achieve this vision, we strive to intentionally use our influence to disrupt narratives, norms, decisions, and behaviors that perpetuate inequities. We strive to center racial equity in everything we do.
We go through a greenlight process to make intentional decisions about what work we take on. Here’s what that process looks like and why we do it.
To help us prioritize which opportunities to pursue, our team uses a participatory decision-making process with staff of all levels to screen new business opportunities. In this process, we consider our team’s skills, expertise, and interest and how well each opportunity aligns with our organizational values, especially pursuing equity and inclusion. Some of the questions we ask include the following:
- Is there an opportunity to redistribute power and resources in this work? For example, is there an opportunity to use participatory practices that engage and center people who have historically been kept furthest from power and resources?
- How would we center racial equity, and how would the partner do so?
- Are we and the partner aware of how former ways of working may have contributed to systemic inequities and caused harm, and are we both willing to repair that harm and work in more equitable ways?
- Does the opportunity align with our team’s talents, racial equity competencies, interests, and availability?
- Is another organization better positioned to do this work than us?
We have found that taking this intentional process has led to deeper conversations among our team and with our partners. Sometimes it involves more than one conversation with potential clients to help us better understand the opportunity. These conversations have helped us clarify the impact we want to have, be more explicit with potential partners about what they can expect from us, and set a solid foundation for our work together.
We say yes to some opportunities and no to others. We commit to being transparent about why we decide not to pursue some opportunities, whether it be about capacity constraints, budget constraints, or alignment with our focus on shifting power and centering racial equity and inclusion in any work we do.
OUR COMMITMENT TO RACIAL EQUITY
We’ve been on a journey since 2015 to center racial equity in our work.