“This is a long term, comprehensive, change-management effort that takes time, resources and a willingness to shift your policies, practices and procedures.”
– Black Women Thriving Report: 2022
After multifaceted research, exacting survey design, hours of focus groups, and surveying over 1400 Black women, Ericka Hines and her team at Every Level Leads have published the Black Women Thriving Report. They call it a blueprint for organizational change.
Black women and Black gender expansive folks: please just read the findings and recommendations, See what resonates with you. Breathe.
Everyone else: Get this report into your organizations and communities.
Here’s how each of us can expand the reach of Ericka’s work:
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- Read the report.
- Share on social media by tagging @blackwomenthriving on IG and using #blackwomenthriving #BWT.
- Attend a data briefing where Ericka will share top findings and recommendations from the report each month throughout the summer. The first one is this Thursday, June 23rd!
- Share the report with colleagues and communities.
- Advocate for the implementation of the recommendations within your organization and community so that the report does not get filed away without action.
In the report itself, Ericka and co-lead researcher Dr. Mako Fitts Ward share strategies for thriving that organizations can implement. These strategies focus on access to mentorship and sponsorship opportunities, promotion, compensation and earning potential, work performance and job satisfaction, connectedness and trust, burnout, and belonging.
They suggest reading through the recommendations together with colleagues – a DEI team, leadership team, an employee resource group or affinity group – to get a sense of which recommendations resonate and complement the trajectory of your organization’s growth. From there, they suggest inquiries that can help shape your organization’s planning and implementation. The beautiful thing is that its all right there in the report.
The recommendations are not “plug and play.” They require imagination, initiative, and commitment, like all culture change does.
Ericka and the Black Women Thriving Team Have Done Their Work. Now, It’s Our Turn.
At Inclusive Life, we talk so much about aligned action. With this report, moving into aligned action is straight forward. The blue print is here and it’s ours to build something with it.
Each of us has our own unique spheres of influence. Without you bringing this guide out into your spheres, the work will not have the impact it could.
Let’s move the Black Women Thriving Project out into the world together.
