Design X Equity
Shifting from independent strategist, shifting to long-term sustainable changemakers by design.
Equity Driven Design
In our Design X Equity model, clients engage in evidence-based diagnostic and feedback protocols auditing organizational culture, climate, management, and outcomes. Ultimately, we seek to redesign our systems to answer: how do we ensure ACCESS vs. SERVICES in an existing infrastructure as designed?
These experiences are curated to enhance the expected outcomes of the focused scope of job-embedded training, the effectiveness of the organization’s improvement plan, and implementation strategies to support scalable organization redesign. The observations outlined in data analysis reports will provide the structure for a concise and consistent focus on clear equity metrics. Specific direction will be given to address gaps and provide tools for improvement that link effective practices to desired outcomes. Through a series of action learning cycles, we will analyze your organization’s artifacts including mission/ vision statements, audit them against existing stakeholder experiences, and cocreate system infrastructure for value alignment metrics tailored to redesigning your organization towards equity-driven practices.
Meet Our 2023 Design X Equity Cohort Participants + 2022 Alumni
Shift from cultivating a team of short-term strategist to long-term changemakers
Our approach is focused on shifting from cultivating individuals and teams of short-term strategists shifting to long-term change-makers by design. In this model, we work to support scalable systematic change management through focused support on organization infrastructure.
Our work is a response to the high turnover rate of individual practitioners. A recent study shows nearly "60% of Chief Diversity Officers (CDO) who held their positions in 2018 have since left their roles. The majority of them have left the CDO track altogether. Their departure from the field created a kind of lack of knowledge. The cost of high turnover for all CDO positions is "exponential" because of not only the "cost of replacing someone hired...(but) the message it sends, the loss of reputation, mistrust or fear it might engender, particularly in the minds of members of minority groups.
Design X Equity leverages and reimagines traditional design practices and processes by redesigning frameworks that are sustained beyond the tenure of an employee. Individual strategy leaders (i.e. CDOs, Equity Officers, etc.) are not sufficient to sustain the work of effective DEIA in organizational systems: they need teams and conditions that allow the work to thrive. The cost of CDO burnout produces compounded harm for all stakeholders. Thus, Clients in this model will be trained and calibrated on equity-responsive Look Fors in systematic processes to develop an action plan with implementation measures to sustain the capacity-building framework. We build teams and systems to cultivate a sustainable culture of equitable practice that is reinforced by the policies and metrics that align with the experience level of stakeholders.
