Anti-Racism Transformation
The call for community volunteer applications has passed, but here is information about ARTT:
Kalamazoo Community Foundation’s (KZCF) vision is a community where every person can reach full potential. As we see it, a community where every person can reach full potential is one in which identities such as race and ethnicity are not predictors of an individual’s ability to live a high-quality, self-determined life.
To transform our organization and community by dismantling racism, and to be more accountable to people who are historically underrepresented, the Community Foundation is creating an Anti-Racism Transformation Team (ARTT). This work is being done in partnership with ERACCE (Eliminating Racism and Creating/Celebrating Equity) and Crossroads Antiracism Organizing and Training.
What is the ARTT?
The ARTT team will provide essential leadership in designing the process to becoming an antiracist institution, and will ensure accountability toward this goal. The team will be a cohort of leaders from both within the Community Foundation and from the external community charged with:
- Researching KZCF policies, practices and behaviors
- Identifying and revealing the ways racism is inherent within and perpetuated by the structure of our organization
- Leading the organization to correct/eliminate racist policies, practices and behaviors
- Fostering the internal growth and transformation of our organization by securing the training, skills, and technology needed to empower, board, staff and volunteers to dismantle racism inside our institution
- Harnessing the oppurtunity for leadership inherent in our position in the community to work to dismantle racism beyond our own walls.