Strategic Consulting & Design Services
Customized consulting and liberatory design facilitation for education leaders and organizations.
Belonging is where people co-create the future together.
john a. powell
Othering and Belonging Institute
Equity Strategies By Design
The National Equity Project offers a unique approach for supporting leaders to tackle complex problems and make concrete progress on their equity challenges. Leveraging our transdisciplinary Leading for Equity™ Framework, this planning and design process facilitates a group’s ability to assess their current state, learn and level-set together, design or redesign elements of their systems, implement their designs, and monitor/evaluate any impact toward their equity north star.
Whether you’re looking to create a more equitable student experience, developing an instructional approach that accelerates learning for those situated furthest from opportunity, building a family and community engagement process that is asset-based, or devising and implementing policies and practices that interrupt disproportionate rates of suspension and expulsion, we can help you to navigate the complexity of your equity situation and support you to engage in purposeful leadership action.
Most of us are accustomed to leading and being led from the “outside-in,” where the drivers of our actions are external requirements, hierarchical authority, and requisite programs to implement. When it comes to complex equity challenges - to which there are no step-by-step manuals, and which stretch us cognitively, relationally, and emotionally - this approach is inadequate. The National Equity Project offers an “inside-out” approach to leadership development that creates a different set of possibilities for how to approach equity work.
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This initial stage involves gathering data about the organization, institution, or collective effort, including mapping the local context and the current state of equity.
Activities include:
Identifying the various sources of knowledge, experience and expertise related to the equity challenge, initializing a network of diverse stakeholders that can contribute to the mapping process.
Pattern identification to surface and describe recurring themes and patterns in the data gathered, and uses these to develop a set of initial hypotheses about the challenge.
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This stage is about deepening the group’s collective understanding and analysis of the systemic and structural challenges that currently create inequitable conditions. Facilitated learning experiences are designed to support leaders to explore the effects of racism and other forms of oppression on institutional/systemic policies and practices, and to develop new insights and understanding of the skills and dispositions needed to lead in complex systems or to lead complex projects.
Activities include:
Conducting safe-to-fail probes: identifying small, low-risk experiments that can be carried out to test the initial hypotheses, see the system and sense what’s happening, and gain a better understanding of the problem.
Identifying individual and collective leadership goals/aspirations as well as the organizational challenge the team feels committed to interrogating and for which they’d like to take action.
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This involves developing strategies (not a plan) for creating a more equitable and inclusive organization, institution, or collective effort. Designs are based on the data gathered in the Discovery and Current State Assessment, as well as the learning/level-setting that is taking place.
Activities focus on co-creating new approaches using Liberatory Design. Through collaboration with a diverse group of stakeholders, new approaches and solutions are developed that take into account the complex and dynamic nature of the problem in a complex system.
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Implementation involves putting the inquiry and learning into action. It may involve making changes to policies, practices, and procedures.
It could also include scaling up successful experiments (moving from prototype to pilot). Based on the results of the safe-to-fail experiments, larger and more ambitious experiments can be carried out in order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the problem and potential solutions.
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Once a solution has been implemented, ongoing monitoring and adaptation is necessary in order to ensure that it remains effective in the face of changing circumstances and new information. This involves tracking the progress of the plan and making adjustments as needed.
Our strategic consulting services include the following components:
Sample Project Sequence
Partner Readiness
We work in close partnership with our clients, and are committed to the success, sustainability, efficacy and impact of this work. In considering potential partnerships, we are specifically seeking clients who fulfill one or all of the following criteria:
You are committed to systems change, and are ready to do some design or re-design work
You are prepared to designate and staff a design team to lead the design work in collaboration with NEP
You have done some equity learning already (either via NEP’s Center for Equity Leadership or another provider) and are ready to apply that learning to an equity challenge in your ecosystem
You are in need of equity strategy support and are ready to articulate a theory of change/theory of action to guide your design work.
Outcomes & Impacts
As a result of engaging in a Strategic Consulting and Design initiative with the National Equity Project, we aim for our clients to:
Make meaning of their current state, and desired future state, with a set of stakeholders
Feel greater connection and a sense of community, as they move toward a desired shared purpose
Do some inside-out work; activate a shared commitment to take leadership for equity and systems change
Feel increased agency and confidence in their equity and systems change leadership
Learn about a set of foundational concepts, frameworks, and models in each of the three disciplines of our Leading for Equity Framework (Equity, Complexity, Design), and feel confident in their ability to connect ideas throughout the disciplines
Learn and embody the mindsets and modes of Liberatory Design, and complete at least one design cycle
Be able to narrow in on a focused dimension of systems or narrative change for which Liberatory Design will be applied
Become adept at noticing and reflecting in a collaborative structure.
Delivery Method
Service delivery includes in-person facilitation and engagement as well as virtual options. 1:1 coaching is primarily delivered through phone or Zoom but can be delivered in person if location permits.
Asynchronous virtual learning opportunities are in development for future engagements.
Staffing
Projects are generally staffed by a team of at least two National Equity Project staff members with attention to diversity across identity (race, gender, age, etc).
Contact Us
To learn more about engaging our Strategic Consulting and Design services, please contact info@nationalequityproject.org.