Accountability
“Happy New Year!” Collective Justice Consulting (CJC) is 2 years old!
To absolutely out myself as nerd and geek I’m going to reference Tolkien and say that it’s more than just a new year, WE just survived an Age. One that began in 2016, culminating in the dark period that was 2020-2022 (2020 too). It would not serve us to recap this dark period; there are not enough words, in any language, to capture the pain, grief and realities endured by our most vulnerable. A period marked by a global pandemic, multiple natural disasters, violent riots and war. (If you are from the future and want to know how we coped, here are some banner memes.)
An “Age”
Collage of memes that refer to the years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 as 2019, 2020,2020WON, 2020TOO respectively. This is over another meme depicting a timeline from 2010 through 2022 in groupings as follows:
2010 to 2014 - nostalgia
2015 to 2019 - 2016
2020 to 2022 - plague
Memes using inaccurate references to periods of time to highlight a period of unprecedented turmoil and natural disasters.
That tumultuous dark period was a catalyst, sparking unprecedented acknowledgement of decades of anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchy organizing by activists and community organizers. CJC's vision, in this global context, was and is to figure out how to Be Better. Do Better. Do it Together.
As a team we were able to:
Support the work of 4 organizations. All led by people of color, living, working and serving within their communities. All challenging the status quo, working in collective with a vision of equity, liberation and healing.
Partner with a research team to develop, implement and report back on a community assessment survey on the safety of LGBTQ people in New York State.
Partner with a local school district to design and deliver professional development opportunities (for a full academic year!) on creating affirming and accepting environments for LGBTQ+ people. In particular, the youth in their care.
Facilitate 40+ workshops on topics like Conflict Resolution, Equity & Accountability, Ethical and values-based Fundraising, Donor Cultivation, impactful grant writing/storytelling, LGBTQ+ rights, & Racial Justice, Health Equity and the impact of prejudice and discrimination on minority health.
Design a training manual to assist Queer and Trans incarcerated folks to advocate for themselves within the carceral system.
We are so in awe of our clients and proud of our collective work. Together we:
Provided 1 on 1 leadership coaching for Founders/Executive Directors, Board Members and other staff in leadership
Worked with key program staff to develop and implement Monitoring & Evaluation systems to improve service delivery, improve resource allocation, and create an evidence-base to drive further development/program expansion, and advocate for additional financial investment in successful projects (i.e. fundraising).
Developed a bespoke manual and supporting tools and systems for their Monitoring & Evaluation process;
Created bespoke organizational tools to capture each unique client’s operations (these tools serve multiple purposes, not the least of which to use when talking to funders.)
Participated in the securing of over $400,000 in funding with our clients.
In line with our values, we commit to creating a generic version of everything we develop with our clients to be available FOR FREE on our website. As well, if there is already something brilliant created by another organization that is out there, and we know about it- we will direct you to that too!
And lastly, we got famous. Okay - I’m a ham, and here are some of our public achievements:
2022 Orange County Human Rights Conference
Design Justice Member Feature: kk naimool
Mid Hudson Arts Anti-Racism Cohort
Dutchess County Human Rights Commission Panel: Hate Crime: What It Is and Is Not: A Panel Discussion
TRANSFORMING HEALTHCARE: A GUIDE TO BEST PRACTICES IN LGBTQIA+ CULTURAL COMPETENCY TRAINING
In all seriousness, talking about our work openly and publicly is part of how we hold ourselves accountable to our values, our ethics, our learning, and unlearning… Some of the tools we use to inform our work are the Principles and Elements of Emergent Strategy and the Design Justice Principles.
Call us out. We’re not perfect.
