Building a Community

Building a community of peers is one of the most efficient tools in advancing equity. As we know, this work, whether done as an individual or as an active endeavor through an organization or cohort, can be difficult for an array of reasons. One reason is the lack of a support network of like-minded individuals who are also dedicated and informed.  
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A community of supporters and collaborators can be found among peers within your organization, industry or affinity groups. At OpenTEAM, we have found that a successful way of driving and supporting change is establishing small groups, or “huddles”,  who meet regularly to share ideas, feedback, and resources. 

Equity Huddles

Huddles are weekly group meetings with individuals from partnering organizations where equity topics such as current work, challenges, open questions can be discussed and shared organically. Often huddles are facilitated by someone who is already an equity practitioner, guide, or DEI professional who is well versed in issues of systemic inequity. This is a good opportunity to hire BIPOC practitioners. Included below are guidelines for establishing huddles, including objectives, logistics, facilitation, and outcomes. We have taken a broad approach but each huddle group should be tailored to the participants and their collective objectives.

Objectives of Huddle Groups

As you establish a huddle, you want to have a general idea of the objectives. Specific objectives should be agreed upon during the first meeting with all participants. 

Common huddle objectives include: 

• Sharing content, ideas, and resources relevant to equity in practice
• Creating personal connections between individuals and organizations on their equity journey
• Providing a safe space for self-reflection, discussion, and feedback

Other huddle groups have also gone a level deeper to include objectives such as:

• Understanding (and potentially influencing) how policy is changing
• Providing a space to identify and elevate the best solutions, a way to lift up and amplify those doing this work
• Looking at broad issues of equity and how to bring this lens to research, membership, governance, etc across many arenas 

Additionally, some groups may want to aim for specific outcomes or deliverables. Examples include:

• Commentary on legislation (USDA Comments), white papers
• Tools for how to engage with organizations (how to work with them, listen, enter into conversations, creating space) – comfort and ability to have space
• Feedback on specific challenges for huddle members 

Facilitation of Huddle Groups

There are many different ways to facilitate these spaces, but here are some things to keep in mind:

• If possible, hire an expert facilitator, DEI professional, and/or someone well versed in equity in practice
• To support psychological safety as facilitators, understanding issues from a systems lens is important as it acknowledges that perspectives are deeply seeded in systems.  Bringing it back to that allows for more focused dialogue on the systems that are often inherently inequitable rather than the individual
• Create a space where everyone feels comfortable collaborating, contributing, listening, and sharing
• Remember it is behaviors and systems we are addressing, not individuals
• If guests are invited to participate, ensure they have the context, objectives, and norms for the group setting the expectation they honor them
• Facilitators also need to have their own support system, therefore making sure to make space for that also

OpenTEAM begins each meeting with:

• A grounding exercise such as stretching, meditation, or a moment of quiet reflection
• A brief check-in where everyone takes a turn sharing their current frame of mind 
• Agreement on (or state with clarity) the purpose of the huddle group on that particular day

During each meeting:

• Pay attention to who may have been cut off or seeming to want to share and make space for them
• Create artifacts (documents, Murals) that can be shared for further reflection outside of the meeting and as a place to share thoughts, ideas
• Bring the conversation back to systems, accountability, positionality and access etc
• Create a “parking lot” - a list of topics that need to be addressed but are not the focus of the current conversation

Logistics of Huddle Groups

When launching a huddle, have in mind the frequency and duration you hope to keep the group together as well as format and supporting tools. 

• Agree to a regular cadence and date, i.e. every other Thursday at 9am ET. In our experience, 45 minutes provides time for check in and topical discussion, but feel free to go longer. Shorter is not recommended. 
• Agree to a duration or natural transition point, i.e. let’s meet for a quarter, six months, a year. This can be revisited but helps in long-term planning for members
• Create a platform for collaboration and support of huddle members , i.e. Teams channel, Slack channel, Hylo platform
• Agree as a group on format - conference call, video, in person. Use norms (see below) if needed to honor that agreement.
• Send out an agenda in advance of the meeting so participants can know what to expect and be prepared with any pre-work 

Meeting norms

Meeting norms are the standards you agree to for working together positively and productively as a group. They provide guidelines for behavior and engagement among individuals.  

Best practices in establishing and using meeting norms:

• Establish meeting norms as a group at the outset of working together.  
• The list should be manageable, no more than 5-8.  
• Use language that is relevant and meaningful to your group
• Remind the group of norms before each meeting; create a flip-chart on the wall or a page to share in presentations to re-ground everyone in the norms. 
• Agree to a process to ensure norms are followed and how to resolve when they are not.

• Assume positive intentions of others
• Be present and do you best to participate consistently (i.e. minimizing multi-tasking, camera on for virtual meetings, no side conversations)
• Respect the time and space of others
• No judgment zone, all opinions are valued
• Prepare to be open, vulnerable, and a little unformattable
• What happens here stays here, keep conversations confidential within the group
• Be solutions oriented (as opposed to focusing on why it won’t be successful)

Tool Collaboration

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