When crisis hits, how will you respond?
Pandemics. Forest fires. Racial violence. Protests. Whatever you are facing in your community, at your organization, we offer this tool to support you in finding a productive path forward.
We originally created this tool in light of the events surrounding the murder of George Floyd. In June of 2020, many organizations felt compelled to take a stand against racist violence and white supremacy. But what should they do? What might be meaningful and not just performative? What actions might serve people impacted inside the organization, as well as communities around it?
We built this tool to help you have these conversations. It's not June of 2020 anymore. But the challenges continue - as well as the opportunities for organizations to stand up and stand with communities in crisis.
We recommend thinking about action in response to a crisis or moment of outrage in four quadrants: external/immediate, external/longer term, internal/immediate, and internal/longer term. When you chart actions in each of these categories, you'll build a meaningful path forward.
How to do it
This tool is best used in a 1-2 hour team meeting directly following a moment of crisis. To get started:
- Book a meeting with people who are in a position to make decisions about institutional actions. Ideally, this is a group that includes people who may be highly impacted and/or informed about the crisis, as well as people who have the power to implement ideas raised.
- Download this google slide you can use to map external and internal actions you might take, in the immediate and long-term.
- As a group, spend time brainstorming ideas in each quadrant: external/immediate, external/longer term, internal/immediate, and internal/longer term.
- Discuss what you can commit to. Set goals, owners, and a timeframe for completion or follow-through.
- As you discuss your commitments, consider:
- Your organization might be particularly well-positioned to act on some ideas and not on others. You may have specific assets you can creatively redeploy to support the impacted community, or you may be able to move quickly on some things but get stuck on others. When in doubt, prioritize the ideas that are most important to the people most impacted by the issue, and most achievable.
- Long-term change is ultimately more valuable that short-term reaction. Some organizations may not be able to mobilize immediately. While that can be disappointing, it's also worth considering whether you can commit to a longer-term action that might have more lasting impact than an immediate public statement.
- In the immediate, you may be best-served to focus internally on actions that center people in your organization who are highly impacted right now. Moments like these may start outside your organization, but they affect your internal team too. Some staff members may feel alone, unsafe, or re-traumatized if there is no internal response to a major issue their community is facing. It can feel disheartening or harmful if you do something externally "for the community" that is not coupled with internal support for your own staff, volunteers, and partners.
- When it comes to internal actions, not everything has to be a policy change that is vetted through the entire organization. Many internal actions can be done individually, colleague to colleague. If your organization is not taking action, you still can. It will strengthen relationships and set you up for the work ahead.
Example: an action map for racial equity
Here's a sample action map we developed in June 2020 in response to the calls for racial justice. Some of these actions we took internally as an organization, and some were actions we saw other nonprofit organizations and OF/BY/FOR ALL Change Network members take.
Let's make change possible
Your map will be unique to the specific moment you are facing, in your community, at your organization. Moments of outrage and crisis can feel overwhelming. But they are also opportunities for us to unlearn harmful practices and radically imagine new ones. When you build a map for external and internal response, you’ll feel more equipped when these moments arise. And you’ll set yourself up to build an organization that is more responsive, resilient, and supportive of your communities, inside and out.