We Center Equity Across All Dimensions of Our Work
At Sewall we understand equity to mean: Processes that heal, correct unjust conditions and structures, and create conditions for fair access to power, resources, and opportunities. Above all, it’s how power operates.
As a learning organization, we listen to our communities and philanthropic partners, while continuing to acknowledge past harm we’ve caused, and reaffirm our commitment to healing. Here we share the Equity Principles that guide us, an overview of our Equity Journey, and equity resources that we’ve found helpful in this work.
Equity Principles
The Sewall Foundation will center equity in everything it does in order to achieve social and economic justice.
Equity requires explicitly acknowledging that colonialism, structural racism, and patriarchal ideology have created structural systems of oppression.
Equity acknowledges and seeks to repair the cumulative harm caused by unjust extractive, exploitative, and exclusionary policies, and systems to populations in Maine, such as Black, Indigenous, People of Color, rural Mainers, and women.
Equity requires taking bold and consistent actions to achieve shared social, economic, and structural power.
Equity is possible only when solutions to structural problems are created in collaboration with the impacted communities.
Equity is possible when the interconnections between human, animal, and environmental wellbeing are honored, supported, and mutually beneficial.
Resources
The more we learn about equity, the more we know that we have so much more to learn. Here are some tools that have helped us along the way:
For a good glossary of terms, check out Racial Equity Tools.
For a guide on making changes that go beyond diversity, download and spend some time with Power Moves.
One article that helped us challenge our inequitable internal systems and structures was Tema Okun’s treatment of White Supremacist Culture.
An article that has helped us appreciate the role that structures play in entities big and small is Ideas Arrangements Effects: Systems Design and Social Justice.
The Justice Framework has been a good resource for our work.
We highly recommend Decolonizing Wealth and anything/everything by Vu Le.
This short piece about racism and intent and impact articulates how good intentions are not enough.