Thought Leading: All Eyes on The Trustees

After a horrendous year of witnessing white supremacy rear its ugly head in so many [often televised and digitized] ways, ways in which all people could not deny its existence, the major question for 2021 is “what now”? 

What will people, organizations and institutions do with the irrefutable knowledge that white supremacy still wields the power to oppress People of Color and provide them a life with lesser realization of their rights in all aspects of American life? The answer is clear to us. White supremacy in all forms must be dismantled in order for a true democracy to thrive. We as a society must look at all levers of this mechanism and actively break it down to establish equity. Saying this is a much easier exercise than actually doing it. But there is an organization that we can look to for guidance in approach.

Last year in May, The Trustees of Reservations, the nation’s oldest land conservation nonprofit of its kind, also steward of most of the public land in Massachusetts, hired Ms. Janelle Woods-McNish to fill a newly-created position of Managing Director for Community Impact. She swiftly implemented a DBIE (Diversity, Belonging, Inclusion, Equity) lens into the organization and has been working to embed the model throughout the Trustee’s 116 properties and 27,000 acres, as well as the organization's own headquarters in Boston. 

DBIE is a model that all organizations and teams should learn about, adopt and consider adopting. It is a top-down approach that places a strategically high value on Equity by looking at an existing organizational structure from many perspectives and measuring it’s constructs against the environment that it serves, then makes adjustments to reflect complete equity in its approach to delivering to everyone within its target audience. This ensures that the offering is being successfully delivered to everyone. In the Trustees’ case, their audience is the entire population of Massachusetts and its global visitors (In FY2019, Massachusetts hosted 26.8 million domestic visitors. In CY2017, there were 2.5 million international visitors; 1.8 million came from overseas and 0.65 million from Canada). That’s a huge audience, one of Massachusetts largest, with an influential cultural reach.

Last week, Managing Director Janelle Woods-McNish, with Director of Longhill Jared Bowers, spoke with our Branch about the work the Trustees are doing. And it is nothing short of groundbreaking. While the concept of DBIE is not new (some research originates the concept’s beginnings in pedagogical theory applied to the desegregation efforts of the 1950’s), the fact that an organization as large and influential as the Trustees adopting it, is. Imagine if every company and institution in every sector actively adopted this approach.

So, what does DBIE actually mean? Read this blog that explains each of these concepts: https://www.cultureamp.com/blog/how-to-define-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-at-work/

Why is it important to have this filter in organizations? Because, if an organization has a product or service to provide to the public, which is directly the case for municipalities and non-profit organizations like The Trustees, then in order to successfully service everyone, these organizations must spend energy and focus to consider the different perspectives and dispositions from all the people who consume their product or service. This doesn’t just happen through an organic hiring process in a community that is over 90% white, the exact demographics of the North Shore, and much of Massachusetts. What usually winds up happening is a staff that is majority white take their posts with little to no consideration for People of Color and the resultant execution is bereft of consideration for those people. 

The Trustees here in Massachusetts, specifically here in the North Shore, protects and conserves hundreds of acres of public land that are to be open to the public, but in reality may not be perceived to be open and welcoming to all. Predominantly white spaces can absolutely be intimidating and unwelcoming for People of Color.

Throughout the year, this Branch has heard stories from its members, People of Color, who live in our community, who confess to feeling uncomfortable, or unwelcome, in our public spaces. Examples include: being asked what they are doing on a property when they are just walking, not feeling safe to walk a city street alone without the company of a white person, going for a run and being met with an unfriendly employee of the park that gives different treatment to the white person than to the Black person. 

The work that The Trustees is doing will help to dismantle the mechanisms of white supremacy that we see in our society, the very mechanisms that keep us segregated. It will invite an equitable lens and assessment of the history of these places, help to stop the white-only narrative that we may see in these spaces, and perhaps even replace what we have been leaving out for 400 years with a view to bring it all into focus.

Here in the North Shore, a predominantly white demographic (collective average 92% white population with average 2% black according to 2017 census data), we have been segregated for so long that we, even as individuals, largely operate without even acknowledging that this lens is absent, and as a result we foster practically no consideration for non-white American experiences residents may have. We quite literally leave them out of the story, as can be seen in the colonialist historical accounts of our public properties that rarely mention African American histories associated with these lands, leaving them as side notes, marginalized points of secondary information. This is changing, thanks to The Trustees.

An example of the work that The Trustees is doing in regards to reclaiming a sense of belonging for People of Color is the naming of its properties. Ms. Woods-McNish mentioned that The Trustees has developed a process to support consistent and transparent decision-making when a concern is raised with a property name. This new process includes a set of mission-aligned criteria for assessing the concern, information-gathering related to the history of the property and its acquisition, input from stakeholders, options for taking action (if merited) and external communication. This process is grounded in research, facts, a desire to take all viewpoints into consideration as well as our organization’s mission and values, which includes the organization’s commitment to Diversity Belonging Inclusion and Equity as it seeks to ensure that the Trustees works to create spaces that everyone can enjoy and feel welcomed.

While other organizations may not have millions of clients or millions of acres of property to share with the world, we argue that even small businesses can adopt their own DBIE lens, and they should do the work to understand what what might look like. 

Looking at equity in your hiring process is one way to begin. If you have 100% white employees, try to find a way to change that. Look at your supply chain and ask yourself if you are awarding business to any black-owned businesses. When you advertise your product or service, are you speaking to a white audience only? Together, we can move the dial so that everyone is welcome here.

Learn more about The Trustees.