Following George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis in June 2020, NCG pivoted quickly to consider how we could prioritize racial equity in all aspects of our work in meaningful and nonperformative ways. Since 2018, NCG has been working with TMI Consulting to make equity, belonging, inclusivity and accessibility (EBIA) improvements internally, and we’ve encouraged co-ops to measure and improve diversity metrics through sustainability reporting since we debuted our Co+efficient program in 2015. Now, with direction from NCG’s board of directors, we are deepening our efforts to engage our co-op community and foster collaboration on DEI concepts and goals.
Investments in building an equitable food system
NCG’s advocacy guidelines, established by our members, have long directed us to advocate for the fair treatment of people in our food system, as well as sustainable agriculture, a healthy environment and cooperatives. Now, in recognition that there can be no environmental justice or sustainable food system without economic justice and racial equity, we are prioritizing these goals in all of the advocacy work we do.
In 2020, we contributed to the work of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives and the Agricultural Justice Project. We also continued our investment in the work of National Farm to School Network (NFSN), whose call to action is “By 2025, 100% of communities will hold power in a racially just food system.” NFSN, like NCG, is a historically white-led organization that has pivoted to prioritize racial equity in the food system and, having a mission that is well-aligned with that of NCG food co-ops, is a powerful ally that also seeks to address the root causes of community food insecurity and not just the symptoms. You can learn more about all of these partnerships in our December 2020 press release. NCG will continue to prioritize funding for BIPOC-led organizations and initiatives by historically white-led organizations that improve racial equity in 2021 and beyond.
NCG’s EBIA roadmap
NCG began our own intentional EBIA journey several years ago, when we invested in hiring TMI Consulting to work with NCG’s leadership team and staff. Like many co-ops, we didn’t have staff with expertise in this area. Knowing that pursuing cultural change is often difficult, and that EBIA work in particular should be time consuming if done well (progress must be thoughtful and deliberate), we knew we needed help.
TMI helped us identify our current strengths and areas of opportunity, ultimately presenting NCG with an “EBIA roadmap” that we then turned into a project plan and have been chipping away at, and adding to, ever since.
One of the first things we did was provide training for NCG staff at our last all staff meeting, held in 2019. We spent a day working on identifying and addressing internal bias, microaggressions and familiarizing staff with diversity, equity and inclusion concepts and goals. In 2020, we provided a stipend for every staff member to invest in the purchase of books to better understand racism and white supremacy. (Check out and share our book list, which now includes books co-ops recommended in our survey!) We extend this offer to all new staff when they are hired.
We also created an employee EBIA committee, whose members chose the name Co+inclusive. The committee’s role is to create recommendations and proposals for NCG’s leadership team that relate to EBIA work they believe our organization should pursue. One of the first proposals the committee made was that NCG should develop a supplier diversity program, a proposal that was approved and a staff member has been redirected to lead development of this program.
Having begun our own internal EBIA work, we are now embarking on a multi-year project to improve racial equity in co-op communities.
Engaging co-ops in dialogue and collaboration
In 2018, NCG conducted consumer research that indicated food co-ops have a significant opportunity to better serve the needs of people of color in our communities, and we believe there is great opportunity to expand our supply chain to work with more BIPOC-owned companies.
In order to open a dialogue with NCG food co-ops around EBIA work, we conducted a survey to begin to assess the current state of EBIA goals and concepts within our co-op community. We fielded the survey between October and December 11, 2020, and plan to share results at the 2021 Spring Meeting for NCG designated representatives, after which we will make results available to all co-op staff on NCG’s website. Thank you to all the co-ops that participated in this first effort to collect data, insight and ideas, and for your appetite for this work in our community. We are pleased to report that we have a wealth of information, expertise and experiences within our network, including some very diverse co-ops doing an excellent job of connecting with and serving diverse communities.
Recognizing that co-ops, and each of us as individuals, are facing extraordinary pressures from all sides, we will be providing more opportunities and different avenues for co-ops to connect with each other, provide insight and feedback into our collective EBIA work. We are planning to begin hosting listening sessions and peer learning opportunities summer 2021.
