Long-Standing Educational Equity Organization Pursuing Values Alignment & Program Growth
Case Study: Strategic Planning with a Nonprofit Organization
THE CLIENT:
Los Angeles Education Partnership (LAEP)
THE PLAYERS:
Staff of more than 60 individuals, Board, external stakeholders
THE big vision:
Integrated and liberatory “Diapers to Diplomas” educational programs through which children of every race, gender, socio-economic status, and ability are supported to become developmentally and academically prepared for success in school and in life
OUR SCOPE:
Strategic Planning with a racial equity process woven throughout; Organizational Design to support strategic plan implementation; Executive Coaching
THE OPPORTUNITY:
Expand Ways of Integrating Anti-Racism into the Internal Culture and Program Strategy
LAEP chose to work with GAC on strategic planning because our equity approach aligned with their values. Together, we practiced living out our preferred definition of equity as both an outcome and a process (Race Forward). This meant working with the LAEP team to hone their strategies so their programs can have more impact on kids, families, and educators (that is, equity as an outcome), while also applying shared equity principles to the way the entire strategic planning process was structured, for example, whose voices we centered (e.g., staff at every level of the organization), and how we communicated and interacted with one another (e.g., prioritizing authentic relationships, not transactional ones).
OUR IMPACT:
Modeling Expanded Ways of Integrating Equity Practices Internally and Amplifying Internal Expertise to Strengthen Impact on Educational Equity
We supported staff and board to engage in foundational racial equity discussions and learning circles on key equity topics, which is internal work their team is continuing as part of implementing their strategic plan. At every opportunity, we helped build LAEP’s capacity to lean into its existing internal resources—including staff and board with deep expertise around equity—to facilitate and shape the equity trainings and discussions.
As a result of our approach, we not only guided LAEP to develop frameworks and documents to guide their next three years of impact—a theory of change, organizational values, a refined vision, aspirational objectives and goals, and a strategy scorecard—but also shared experiential learning about how they can practice their equity values internally, such as through feedback loops with staff and consensus-based decision making.
P.S. We also guided LAEP to identify the organizational capabilities needed to implement their strategic plan and to try on alternative structures for internal staffing and collaboration.