Mar 12, 2023

In this section:

This ten-week professional development program is designed with Kendall Square Association members in mind (though many outside Kendall have taken and valued the course). The program focuses on building anti-racist organizations by providing foundational learning to individuals and guiding a team through equity-centered action planning. 

Inclusion Drives Innovation (IDI) participants receive:

  • Effective training and culture building for staff at any level of your organization. The IDI experience is collaborative, with networking spaces that promote learning and the sharing of experiences across roles and companies.   
  • A dynamic experience for teams to learn and collaborate together. The IDI experience focuses on the individual and the team, increasing individual and team capacity, providing each participant with a strong foundation in anti-racism. This work fosters personal growth, builds awareness of oppressive systems, and pushes participants to practice disrupting them.
  • Access to a large and purpose-driven alumni community. IDI alumni – 400+ employees from 70+ organizations – convene regularly, share resources and best practices, and support each other in pushing this critical work forward. 

98% of participants felt satisfied or delightfully satisfied with this course.

What to Expect

The IDI experience centers on individual and team capacity building. The program is virtual; learning takes place via Zoom. (The final session may be in-person.) Participants can expect to:

  • Increase individual capacity, providing each participant with a strong foundation in antiracism, which leads to personal growth and awareness of oppressive systems.
  • Build collective capacity, equipping teams with frameworks to analyze their own organization and the time, space, and support necessary to craft anti-racist action plans.
  • Expand professional networks in spaces that promote learning and the sharing of experiences across roles and companies. 

Inclusion Drives Innovation has two parts:

Part I: Your personal anti-racist learning journey

Part II: Assessing your own organization and then developing an action plan for improvement using three different frameworks for:

  • Individuals and/or teams at companies early in their DEI journey
  • Individuals and/or teams at companies that are engaged deeply in DEI work
  • Individual contributors with a focus on their own roles and spheres of influence
Facilitator Information

Session Dates and Course Content (Spring 2023)

  • The program kicks off on March 29 and runs through June 7
  • Participants will meet every Wednesday for 10 weeks. There will be no session on April 19.
  • Sessions are 90 minutes in length, meeting from 9:30 – 11:00 a.m.
  • Participants complete homework between sessions – resources (readings, videos, podcast excerpts, and more) and reflection that frame and support the next session’s focus.
  • Participants have the option of completing the Intercultural Development Inventory. If desired, every participant can engage in a personalized debrief and coaching session with a member of the facilitation team.

Course content covers the following topics:

  • Vision-Building: Collaborative goal setting will be done numerous times throughout the course, including in action planning.
  • Power and Privilege: Discuss power and privilege and the way these impact us differently.
  • Intent and Impact: Discuss the difference between intent and impact, particularly in the aftermath of learning we have caused harm.
  • Voices: Explore the idea of voices — voices in power, voices unheard, voices in the media, and voices in crisis — and how they impact one another.
  • White Supremacy Culture: Examine White Supremacy Culture, in its overt and covert forms, its pervasive elements, and the ways it shows up in work environments.
  • Intersectionality: Examine identity through an intersectional lens. How do our identities layer and influence each other? 
  • Collective Organizing: Explore themes of change, including organizing the collective to enact change.
  • Conversations that Matter: Identify conversations that matter, how to hold space for them, and how to move forward from them well.
  • Ally, Advocate, Accomplice: Examine different roles folks from groups in power can hold in advancing the belonging of people from marginalized groups.

How You’ll Engage

The IDI experience is collaborative, with networking spaces that promote learning and the sharing of experiences across job functions and sectors. Participants spend time in breakout groups, organized by seniority level and function, and working groups, which focus on developing an action plan for their organization.

Who Will Be There

IDI is effective for staff at any level of the organization. The IDI experience is collaborative, with networking spaces that promote learning and the sharing of experiences across job functions and sectors. We encourage multiple employees from your organization to participate to create shared language, insights, and action plans. 

Pricing

  • KSA Members: $2,000 per person
  • Non-Members: $3,000 per person

We recommend registering multiple participants from your organization to maximize impact. The program costs $2,000 per person for KSA member organizations and $3,000 per person for non-member organizations. Groups of four or more from a particular organization receive a 10% discount. Please note that seating is limited. Reserve your seats now for the Spring 2023 offering, which is scheduled to start on March 29, 2023.

For nonprofit pricing, please reach out for more information on reduced rate participation.

Refund Policy

Because we must limit participation to ensure a high quality program, we cannot offer full refunds after an individual has enrolled. 

  • KSA will grant a 50% refund for cancellations received more than one month prior to the program start date. No refund will be granted for cancellations received after that time. 
  • Organizations may replace an individual who needs to cancel with a different individual from the same organization for no fee prior to the program start date. 
  • Organizations may choose to defer participant enrollment to the next program offered.
  • 10% bulk discounts will only be applied to participants who are enrolled in the same session.

Do you need additional information?

Contact Adriana Rios at adriana@kendallsquare.org