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About Us

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Welcome to the Racial Equity Tools website! 

 

Equity In The Center (EIC) is delighted to share that we have adopted Racial Equity Tools (RET)! As RET celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2024, EIC is honored to lead the next phase of expansion and advancement of RET’s comprehensive site.

 

RET is built to support individuals and groups working to advance racial equity and justice on every level - systems, organizations, communities, and the culture at large. It provides tools, research, tips, and curricula for individuals and groups working to build their knowledge and to support those working for racial justice. We curate resources that use language and analysis that reflects an understanding of systemic racism, power, and privilege. These resources are accessible online and free to our users. With RET’s transition to EIC, the Transforming White Privilege curriculum, a legacy resource, will now be fully managed by World Trust Educational Services as of 1/25/24.

 

Founded in 2009 by Maggie Potapchuk of MP Associates, Sally Leiderman and Stephanie Halbert Jones from the Center for Assessment and Policy Development (CAPD), and Shakti Butler from World Trust Educational Services, RET has continually evolved to meet user and movement needs. In 2013, RET merged with evaluationtoolsforracialequity.org and racialequitylearning.org, expanding its resources from fundamentals to evaluation. In 2020, with support from funders, partners, and users, the website migrated to a new platform, introducing enhanced search functions, an increase to 98 categories, and more interactive graphics for an improved user experience.

 

EIC is honored to continue the work of RET’s original co-founders. The decision to transition RET to EIC is grounded in deep values alignment, dating back to EIC’s inception. As EIC absorbs RET’s newsletter curation and site management, RET is poised for maximum reach and impact with the addition of a sustainable staffing structure. In light of the current attacks on ‘DEI’ work, this adoption comes at an especially opportune time for us to deepen and widen RET’s work and reach.. 

 

The RET site is only possible because of the continued support of all the organizations and groups working to achieve racial equity; their resources contribute to the site’s comprehensiveness. We encourage you to visit their websites and learn more about their work. 

 

As always, we welcome your feedback (info@racialequitytools.org) and invite you to 

submit resources. Keep an eye out for a RET community survey in mid-February, and let us know how we can ensure that RET’s curated content continues to meet your organizing, research, and learning needs while remaining user-friendly.

 

If you are a new user, we are excited to have you join the community. If you are a returning user, welcome back! Please sign up for RET’s newsletter so that you receive curated racial justice resources 6–8 times a year. And, connect with fellow users on our Facebook page.

 

In Solidarity,

 

Equity in the Center

“If you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have a moral obligation to do something about it.”

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~ Congressman John Lewis

Our Mission & Goals

Racial Equity Tools is designed to support individuals and groups working to achieve racial equity. This site offers tools, research, tips, curricula, and ideas for people who want to increase their own understanding and to help those working for racial justice at every level – in systems, organizations, communities, and the culture at large.

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Gratitude to the team and our supporters for the RET Update 2020

The Team for the RET 2020 Update includes our amazing, thoughtful, and patient website designer who creatively leaned into any challenge − Eric Blackerby, Better Everyday. We are also grateful for the immense expertise and tenacity of our data manager who is always proactive – Josephine Dru. Eric and Josephine both went above and beyond to have RET be a beautifully refreshed and organized site.

 

We also want to share appreciation for Shireen Tabrizi who jumped in and created the framework for organizing the resources and began the tagging process. Thanks to Bethany Jensen for timely contributions to site-launch essentials and further help with resource tagging. Also, much gratitude to Amy T. Paul, who wrote the descriptions for our newest categories, and edited half of the category descriptions to prepare for the launch. Thanks to Kevin John Fong, who generously shared many of his mural photos for the RET site. We appreciate our friends and colleagues who were responsive to our questions and were supportive during this refresh process. Maggie Potapchuk of MP Associates, along with Stephanie Halbert-Jones of CAPD, genuinely want to express our deepest appreciation and gratitude to the RET team.

 

We are especially grateful to the generous funders and donors who stepped up to ensure we could compensate the contractors mentioned above and other costs related to the refresh and migration of the site. More than 75 individuals and a couple non-profits provided generous donations. We want to publicly thank the following funders: Borealis Philanthropy, Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, Nellie Mae Educational Foundation, and the President of the Skillman Foundation, who provided grants that took us over the finish line. We genuinely appreciated, and made good use of, every dollar you shared with us. Thank you!

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Update: We also appreciate Borealis Philanthropy’s support in highlighting RET’s work in their February 2021 newsletter.

Appreciation for the team involved in RET’s Launch 2016

We want to express our appreciation to many people for their work to relaunch Racial Equity Tools, which includes the merger of three sites, www.racialequitytools.org, www.evaluationtoolsforracialequity.org and www.racialequitylearning.org. 

 

First and foremost, we appreciate the generosity of all the organizations and individuals who are sharing their tools and resources on this website. We hope you will visit their websites to see more of their work.

 

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation invested in the idea to merge the three sites as part of creating a single more robust and accessible one. We appreciate their leadership and clear focus on achieving racial equity.

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We also want to acknowledge publicly the enormous contributions of those who created the enhanced and merged site, including:

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  • Lisa Abbott, Project Manager (World Trust)

  • Blake Paradis, Social Network Connector (World Trust)

  • Sam Stephens, Content and Tip Sheet Contributor (CAPD)

  • Stephanie Leiderman, Research Associate (CAPD)

  • Matthew Leiderman, Resource Coordinator (CAPD)

  • Celery Design Collaborative, Website Design

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Appreciation to the people involved in RET’s Launch 2016

We also thank the people who helped create the original sites that were merged into this one. They provided ideas, content, technical support and/or reviewed the sites in development. Big thanks to:

  • Adrienne Henderson

  • Amy Malick

  • Anne Kubisch

  • April Grayson

  • Beth A. Broadway

  • Beverley Keefe

  • Blake Emerson

  • Brigette Rouson

  • Caressa Hamby

  • Carolyne Abdullah

  • Cathy Rion

  • Craig White

  • Donna Bivens

  • Elaine Gross

  • Elizabeth Williams-Riley

  • Gary Garb

  • Gaye Evans

  • Gita Gulati-Partee

  • Gretchen Susi

  • Gwendolyn Grant

  • Hedy Tripp

  • Ilana Shapiro

  • Jacquelyn Brown

  • Janet Gillespie

  • Jarrod Schwartz

  • Jeff Hitchcock

  • Jeff Stone

  • Joe Szakos

  • Julie Nelson

  • Kien Lee

  • Kimberly Roberson

  • Kohei Ishihara

  • Lauren Kucera

  • Laurie Bezold

  • Linda Bowen

  • Loudi Rivamonte

  • Makani Themba Nixon

  • Mariama White-Hammond

  • Mike Wenger

  • Paul Marcus

  • Peter Wilson

  • RaShonne Davis

  • Ruben Lizardo

  • Sharon Streater

  • Shenandoah Gale

  • Shirley Strong

  • Susan Batten

  • Taquiena Boston

  • Valerie Ohle

  • Walter Davis

  • Woullard Lett

  • Yoke Sim Gunaratne

Gratitude to the people and organizations involved in Evaluation Tools for Racial Equity

We also thank organizations that provided funding and/or in-kind support for the original www.racialequitytools.org and for www.evaluationtoolsforracialequity.org:

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  • The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

  • Annie E. Casey Foundation.

  • Project Change Anti-racism Initiative

  • Everyday Democracy (the Paul J.Aicher Foundation)

  • Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies’ Network of Alliances Bridging Race and Ethnicity

  • Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change

 

We remain very grateful to the four organizations that agreed to pilot the first of these sites − www.evaluationtoolsforracialequity.org. Each provided candid feedback, shared their ideas and expectations for the website, helped create its framework, piloted tools and resources and served as our advisors along the way. We thank especially Elaine Gross at ERASE Racism on Long Island, New York; Frankie Blackburn and Ray Moreno of IMPACT Silver Spring in Maryland; Marisabel Villagomez, Doris Watkins, and Jill Weiler from Tellin’ Stories in Washington, D.C. and Barbara Heisler Williams and George Robinson of the South Orange/Maplewood Community Coalition on Race in New Jersey. 

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Please share your feedback and ideas about the RET site so it continues to improve.

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