Dear friends,
We have been listening, reflecting, and reckoning with feedback from members and alumni of color and partner organizations over the past few months. We are very grateful to all those who have connected with us and challenged our thinking during this time. On behalf of the Resource Assistance for Rural Environments (RARE) AmeriCorps Program, we sincerely apologize to all members of our community, past and present, who have been hurt, mistreated, unsupported, or put in unsafe situations during their term of service.
While our program has a long history of community building with marginalized groups in rural Oregon, we have failed to acknowledge and move beyond the predominantly white-centric model of service we perpetuate. This is unacceptable, especially for a program that prides itself on adding capacity to Oregon’s underserved rural communities and as a professional development opportunity for the next generation of change-agents. We admit this failure and are working to address it.
In addition to the many alumni and partners who have come forward, we are incredibly grateful to our Year 26 RARE AmeriCorps members who not only challenged us to step up, but also provided targeted feedback and suggestions for improvement. We would like to provide an update on some of the key issues we’ve heard so far from members and alumni, the changes we have made to the program in response, and our commitments for the future.
What We Heard
Following the murder of George Floyd and the elevation Black Lives Matter activism, members of Year 26 and alumni called on us to do more as a program to advance equity and social justice. Conversations with members in the spring of 2020 highlighted six key areas where RARE should make changes:
- Member Recruitment & Placement – RARE’s recruitment and placement process for members needs to be re-evaluated and changed to minimize implicit bias and specifically address challenges that applicants of color may encounter.
- Host Community Recruitment & Placement – RARE’s recruitment of host communities should begin emphasizing projects that will serve BIPOC and other systemically disadvantaged communities. By taking a more active role in the development of RARE positions, RARE can help communities scale projects appropriately and encourage resources to go towards activities that maybe have been overlooked in the past.
- Supervisor Readiness & Support – RARE supervisors have a big impact on members’ professional development and project success. RARE should better screen supervisors during the application process to ensure they are ready for the RARE commitment, and, once placements are confirmed, RARE should provide supervisors with training and support that will help them succeed in their role. In particular, RARE needs to involve supervisors in diversity, equity, and inclusion-related trainings so that members and supervisors share a common grounding in these issues.
- Training – While members appreciated that RARE offers diversity, equity, and inclusion-related trainings, these trainings should continue to evolve in three main ways. First, RARE should find ways to ensure that the trainings result in action, not just talk. Second, RARE should support ongoing conversations so that trainings are not isolated one-off discussions. Finally, trainings should carefully consider framing – rather than solely providing a negative narrative of injustices in Oregon’s history and current context, trainings and other conversations should emphasize the vibrancy and ongoing contributions of Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color in rural Oregon.
- Rural Issues – RARE has a role to play in debunking rural stereotypes and providing members with a more balanced (rather than white-centric) perspective on rural Oregon history and context.
- Influencing Funders – As a well-known program that provides resources to rural Oregon, RARE has an opportunity to share its commitment to elevating equity and justice with important funders and collaborators. RARE can use its position of influence to urge other resource-providers to re-evaluate their giving processes.
What We’re Doing This Service Year
RARE recognizes the urgency of taking immediate action. We have waited too long already to make changes that will better support our members of color and the communities we serve. While some changes will take time and a continued commitment on the part of RARE staff to listening, reflecting, and learning, we would like to share the immediate steps we are taking in the 2020-21 service year:
- Member and Host Community Recruitment & Placement – As part of RARE’s 2020 program evaluation, UO masters’ students helped RARE apply an equity lens to recruitment, placement, and retention. This evaluation and research led to a set of best practices and recommended interventions that RARE should make regarding recruitment and placement. This year, RARE is making an initial overhaul of the recruitment and placement processes to increase transparency, clarify RARE’s selection criteria, and minimize implicit bias.
- Supervisor Readiness & Support – RARE is inviting and encouraging supervisors to attend RARE trainings, particularly those related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and managing workplace relationships. While some supervisors have taken advantage of these opportunities, RARE will step up efforts in the future by requiring supervisor attendance at relevant trainings.
- Training – RARE has added additional trainers and training sessions to bring in additional perspectives about equity and justice in rural Oregon. For the first time, RARE is partnering with a PPPM Professor, Dr. José Mélendez, to offer a six–month adaptation of his course “Engaging Diverse Communities” to interested members. We have also updated the Treasure Hunt assignment and quarterly assessments to ensure that members and supervisors are regularly reflecting on social justice in their work.
- Rural Issues – RARE is highlighting the history and current work of rural communities of color regularly in Monday Mailings and has added questions to the Treasure Hunt assignment requiring members to identify equity-focused and BIPOC-led organizations in their region, in hopes that members will work alongside these organizations throughout their service year. We are also actively seeking BIPOC trainers from rural communities for our quarterly trainings.
- Influencing Funders – Many of RARE’s funders and partners are already taking steps to address systemic discrimination in Oregon. This year, RARE is exploring opportunities to work with our statewide partners to identify and support host communities that wish to focus their efforts on underserved populations.
What We’re Planning for the Future
While the changes we are currently making may be a step in the right direction, we are only in the initial stages of re-imagining a RARE AmeriCorps Program grounded in social justice. Our longer-term efforts will require time, energy, and some outside assistance.
Moving forward, we see a few main activities guiding our work:
- Finalize and begin implementation of the RARE Program Evaluation – As part of the RARE Program Evaluation, we reached over 100 alumni and many community partners. We intend to use the insights from this process to guide changes, particularly to recruitment, placement, and member retention, that will strengthen RARE’s ability to make positive change for our members and they communities they serve.
- Continue RARE staff’s listening and learning – RARE staff must continue our own training and self-work. This will come from the ongoing book club discussions we started this summer, the ways in which we filter our decisions through an equity lens, and perhaps most importantly, the sustained commitment of each of us to no longer shy away from the hard work of justice, to recognize our mistakes with humility, to apologize, and to strive to do better next time.
- Develop a RARE Equity Plan – We plan to hire a consultant to help us investigate our values, develop goals and metrics for accountability, and host alumni listening sessions. This process will lead to an equity plan that sketches out phased interventions we can implement over the next several years.
- Implement the Equity Plan – We hope to turn our attention to implementing the Equity Plan by Fall 2021. We must hold ourselves accountable by updating RARE systems as recommended and measuring progress as we go. We recognize the need to increase transparency and support for members and communities during the application process. In particular, we must seek out tribal governments and organizations run by and serving communities of color as hosts and encourage all hosts to include projects that advance equity in member positions.
The RARE AmeriCorps Program is an organization in transition. Since our founding in 1994, RARE has sought to connect capacity and resources to rural communities with visions for their improved economic, social, and environmental conditions. That support has been changing and growing as the needs of our rural Oregon communities shift, from the decline of the timber industry to the birth of food systems work to economic resilience planning in response to COVID-19. We hope that by acknowledging our failures and embracing our vulnerability in the face of deeper change, we can provide better, more inclusive support to our communities, our members, and our alumni. Our aim remains the same: to nurture the next generation of community builders and leaders, help rural communities achieve sustainable natural resource bases, and improve rural economic conditions. What we are changing is our approach: we must ground our work in policies and actions that intentionally advance equity, inclusion, and justice.
With love from RARE Program Staff,
Titus Tomlinson, Victoria Binning, Aniko Drlik-Muehleck, Julie Foster, and Ashley Adelman