2021 Year in Review

Guest Post By Nicole Hulten, Belonging Membership Community Manager

As I look back on the past year with the Belonging Membership Community, I am filled with gratitude for the inclusive leaders who have dedicated themselves to imagining and building workplaces – and a world - where everyone feels a greater sense of belonging. One of our special guest speakers and author, Bernadette Smith, captured the essence of the Belonging Membership Community when she said: 

I've been reflecting on community lately...community is everything, and I'll never take that for granted...the Belonging Membership Community is an incredible space for #DEI practitioners to learn together, share with each other, and uplift one another. It reminds us that this work cannot be done alone. Changing the world can sometimes feel lonely. If you find yourself lonely in this work, consider joining Rhodes' community.

The Belonging Membership Community is for inclusive leaders, visionaries, change makers, movers and shakers. It offers the fuel you need to ignite a workplace #BelongingMovement. Community Members meet twice a month on Mondays for one hour to learn and collaborate.  Each month we explore relevant and timely themes with celebrated DEI and social justice thought leaders. Each of these guest calls are followed by a private coaching call to further explore and reflect on how to tailor what we’ve learned to realize meaningful DEI advances in the workplace. 

In order to make this content accessible to our newest members, and those members who cannot participate live, we record interviews with our guest speakers, and make them available in our membership learning library, filled with over 100 hours of practical DEI content that will help you establish a bold vision, and then implement. Our learning library also includes supplemental reflection worksheets to further guide members on how to make meaning of each topic as it relates to themselves, their teams, and their organization. These worksheets help members take action on applying the new knowledge and skills they learn each month.

As we look forward to advancing our DEI goals in 2022, I wanted to take a quick moment to share and celebrate the accomplishments over the past year:

• In our first community call on January 11th, we explored this question: If you knew you couldn't fail, what would you do to advance your DEI commitments in 2021? Together we unpacked this question and connected as a larger group setting goals and designing accountability plans.

• On January 25th, special guest Derrick Reyes, CEO + Co-founder of Queerly Health, shared their expertise as to how healthcare inequities disproportionately impact marginalized communities, specifically BIPOC LGBTQ+ people. Together we explored what this means for us as we developed our strategic plans to advance our DEI goals in the era of COVID-19.

• On February 22, the Belonging Membership Community connected with Jessi Purdy, DEI HR strategist, who shared fresh approaches on how to develop a cultural experience reporting system as a supplement to HR incident reporting. Together we considered how this kind of reporting could help develop colleagues who may be unintentionally causing harm, as well as addressing those colleagues who are intentionally causing harm at the expense of others..

• On March 22 the Belonging Membership Community connected with Lillian Tsai, the founder of Tsai Communications, a DEI communications consulting firm. Lillian shared ways we can show up and support our Asian American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) colleagues in response to the surge of anti-AAPI hate crimes occurring in the United States.

• On April 19th, the Belonging Membership Community had the opportunity to connect with DEI thought leaders Michele Lomax and her mentor James H. Lowry, who shared why DEI mentorship matters and how to build and sustain a successful mentor/mentee relationship. We explored how we can serve as DEI mentors and how we can benefit from finding a mentor.

• On May 17th, Digital Marketing Pragmatist Eliza Greenwood shared proven strategies that empowered us to design digitally accessible products (i.e., websites, webinars, & workshops) intentionally for people with disabilities. Together we gained new knowledge, skills, and promising practices to avoid making common mistakes that unintentionally exclude people with disabilities.

• On June 21, the community welcomed legendary transgender advocate and DEI strategist,  Kylar W. Broadus, Founder of the Trans People of Color Coalition, to discuss the intersections of Pride, Juneteenth, dynamic ERG programming, and the power of BIPOC LGBTQ+ leadership. The conversation helped DEI leaders make powerful connections to historical events and their impacts on today's workplace.

• In July, RPC hosted the annual Belonging at Work Summit, a transformational week of learning with celebrated thought leaders throughout the DEI industry. The event featured DEI thought leaders including Nene Molefi, Kai Cheng Thom, Joshua V. Barr, Jamison Green and 15 other leading DEI and social justice thought leaders, live workshops, group meditations, and a screening of the Emmy Award winning documentary, Breaking Bread, Building Bridges.

• On August 9, we explored this question: What kind of DEI Community Care do YOU need?  Together we unpacked this larger question and imagined what building a DEI community care movement can look like, as we continue to build our community, and find fresh approaches to support each other as we continue to learn and grow. 

• On August 23, DEI thought leader and business strategist Gina Gomez shared the complexities of making Hollywood more inclusive. Gina delivered a wealth of knowledge that offered a glimpse of what she and other DEI entertainment leaders are up against, along with proven strategies that work in any industry.

• On September 20, the Belonging Membership Community hosted a follow-up conversation processing the powerful group screening of the documentary, Crip Camp. Frank Vaca and CM Hall helped participants fully understand the connection between disability justice, power, and our role to include this lens into our DEI practice.

• On October 6, DEI strategist and author, Bernadette Smith, joined us to share more about her newest book, Inclusive 360. Bernadette generously shared her wisdom helping our community answer this big question, "how can I help my organization develop a DEI roadmap to build belonging at work?"

• On November 15, thought leaders Brittany Janay Harris & Cheryl Leong joined our conversation focused on the hidden costs of leading DEI work. Brittany and Cheryl encouraged us to find clarity in our work through defining our purpose, profession, and praxis, while recognizing that these things do not define all of us. 

• And on December 27, Rhodes Perry hosted a very different kind of event gathering Belonging Community Members along with influencers from his Imagine Belonging book launch team to co-create a collective vision on how we can begin imagining belonging on a global scale. This event helped the community celebrate all of our learning, growth, and successes in 2021, and set the tone for imagining and then building a better workplace and world in the year ahead.

There is no small role when making transformational cultural changes in the workplace, and as Bernadette says, “this work cannot be done alone”. That’s why building belonging at work requires courage, commitment, curiosity, collaboration and…community. If you know of inclusive leaders, HR professionals, CDOs, ERG leaders, DEI Council leaders, etc. who are eager to find a supportive space to work through their challenges, this is their space. And if you’re absolutely passionate about your workplace’s justice, equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging commitments, and you want your stakeholders to feel a strong sense of belonging, this is your space. 

Thank you for growing our #BelongingCommunity!