Our Services

We provide a suite of highly customizable services that are highly tailored to address your needs, challenges or questions. Our services are grounded in state-of-the-art research, utilizing current best methods, frameworks and approaches for achieving equity.

Racial Equity Workshops

Leadership Development & Capacity-Building

Organizational DE&I Strategy

DE&I Program Design & Learning Series

Welcome!

The Equity Paradigm is a diversity, equity and inclusion firm based in Durham, North Carolina that is dedicated to evolving the ways in which nonprofits and social change organizations understand and approach their work. We employ an equity lens to examine mindsets, organizational culture, operations, and norms. We work collaboratively to empower and equip individuals and organizations with the tools, approaches and mindsets to identify and interrupt inequity as it occurs.

Trainings & Workshops

We design multi-session series and standalone sessions that dive deep into the systemic, institutional, interpersonal and individual levels of power, privilege and oppression, and provide hands-on application, practice and reflection to fuel continuous learning.

Consulting

We work one-on-one with nonprofits and social impact organizations to help leaders and hiring managers think and operate with a robust understanding of their cultural identities, underlying assumptions and biases, and suspended judgments in order to make equitable decisions rooted in culturally competent frameworks.

Our Clients

We have designed and led racial equity and diversity & inclusion workshops and programs for hundreds of leaders across the country. We proudly partner with public, private and charter schools, nonprofit organizations, community organizers, higher education institutions and social change organizations to advance equity.

‘Diversity’ shouldn’t just be a buzz word.

Nearly 70 percent of nonprofits state ‘diversity’ as a core value, yet only 7 percent of nonprofit executives and 8 percent of nonprofit board members are People of Color. These statistics have barely changed in 20 years. If you’re ready to move ‘diversity’ from a buzz word to a set of strategies, commitments and intentional actions, let’s work together.

Hear from our clients & workshop participants

Frequently Asked Questions

Equity work is complex and challenging. We get a lot of questions from potential clients, and have included those most commonly asked below.

What types of clients do you work with?

We primarily work with nonprofits and social impact organizations that are working to advance justice and equity through their mission, but are looking to do so with a stronger emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion. We also provide one-on-one coaching and ongoing development to individuals who are looking to continue their identity journey and evolve as diversity, equity and inclusion practitioners and facilitators.

My organization doesn’t have a diversity strategy at all. Can you help?

Absolutely. As your strategic thought partners, we help define and establish your organization’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion strategy, including priorities, goals, and measurable outcomes. Whether you’re starting from scratch or looking to improve or strengthen an existing strategy, we work with you hone in on your key priorities and identify actions and practices to bring them life.

What can we expect from working with you?

Equity work is challenging. Working with us means willingly experiencing discomfort, challenging and deconstructing your norms, and learning to view yourself and your work in a powerful, new way. But with that discomfort comes immense growth and innumerable opportunities for learning. Consider us your accountability partners, your cheerleaders, and your allies in creating a more just, equitable and accessible society that works on behalf of each of its citizens’ best interests

Why the emphasis on race, as opposed to other identities?

Race is the reason why disparities look the same across systems. Without a nuanced understanding of race and racism, it is impossible to responsibly address any inequity you seek to understand and solve. At the same time, we all carry multiple, intersecting identities that deeply influence the ways in which we understand and experience the world around us. As such, we prioritize employing an intersectional analysis to inequities while focusing explicitly and intentionally on race.

We build the capacity of organizations to operate through a lens of equity in their policies, practices, and organizational cultures.