An Introduction to Advancing Racial Justice in Organizations (Online) October 2025

Skills and tools to envision, adapt, and lead change

• Session 1: Wednesday, October 8, 2PM - 4PM ET
• Session 2: Wednesday, October 15, 2PM - 4PM ET
• Session 3: Wednesday, October 22, 2PM - 4PM ET

(11 AM - 1 PM PT | 12 PM - 2 PM MT | 1 PM - 3 PM CT)

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Why This Matters Now

Now more than ever, change agents in organizations large and small need new tools and a fresh perspective to catalyze and sustain the work of racial justice. Whether you are already leading or want to lead racial justice work within your organization, ARJ will introduce essential skills and tools to move forward collaboratively with your colleagues.

Who Should Attend?

If …

• you are formally or informally leading racial justice work in your organization or network;
• you know that guiding your organization or network to move from commitment to action isn’t a solo act;
• you want to exchange ideas with other leaders who are advancing racial justice in and through their work;
• you want more tools for making your organization or network more collaborative, powerful, and even joyful;

… then this workshop is for you!

What You Will Learn

An Introduction to Advancing Racial Justice will equip you with frameworks and tools to design a collaborative process to guide your racial justice work. You’ll explore how to:

Session 1: Envision the Future
Articulate a vision for what racial justice and liberation could look like in your organization or network and begin to identify how the “who, what, why, and how” of your racial justice work can provide leverage for organizational change
Session 2: Frame your Collaborative Change Effort and Assess your Situation
Understand collaborative planning principles, a simple framework for developing a racial justice action plan, and guidelines to explore your context and current reality.
Session 3: Make the Case for Change
Practice communicating to stakeholders about the importance of your racial justice change process (a.k.a. sharing your “Case for Change”).

And, you’ll leave with a workbook full of useful tools and tips to support your ongoing collaboration for racial justice. 

How You Will Learn

Each interactive session will feature:

• Brief presentations with practical examples
• Full group dialogue
• Paired and small group discussions
• After-session reflection questions and worksheets

Pricing

• $150/person (Grassroots)
• $300/person (Nonprofit)
• $380/person (Foundation)
• $450/person (For-Profit/Social Venture)

What Happens After the Workshop Series?

Post-series opportunities include:

• Workbook with additional resources and tools to explore on your own
• Free Quarterly Community of Practice gatherings (see more below!)

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Facilitators 

Cynthia Silva Parker is a seasoned capacity builder with more than three decades of experience strengthening organizations and equipping leaders who pursue social justice and racial equity. She finds great joy in the ah-ha moments when people learn a new skill or connect their lived experiences to new ideas. She loves guiding groups to deeper understanding and solid agreements about things that matter. And it’s a great day when she can connect good people to one another and to resources to support their work.

Cynthia has served as a senior associate at the Interaction Institute for Social Change since 1998, delivering facilitation, training, consulting, and coaching services in the nonprofit, public, and philanthropic sectors. She also has led or co-led the development of several IISC workshops, including Advancing Racial Justice in Organizations, the Fundamentals of Facilitation for Racial Justice Work and Collaborative Social Change.

Cynthia’s prior leadership experiences include director of Boston Freedom Summer, the Ten Point Coalition’s faith-based youth develop project, and project administrator for the Algebra Project, Inc., a national education reform network fighting for quality education as a civil right.

Cynthia is the mother of three young adult sons, who bring her joy. Cynthia holds a BA from Harvard-Radcliffe Colleges and Master of Public Policy/City and Regional Planning from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Check out her talks: What Will It Take To End Racism? (spoiler alert: it’s about building collective will, skill, knowledge and strategies) and Race Talk: Moving Beyond the Surface (“Let’s make the 21 century the century where love erased the color line!”).

Kiara Nagel (she/her) is a creative strategist with 20 years of experience building creative and collaborative social change initiatives. Kiara delivers facilitation, training and consulting services to foster collaboration, grow healthy organizations, and support equitable community development. She has contributed to many local, national and international initiatives focused on economic and racial justice and narrative and social change. Kiara can often be found training and supporting diverse sets of organizers, educators, and practitioners across sectors to be more strategic and creative in their work.

Kiara holds a Masters in City Planning from the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. Recent clients have included: The CARE Fund, Alliance for Community Transit Los Angeles, Blue Cross Blue Shield of California, Why Hunger: Grassroots Solutions to Hunger, Hampshire College, University of Orange, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

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Choosing your ticket type

1. If you are individual who works in a grassroots organization or are otherwise affiliated with a racial justice group and you are paying for the workshop yourself, please select Grassroots*
2. If you are an individual whose social or public sector organization will pay for your registration, please select Nonprofit.
3. If you are an individual whose grantmaking or philanthropic organization will pay for your registration, select Foundation.
4. If you are an individual whose social venture organization will pay for your registration, please select For-Profit/Social Venture.

*The number of these tickets is limited, so we invite those who are BIPOC, systematically marginalized or excluded, and have the highest level of financial need to register with this ticket type. If this is the only ticket type that works for you and it’s sold out, please sign-up for the waitlist and we’ll contact you if a spot becomes available. 
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Have a question? Check out our Frequently Asked Questions and don't hesitate to reach out!