To realize our mission of advancing inclusive leadership capabilities in society, Include has organizational practices designed to facilitate participation from members of marginalized communities and put into action multicultural relations patterns in our programs and activities.
1. Financial Practices
Include offers its programs to nonprofits and individuals at affordable below-market rates. In our community-based programs and facilitator trainings, we offer needs-based scholarships, sliding scale fees, payment plans, and when possible, a pay-what-you-can option.
2. Tracking Demographics
During the registration process for Include programs, participants are offered the opportunity to indicate their multiple social identities, including if they self-identify as a Person of Color, as being on the LGBTQI, as being born outside of the US, and as having a disability. This voluntary reporting allows Include to assess to what extent we are succeeding in reaching a diverse community.
3. Registration Practices
Practicing inclusive leadership necessitates that participation is diverse in our programs. We have set a goal to maximize the percentage of People of Color in each event that requires advance registration. If at any time during the registration period, the percentage of individuals registered who self-identify as People of Color falls below the minimum percentage that we wish to have in attendance, we may close registration, and put prospective participants on a waiting list, until the goal is met. If we don't meet the goal, then we may cancel or reschedule that event.
4. Managing Eurocentric Cultural Patterns
Growing up in societies that exude Eurocentric cultural patterns, through the process of socialization, people learn unconsciously to enact these patterns every day. These patterns include Individualism, High Control, Binary thinking, Low-Context thinking, Rational mind over matter, Verbocentrism, and Mechanistic thinking. The challenge is their dominance in a culture, disappearing and marginalizing relational cultural practices in the process. In the design of our programs and facilitation practices, we seek to both disrupt the dominance of these patterns and facilitate multi-cultural relational processes.
5. Fragrance Free policy
In our public programs, participants are asked to refrain from using any product that contain "fragrance" in the product ingredient list, including laundry soap. Due to chemical sensitivity, allergies, or asthma, individuals may have difficulty breathing, headaches, flu-like symptoms or neurological symptoms. When we have used products on our bodies or clothing that include fragrances or chemicals, those who are sensitive are faced with the choice to stay and get sick, or leave and be excluded.