To our community,
Third Sector was founded in 2011 to be a partner to governments as they work to improve the lives of individuals and families by aligning public resources, policy, and data around measurable outcomes. We enter our 10th anniversary year as our country and our government partners confront enormous challenges delivering results for communities across economic mobility, public health, and racial equity.
Our work continues to be complex, and we are learning from our history by reflecting in two areas over the past few months: one internal--working across our team to examine our organization’s purpose, aspirations, and strategy going forward, and one external--
listening to our government partners articulate their top challenges. Both of these efforts have been informed by the racial equity journey that we began in 2018, and we look forward to sharing the results of our strategic development work next year.
Looking back over a challenging 2020, we also want to provide an update on our two public racial equity commitments since June and celebrate a few highlights from our work:
Racial equity commitment - team composition: We progressed to 50% people of color on both our
executive team and
board of directors. However, we remain a majority-White organization and are continuing to put resources towards increasing and retaining the racial diversity of our team across all levels. Diversity is not a check-the-box goal for us. We believe that people of color with decision-making power are critical for dismantling racism and racist institutions, and therefore, expanding and retaining the people of color on our staff will help us dismantle racism within our organization so we can help our clients do the same;
Deepening practice areas: We deepened our work in
mental health and economic mobility across 25 communities, with potential to influence over $305M in public resources annually for equitable outcomes. A key component of our expanding work on economic mobility is blending and braiding public funds for person-centered outcomes, including our work
aligning SNAP E&T and WIOA funding with NAWB and SJI; and
We have more to do to make “staying in the work” of racial equity a consistent daily practice at Third Sector. It remains challenging to persevere through the pain of understanding our nation’s history and root causes of racial inequality in order to close gaps in outcomes. Yet we have also experienced moments of joy and encouragement as we develop more trusting relationships with each other and measurable progress is made to reduce racial disparities within our own organization and our partner communities.
It is with a spirit of focus and grace that I am and we are all committed to staying in the work we know is necessary at Third Sector to advance equitable outcomes in the coming year and beyond.
Caroline Whistler
CEO and Co-Founder, Third Sector