470 organizations, 110,000 people signed up for Racial Equity Challenge

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In 1963, the average wealth of white families was $121,000 higher than the average wealth of nonwhite families. By 2016, the average wealth of white families was more than $700,000 higher than that of Black families, whose average wealth was $140,000, and of Hispanic families, whose wealth averaged $192,000. And as people of color age, the disparity grows sharply.

Why? Because our Black and Hispanic neighbors must contend with income inequality, high earnings gaps, low homeownership rates, a lack of retirement savings, high student loan debt and lopsided asset-building subsidies.

On Day 11 of Rochester’s recent 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge, 110,000 of us learned about the racial wealth gap. We learned that 90 percent of white people have a vehicle they consider an asset, compared with 80 percent of Hispanic people and 73 percent of Black people. We learned that the level of equity — or home value less debts — families have in their houses differs by race; white families have equity of $215,800, whereas Black and Hispanic households have net housing wealth of $94,400 and $129,800 respectively. And we learned that this inequity in financial resources exists in the Rochester community, holding back a vast number of people for decades, simply because of the color of their skin.

Convened by the United Way of Greater Rochester Inc. and with input from some 50 community partners, the 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge ran from Oct. 22 through Nov. 20 and touched on topics ranging from privilege, bias and the challenge of talking about race to adverse childhood experiences, environmental justice and being an ally.

“The goal really was to make sure that it was collaborative, that we had members that were already doing some great racial equity work in that space be a part of that table and be a part of that discussion,” said Cicely Strickland-Ruiz, United Way’s chief operating officer, of the work community partners did choosing topics and learning opportunities. “The challenge was meant to really provide an opportunity for people to grow in their racial awareness, issues around social justice, discussions about privilege and systemic inequities to provide an opportunity for people to learn and grow but to carve out time each day to be able to form and build a habit of digesting this type of content that for some people was entirely new.”

The idea was to get people to carve out 15 minutes per day to get a deeper understanding of race, power and privilege, she added.

“Initially when we did our research and called around to other United Way partners across the country that have done a challenge like this they had numbers like a couple of thousand people registered. So we thought 5,000; if we could get 5,000 people to read the daily emails that would be great,” Strickland-Ruiz said. “We had about 470 organizations and more than 110,000 people (sign up).”

The Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce and a number of media partners helped get the word out, she noted.

“We’re going through a lot of changes in Rochester and in our region right now, and far too often the issues of race and equity become somewhat divisive,” said Rochester Chamber President and CEO Robert Duffy. “It is our hope, and the hope of this program, to really bring people together, be able to educate people in terms of the challenges that many of our neighbors have in their lives, have them do it in a way that over the course of 21 days they learn something new every day about the issues of race, equity, inclusion, structural racism and implicit biases.

“As you go through this you get a chance to learn about the challenges that others have that you don’t realize,” Duffy added. “I think it is a great eye opening and great educator.”

The first thing YWCA of Rochester & Monroe County did was rally support around participation in the challenge, said Carrie Michel-Wynne, vice president of strategic relations.

“We reminded staff that this is a core value of the organization. We do have a goal of increasing capacity around racial equity topics and understanding,” Michel-Wynne said. “What was exciting was we got our board of directors incredibly involved in this, which was so significant because oftentimes our direct service staff don’t have the opportunity to build relationships with our board.”

In fact, each week during the challenge YWCA board members facilitated Zoom calls with staffers to debrief and have safe, candid conversations on the week’s lessons. Roughly half of YWCA’s 45 employees took part in the calls, Michel-Wynne noted.

Excellus BlueCross BlueShield also was involved in the challenge, but rolled it out to employees in-house in September as a 21-Day Racial Equity Habit Building Challenge.

“It allowed our employees to be able to have everything in one place internally. It allowed them to track their progress with the 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge. And it also allowed us to gather data on how many employees were taking advantage of this opportunity to complete the challenge,” said Sady Fischer, corporate director of diversity, equity and inclusion for Excellus. “Currently we have over 1,200 employees who are participating in the challenge. It’s been really incredible.”

While the challenge for Excellus began in-house, the nonprofit health plan then partners with United Way in order to support the community-wide efforts, Fischer said.

“It’s one thing for us to work on things internally as an organization, but how do we also influence and support what’s going on in our communities?” she said.

Excellus did just that by offering staffers a graphic, a completion badge, if you will, that they could then display on social media. That got people talking and asking questions about the challenge, and in some cases contacting Excellus to learn more about the program.

“We are so thankful for the partnerships we have in all of our communities. The partnerships allow us to extend our cultural beliefs and values to the community,” said Joseph Searles, corporate diversity relations director for Excellus. “All of this is because we recognize that racism is a very complex problem. We can’t solve it on our own. It takes collective action across all sectors, and it includes the people that live in our communities.”

For Causewave Community Partners, the 21-Day Challenge was the nonprofit’s third go-around with such a learning opportunity. The organization first became involved a couple of years ago when it had staffers join a cohort in a local structural racism initiative. Shortly after the death of Daniel Prude at the hands of police officers in Rochester, Causewave put together its own challenge, inviting community members to join staffers.

“When this one came out we knew that the content would be different so we decided to participate again,” President & CEO Todd Butler explained. “The reason that we’ve participated in it three times now is because the whole concept of a 21-day challenge is to make learning about racial equity a habit. The 21-day challenge was not marketed as something that is a journey with a beginning and an end that gets you from a bad place to a good place, but it certainly helped establish that habit of learning about racial equity and the habit of humility about our own experiences so that we don’t come to conversations assuming we understand and we know, but we come to these conversations trying to learn.”

Butler and his team enjoyed the challenge.

“They talked about liking the progression of it and how it started with definitions and eased you into the concepts and content, and then as it progressed it got into some deeper, more action-oriented learning,” he explained. “They liked how it enabled them to have conversations with their family around the dinner table.”

For YWCA, Michel-Wynne said it is important to remember that the majority of people who work there are people of color.

“We heard a lot of ‘thank goodness people are listening and hearing,’” Michel-Wynne said. “I think that some staff feel as though there isn’t necessarily a racist problem in our society. And I think that we now have a new appreciation that it very much exists. It’s systemic. It’s in policy. It’s in legislation. It’s in the way that we practice our business. So it’s opened our eyes to new opportunities to dismantle all those systemic injustices and inequities.”

For Excellus, the 21-day challenge aligns well with the organization’s mission, Fischer said.

“Our mission is about helping people in our communities live healthier and more secure lives through having access to high quality and affordable health care. In order to provide better access to health care, and specifically looking at affordability, we need to understand what are the root causes of some of the inequities that exist within our communities; one of those root causes being racism,” Fischer explained. “As an organization we have been on a journey of talking about not only racism, but also white privilege and recognizing our own biases and privileges in the work that we do, the work that we touch.”

And while it hasn’t yet been decided if Rochester’s 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge will be an annual event, the learning doesn’t stop here, conveners said.

“It’s really important that people know that this is not the end of the challenge,” United Way’s Strickland-Ruiz said. “So while we’ve completed the challenge, and it’s great that we have been working to develop this habit of carving out time each day, we want to make sure that people know there’s still lots of work to do.”

Adds Excellus’ Searles: “This work requires a long-term commitment. We’ve been working on our culture and our diversity, equity and inclusion for many years and it requires a serious commitment.”

[email protected] / 585-653-4021 / @Velvet_Spicer