Editor’s Note — September 2026: The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion officially launched! What began as a vision is now a growing community of people committed to fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity, and human dignity for all. Together, we are moving beyond reactive, isolated efforts toward strategic, sustainable, collective power, grounded in courageous communication, shared learning, and meaningful action.

Your voice, experience, and participation can help shape what comes next. Join the Coalition today and stand shoulder to shoulder with people working to build a more just, inclusive, and connected world.

Learn more and become a member today at: https://community.i4sdi.org/coalition-founder.

Language, human rights, and the community we need to build

Language tells us who matters. It tells us whose history deserves attention, whose experience counts as knowledge, and who gets to define what is normal.

Sometimes a change in language opens a door. Sometimes it conceals a retreat. Understanding the difference takes history, context, curiosity, and conversation.

That is one reason we are building the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion, and why I invite you to join as a Founding Member.

From naming injustice to demanding accountability

The awarding of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to Navanethem “Navi” Pillay invites us to reflect on nearly six decades of human rights work. Pillay opened her law practice in South Africa in 1967, under apartheid, and went on to serve in international courts and as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Across that career, the language through which institutions recognize injustice has evolved. Consider sexual violence in war. Pillay served on the tribunal that delivered the landmark 1998 Akayesu judgment, establishing that rape and sexual violence can constitute genocide when committed with the required intent to destroy a protected group.

That development was much more than a change in vocabulary. It changed how atrocities could be understood, prosecuted, and answered with demands for accountability.

Her career reminds me that words become consequential when they change what institutions recognize and what people can demand.

Whose history does a holiday tell?

Monday, October 12, offers another opportunity to examine language. Across many U.S. communities, including Washington State where I live,  Indigenous Peoples’ Day shifts attention from the familiar celebration of Columbus to the histories, cultures, sovereignty, and continuing lives of Indigenous peoples. Columbus Day remains a federal holiday; the change has not happened everywhere.

For generations, the language of “discovery” encouraged a story in which Europeans were the central actors and Indigenous peoples barely appeared. That story obscured conquest, exploitation, dispossession, and the devastating consequences of colonization.

Calling the day Indigenous Peoples’ Day changes the questions we ask. Who was already here? What knowledge and societies flourished? Whose voices were excluded from the history we learned? What responsibilities follow from learning a fuller history?

A renamed holiday cannot return stolen land or restore a lost life. It can help create an opening for truth, learning, and action, especially when Indigenous people lead the conversation.

September 30 offered a related moment: Orange Shirt Day, observed alongside Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. It honors residential school survivors, their families and communities, and the children who never returned home.

The orange shirt comes from Phyllis Webstad’s experience: the new shirt she wore to residential school as a child was taken from her. Her story became a powerful symbol of a system that separated Indigenous children from their families and sought to suppress their languages, cultures, and identities.

Language itself was among the things those institutions tried to take away. A language carries relationships, memory, knowledge, and ways of understanding the world. Supporting its survival and renewal is part of addressing the harm.

A word I grew up with

For me, this discussion is personal.

As a blind child, every time I opened a library book, I encountered the word “handicapped.” That word meant me. Alongside the stories I was reading came an institutional label describing the kind of person I supposedly was.

The service many of us knew as the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped became the National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled on October 1, 2019.

“Print disabled” communicates more clearly the range of people who encounter barriers to reading conventional print: blind people, people with qualifying reading disabilities such as dyslexia, and people whose physical disabilities prevent them from holding a book or turning its pages. The new name better describes people already served; it did not itself create new eligibility.

To my ear, it also makes room for a more useful question: What does this reader need to access the book?

The employment language of my childhood carried a similar message. The “Hire the Handicapped” campaigns familiar in the 1960s urged employers to give people like me a chance. However well intended, that framing typically left us positioned as recipients of charity.

My book, The Disability Dividend: Supercharge Your Bottom-Line Through Disability Inclusion, asks employers to recognize the value they have been overlooking. Navigating inaccessible environments can help people develop resourcefulness, adaptability, problem-solving skills, and insights that strengthen organizations.

Disabled people are individuals, with different talents and experiences. We deserve opportunity and dignity whether or not we demonstrate an extraordinary business benefit. But employers also need to understand what exclusion costs them.

Purchase The Disability Dividend on Amazon.

What happens when we call the work human rights?

When I heard Loretta J. Ross speak at Seattle’s Northwest African American Museum about her Calling In framework, one idea stayed with me: her invitation to describe diversity, equity and inclusion work as human rights.

That framing connects workplace inclusion to a larger commitment to human dignity. It asks us to consider whose rights are respected, whose participation is restricted, and how we can build relationships capable of producing change.

Calling In also offers a way to have difficult conversations without making humiliation the price of admission. We need room to question, learn, disagree, and take responsibility.

The vocabulary, the language, of our field has developed through overlapping civil rights, equal opportunity, and organizational change efforts. Equal opportunity challenges discriminatory barriers. Diversity asks who is represented. Equity asks how rules and resources shape opportunity. Inclusion asks whether people can participate, contribute, and influence decisions. Belonging asks whether people experience acceptance and connection.

These concepts do different work. Each can deepen the others. Being present in a room does not necessarily mean having influence over what happens there.

A new name—or a quieter retreat?

Today, federal attacks on DEI have intensified the pressure to change language. The administration’s January 2025 executive order directed the termination of federal DEI programs. Organizations have responded in different ways, including changing the names and scope of their efforts.

Some now emphasize people, culture, engagement, or belonging. Citi, for example, renamed its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Talent Management team “Talent Management and Engagement,” while also announcing program changes in response to federal policy.

At ISDI, we made an intentional choice to retain diversity and inclusion in the names of both our Institute and our Coalition. We did not want intimidation to determine how we named our commitments.

Does that mean every organization choosing a different name is taking a cowardly way out? I am unwilling to reach that conclusion from a label alone.

A new name might help people connect with the work, protect an effective effort, or express a deeper understanding. It might also camouflage the withdrawal of resources and accountability.

We should examine what happens afterward. Do people still have access to opportunity? Are barriers being removed? Are resources sustained? Can affected communities influence decisions? Does “belonging” come with the power to challenge exclusion?

Our own names deserve the same scrutiny. Keeping the words is a commitment we must demonstrate through action.

Bring your questions. Help shape what comes next.

The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion is a place to explore these questions together: to discuss history, context, evolving language, and the ways people make meaning.

It is also a place to examine power, privilege, and influence. Who gets to choose the language? Who is expected to adapt? What becomes possible when people previously excluded can help define the conversation?

We need intellectual discourse grounded in lived experience and connected to practical action. We need people willing to listen across differences, test assumptions, share knowledge, and imagine a more inclusive future.

As a Founding Member, you can help shape that community: bring a question to a discussion, contribute a resource, share an experience, and build relationships with others committed to fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity, and human dignity for all.

Your voice belongs in this work. Your curiosity can move it forward.

Join the Coalition as a Founding Member.

The words we choose help shape the world we build. Let’s choose them thoughtfully and build together.

Kirk Adams, PhD
Executive Director
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion
www.i4sdi.org           

We can’t wait to see you at the next workshop.
Until then, please share this post with anyone you think would be interested.

The post Who Gets to Name the World? appeared first on Institute for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion.

Celebrating Talent, Opening Doors: Disability Inclusion at Work

What good is celebrating talent if we keep closing the door to opportunity?

Moderator Mai Ling Chan, founder of the Exceptional Leaders Network and host of the Xceptional Leaders podcast, will lead a candid conversation with panelists Tanner Gers, LaMondre Pough, Nandita Gupta, and Mitchell Hunter.

Drawing on lived experience and professional insight, we’ll explore the barriers that prevent talent from being recognized, hired, and developed; how disability intersects with other identities; and what employers, colleagues, and communities can do to open doors to meaningful careers.

Employment shapes more than a paycheck. It can influence our sense of identity, connection, purpose, and belonging. Creating access to opportunity is work we all share.

Please join us—and invite someone who can help turn this conversation into action. Open to the public; Coalition membership is not required.

Register for the event here. 

Kirk Adams, PhD
Executive Director
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion
www.i4sdi.org           

We can’t wait to see you at the next workshop.
Until then, please share this post with anyone you think would be interested.

The post Celebrating Talent, Opening Doors: Disability Inclusion at Work appeared first on Institute for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion.

Editor’s Note — September 2026: The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion officially launched! What began as a vision is now a growing community of people committed to fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity, and human dignity for all. Together, we are moving beyond reactive, isolated efforts toward strategic, sustainable, collective power, grounded in courageous communication, shared learning, and meaningful action.

Your voice, experience, and participation can help shape what comes next. Join the Coalition today and stand shoulder to shoulder with people working to build a more just, inclusive, and connected world.

Learn more and become a member today at: https://community.i4sdi.org/coalition-founder.

What Good Is Celebrating Talent If We Keep Closing the Door?

I’m also ready to ask what happens to talent when the door to opportunity stays closed.

In 2025, about 23 out of every 100 Americans with disabilities had a job, compared with 65 out of every 100 Americans without disabilities. The disability population includes many older adults, but age does not explain away the gap: people with disabilities were less likely to be employed in every age group. Among those ages 16 to 64, only 38 out of 100 were employed.

Think about the human potential behind those numbers. Think about the person who can do the work but cannot get through an inaccessible online application. The candidate who cannot reliably reach an interview because transportation was designed without them in mind. The employee whose manager sees an accommodation as a burden rather than a way to put talent to work.

These are barriers people created. People, we, can change them.

During that work, I also encountered research that made me confront intersectionality within the blind community itself. At the time, roughly 35% of blind people were reported to be in the workforce. Among those who worked, white men who were legally blind but had substantial usable vision had the highest incomes. Totally blind Black women had the lowest. Blindness did not erase the effects of race and gender; those experiences combined to shape whose work was recognized and rewarded.

A job is more than a paycheck in our society. Work can help us answer “What do you do?” and, sometimes, “Who are you?” It can bring purpose, relationships, independence, and a place in the life of a community. Human dignity belongs to everyone, whether employed or not. But when someone wants to work and is shut out, the loss can reach far beyond wages.

And employment is only one place where the design of our institutions shows up in people’s lives.

The Barriers

These are different outcomes, with different causes. None can be reduced to a single barrier or solved by a single program. But each should prompt us to ask who can reach quality care, safety, connection, and opportunity, and what happens when that access is unequal.

We encounter barriers in three environments every day:

• The built environment, from transportation to workplaces and clinics
• The digital environment, from job applications to health information
• The social environment, where expectations, prejudice, and decisions about who belongs can either open a door or close it.

Institutions can reinforce those barriers, or they can take responsibility for removing them.

That is why the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion matters to me.

We are bringing together people who know these barriers through lived experience and people who see the inequity around them and are determined to address it. Across disability, race, gender, geography, and other experiences, we can listen closely, share what works, challenge harmful practices, and organize for change.

National Disability Employment Awareness Month asks us to celebrate value and talent.

Join the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion. 

If you would also like to help support this work, our GoFundMe is found here. 

Our society has built these barriers. Together, we can learn to take them down.

Kirk Adams, PhD
Executive Director
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion
www.i4sdi.org           

We can’t wait to see you at the next workshop.
Until then, please share this post with anyone you think would be interested.

The post What Good Is Celebrating Talent If We Keep Closing the Door? appeared first on Institute for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion.

Editor’s Note — September 2026: The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion has officially launched! What began as a vision is now a growing community of people committed to fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity, and human dignity for all. Together, we are moving beyond reactive, isolated efforts toward strategic, sustainable, collective power, grounded in courageous communication, shared learning, and meaningful action.

Your voice, experience, and participation can help shape what comes next. Join the Coalition today and stand shoulder to shoulder with people working to build a more just, inclusive, and connected world.

Learn more and become a member today at: https://community.i4sdi.org/coalition-founder.

From Isolation to Connection: Building a Community Where We Can Connect, Learn, and Act Together

What if inclusion is not only about who is invited into the room, but also about what happens between us once we arrive?

What if belonging is not simply a feeling, but something we create through relationships, shared power, courageous conversations, and collective action?

These are the kinds of questions we want to explore in the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.

The Coalition is a place for people who care deeply about diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging, social justice, human rights, and human dignity. It is also a learning community; a  space where intellectually curious people can encounter new ideas, share frameworks and methodologies, question familiar assumptions, and develop more refined ways of understanding inclusion.

One framework that has recently deepened my thinking is Relational-Cultural Theory, commonly called RCT.

Discovering a New Lens

I earned my PhD in Leadership and Change from Antioch University. My doctoral journey introduced me to a rich range of ideas about identity, culture, power, leadership, and social change. My dissertation chair, Dr. Philomena Essed, profoundly influenced my understanding of human dignity, everyday injustice, and the responsibility of leaders to create environments in which every person is fully valued.

My dissertation, Journeys Through Rough Country: An Ethnographic Study of Blind Adults Successfully Employed in American Corporations, examined the lived experiences of blind adults who had achieved meaningful employment in corporate America. I explored the relationships, experiences, personal agency, and organizational conditions that contributed to their success.

You can read the dissertation here: https://aura.antioch.edu/etds/467/

Although relationships were central to my research, I was not introduced to Relational-Cultural Theory during my doctoral studies. Sometimes the most important intellectual discoveries arrive after the diploma is framed and the dissertation dust has settled.

Fortunately, learning does not end at graduation.

Living in Seattle, home to one of Antioch University’s campuses, has allowed me to remain engaged with the Antioch community. I have had the honor of speaking on a panel for third-year doctoral students and attending presentations that continue to stretch my thinking.

One especially meaningful experience was hearing Dr. Harriet Schwartz present on RCT with Dr. Elizabeth Holloway, one of my professors in the Leadership and Change program. Dr. Schwartz is a leading scholar of relational practice in higher education and the author of Connected Teaching: Relationship, Power, and Mattering in Higher Education. Her work examines how connection, disconnection, identity, power, and emotion shape teaching and learning. Dr. Holloway’s mentorship helped introduce Dr. Schwartz to RCT and influenced her relational approach to scholarship and practice.

Their work helped me recognize that RCT offers much more than a theory of interpersonal relationships. It provides a powerful lens for examining leadership, institutions, culture, oppression, and social transformation.

We Grow Through Connection

Relational-Cultural Theory emerged from the work of Jean Baker Miller, Judith Jordan, Janet Surrey, Irene Stiver, and other scholars associated with the Stone Center at Wellesley College.

At its heart is a deceptively simple idea: human beings grow through and toward connection.

RCT challenges the myth that healthy development is primarily a journey toward independence and self-sufficiency. Instead, it recognizes that we are relational beings. We become more fully ourselves through relationships characterized by authenticity, mutual empathy, respect, shared power, and meaningful participation.

This does not mean ignoring conflict or pretending that every relationship is harmonious. Authentic connection requires the courage to acknowledge differences, confront harm, examine power, and repair disconnection.

The “cultural” in Relational-Cultural Theory is equally important. Relationships do not exist in a vacuum. Racism, ableism, sexism, economic inequality, heterosexism, ageism, and other systems of power shape who is heard, who is believed, who is welcomed, and who is expected to adapt.

That makes RCT highly relevant to anyone working for inclusion and social justice.

When Isolation Is Socially Produced

One of the most powerful RCT concepts I have encountered is “condemned isolation.”

Condemned isolation is more than being alone. It describes the painful experience of feeling disconnected while also believing that the disconnection results from something fundamentally wrong or unacceptable about oneself. A person may long for connection but fear that greater authenticity will lead to rejection.

For people with disabilities, this form of isolation is often socially manufactured.

Inaccessible workplaces, segregated programs, communication barriers, unemployment, low expectations, institutionalization, and exclusion from informal networks all send a message: “You do not fully belong here.”

When people receive that message repeatedly, external ableism can become internalized as shame, self-doubt, or a reluctance to express access needs. People may feel pressured to minimize their disabilities, work twice as hard for equal recognition, or express endless gratitude for accommodations that should have been available from the beginning.

RCT helps us see that the answer is not to “fix” an isolated individual. We must transform the relationships, cultures, and systems producing the isolation.

That transformation requires several shifts:

• Accessibility must open the door, but belonging must shape what happens inside.
• Presence must be accompanied by influence, participation, and shared power.
• Interdependence must be recognized as a human reality, not treated as a personal failure.
• Authenticity must be welcomed, so people do not have to conceal their identities, disabilities, pain, or access needs to remain accepted.
• When disconnection or exclusion occurs, organizations must acknowledge the harm, change the conditions that caused it, and work intentionally to rebuild trust.

Inclusion becomes meaningful when people are not merely present, but known, valued, heard, missed when absent, and able to contribute to decisions that affect their lives.

A Community of Scholar-Practitioners

I am grateful to Dr. Ileya Grosman, who regularly convenes a community of scholar-practitioners interested in exploring Relational-Cultural Theory. I have participated in several of these gatherings and deeply appreciate their combination of intellectual rigor, lived experience, reflection, and practical application.

On November 13, I will join Ileya’s RCT-informed Leadership and Change group to explore disability lived experience through a relational-cultural lens. We will consider how social structures create barriers and disconnection—and how relationships rooted in authenticity, mutuality, dignity, and shared power can advance disability inclusion.

I expect the conversation to generate more questions than answers. That is not a flaw. It is part of serious learning.

The most useful frameworks do not hand us tidy slogans. They help us notice what we have overlooked, name what we have experienced, and imagine new possibilities for action.

This Is What the Coalition Can Become

Relational-Cultural Theory is one of many models and methodologies we hope members will bring into the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.

Our community includes people with different identities, disciplines, professions, histories, and lived experiences. Each person carries knowledge that others may never have encountered. When we share that knowledge generously, and examine it critically together, we enlarge everyone’s capacity to understand and act.

The Coalition is not intended to be an echo chamber where people already fluent in the language of inclusion congratulate one another for agreeing. Nor is it a graduate seminar with a monthly subscription fee and surprise homework. It is a living community where scholarship meets experience and ideas lead to action.

We want to examine the deeper questions:

What creates genuine belonging?

How does power shape connection?

What does dignity require of leaders and institutions?

How can we repair relationships after exclusion or harm?

How do we move from isolated survival to sustainable collective power?

And how might our organizations and communities change if we understood connection not as a pleasant extra, but as essential to human growth and social transformation?

If those questions stir your curiosity, there is a place for you in this community.

Bring the framework that has shaped your thinking. Bring the question that keeps tugging at you. Bring your scholarship, your professional experience, your lived experience, and your unfinished ideas.

Let us think together, learn together, and create the conditions in which more people can live with connection, agency, belonging, and dignity.

Learn more and join the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion:

https://community.i4sdi.org/coalition-founder/

Kirk Adams, PhD
Executive Director
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion
www.i4sdi.org           

We can’t wait to see you at the next workshop.
Until then, please share this post with anyone you think would be interested.

The post From Isolation to Connection: Building a Community Where We Can Connect, Learn, and Act Together appeared first on Institute for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion.

Editor’s Note — September 2026: The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion has officially launched! What began as a vision is now a growing community of people committed to fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity, and human dignity for all. Together, we are moving beyond reactive, isolated efforts toward strategic, sustainable, collective power, grounded in courageous communication, shared learning, and meaningful action.

Your voice, experience, and participation can help shape what comes next. Join the Coalition today and stand shoulder to shoulder with people working to build a more just, inclusive, and connected world.

Learn more and become a member today at: https://community.i4sdi.org/coalition-founder.

What We Inherit—and What We Must Build Next

On September 1, we launched the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.

The launch came one week after the death of Dolly Parton and one day after the death of Wendell Berry. Then, two days later came the news that Gloria Steinem had died.

Three remarkable lives. Three profoundly different voices. Three people who, each in their own way, helped bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice.

And now they are gone.

I confess that I feel some tension writing about three white people in connection with a Coalition devoted to expanding diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging.

We must never tell the history of social justice as though progress has been bestowed upon us by a handful of famous white people. The long struggle for freedom has been led, sustained, and repeatedly rescued by Black people, Indigenous people, people of color, women, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, immigrants, workers, and countless others whose names may never appear in a history book.

Dolly Parton, Wendell Berry, and Gloria Steinem were not perfect. None of us is. Nor were they the sole authors of the movements with which they became associated.

But each demonstrated something important about how people can use their gifts, influence, resources, and voices in service to others.

Dolly Parton: Building Belonging Through Books, Music, and Love

Recently, my wife, Ros, was listening to Brittany Packnett Cunningham’s podcast in our kitchen. I overheard Brittany say something to the effect of:

“I’m going to have to have a talk with the Grim Reaper. You are taking the wrong people. You are taking the wrong white people!”

This was after Dolly Parton’s death but before we lost Wendell Berry and Gloria Steinem.

Brittany went on to reflect on how Dolly made music for everyone and consistently supported people of color and LGBTQ+ people.

Dolly possessed the rare ability to reach across many of the boundaries that divide us. Her music welcomed people in. Her warmth made people feel that they belonged. She publicly supported LGBTQ+ rights, affirmed the Black Lives Matter movement, invested in a predominantly Black Nashville neighborhood, and used her visibility to make room for people whom much of the country music establishment had overlooked or excluded.

Her most transformative legacy, however, may be found in the hands of children.

Created in honor of her father, who could not read, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library has given hundreds of millions of books to young children. Dolly once said:

“If I’m remembered 100 years from now, I hope it will be not for looks but for books.”

I understand the power of that legacy in a deeply personal way.

On my bookshelf are several dozen children’s books containing both print and braille. They came through Braille Tales, a partnership between the American Printing House for the Blind and Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. The program enables blind and low-vision children, and sighted children and their blind grownups, to share accessible books as families.

My four-year-old grandson and two-year-old granddaughter know that when they want Grandpa to read them a story, they must bring me a book with braille in it.

Recently, my granddaughter brought one of those books to me and said:

“Grandpa, read book with your hands!”

That is Dolly Parton’s legacy in my home.

A little girl understands that her blind grandfather reads differently, and that different is perfectly natural. She does not see an obstacle. She sees another way to share a story.

That is inclusion.

That is belonging.

That is love made practical.

The American Printing House for the Blind continues to make this family experience possible through Braille Tales.

Wendell Berry: Caring for the Corner Where We Stand

Wendell Berry influenced me in another way.

As a writer, poet, farmer, environmentalist, and cultural critic, he reminded us that community is not an abstract idea. It is a daily practice rooted in how we treat the people, creatures, land, and institutions closest to us.

Berry wrote:

“The community—in the fullest sense: a place and all its creatures—is the smallest unit of health.”

That conviction has long shaped my own philosophy: brighten the corner where you are.

We can and must confront national systems of injustice. But we must also examine what is happening in our workplaces, schools, neighborhoods, congregations, families, and community organizations.

Who is being heard?

Who is being overlooked?

Who is welcomed through the front door but excluded from real influence?

Who has knowledge and talent but no pathway to leadership?

Berry taught that we do not heal in isolation. We heal through relationships, responsibility, reciprocity, and care for place.

His life asks us a stubborn and necessary question: What are we doing with the particular corner entrusted to us?

Gloria Steinem: Opening Doors and Listening to Women

As a husband, father, brother, colleague, and friend, I am profoundly grateful for Gloria Steinem’s work to advance the freedom, dignity, safety, and leadership of women.

Steinem helped expose discrimination that society had normalized. She co-founded Ms. magazine, the National Women’s Political Caucus, and other organizations that changed public conversation and expanded women’s political and cultural power.

Importantly, she also understood that leadership is not about asking younger people to imitate those who came before them.

When asked what advice she would give young women, she said:

“Listen to yourselves, not to me.”

What a remarkable instruction for an elder and a leader to offer.

Do not become a copy of me.

Do not wait for my permission.

Listen to your experience. Trust your voice. Organize around the realities of your generation.

Steinem described herself as an “entrepreneur of social change.” She understood that movements require more than admired personalities. They require organizations, networks, stories, resources, relationships, and pathways through which people can exercise power together.

That is precisely the kind of infrastructure we must build now.

Inheritance Is Not Enough

We can honor these three lives without placing them at the center of every struggle or overlooking the generations of diverse leaders who fought beside them, challenged them, taught them, and made broader movements possible.

Honoring our elders does not mean placing them on pedestals.

It means carrying the work forward.

We are living through a generational transition. Many leaders who shaped the struggles of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are leaving us. Their deaths create grief, but they also create a responsibility.

Who will step forward?

Who will mentor them?

Who will fund their ideas?

Who will give them room to lead. Not someday, after waiting patiently for a seat at the table, but now?

Too many organizations say they want younger and more diverse leaders while continuing to concentrate authority, visibility, relationships, and resources in the same hands.

We cannot develop the next generation merely by inviting young people into the room. We must share power, provide meaningful opportunities, listen to their analysis, invest in their growth, and remain open to being challenged by them.

Mentorship must also be mutual.

Established leaders have experience, history, relationships, and hard-earned lessons to share. Emerging leaders bring new language, new tools, new cultural understanding, new forms of organizing, and questions that institutions desperately need to hear.

The goal is not to pass an old torch unchanged.

The goal is to build a larger fire together.

This Is Why the Coalition Exists

The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion is committed to working with, mentoring, supporting, and learning from the next generation of social justice champions.

We want to connect people across race, disability, gender, generation, affectional orientation, culture, profession, geography, identity, and lived experience.

We want experienced leaders, emerging leaders, reluctant leaders, and people who have never imagined themselves as leaders.

We need elders who are willing to share what they know without controlling what comes next.

We need younger people willing to question our assumptions, stretch our imaginations, and create approaches we have not yet considered.

We need people from historically excluded communities to exercise real influence, not serve as decorations in someone else’s vision of diversity.

The Coalition is a place to exchange resources, develop new ideas, mentor and be mentored, organize, advocate, build relationships, and transform isolated individual effort into collective power.

Connect. Learn. Act. Together.

Every generation inherits unfinished work.

Our responsibility is to honor what came before us, repair what was broken, preserve what remains valuable, and create smoother pathways for those coming next.

Become a Founding Member

We are building this Coalition right now, and we need you.

Do not stand on the sidelines and wait for someone else to protect inclusion, equal opportunity, belonging, social justice, human rights, and human dignity.

Bring your experience.

Bring your questions.

Bring your relationships.

Bring your imagination.

And bring someone from another generation with you.

Join the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion as a Founding Member:
Join the coalition as a founder

https://community.i4sdi.org/coalition-founder

Founding Membership is available for a limited time at:

$25.99 per month

$239.88 per year, equivalent to $19.99 per month

Honor-system membership for students and people who are unemployed is available at:

$15.99 per month

$119.88 per year, equivalent to $9.99 per month

No application. No paperwork. No requirement to prove that you belong.

We trust our community.

Save the Date

Please join us for the in-person Launch Celebration of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion:

Wednesday, October 21, 2026

5:30–7:30 p.m.

Parkview Event Space—Sanctuary Room
200 8th Avenue North
Seattle, WA 98109

Come ready for community, connection, celebration, and joy.

Help Us Build What Comes Next

Membership is the most important way to sustain the Coalition.

If you would also like to make a tax-deductible contribution, our GoFundMe campaign supports the Coalition’s online community, mobile apps, accessibility, programming, and member resources:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-our-fight-for-inclusion-human-dignity-for-all

Learn more about the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion:

https://www.i4sdi.org

Dolly Parton showed us that a book placed in a child’s hands can open a world.

Wendell Berry showed us that healthy lives require healthy communities.

Gloria Steinem showed us that movements grow when people listen to their own voices and to one another.

Now the work belongs to us.

Let us honor those who came before by opening doors for those who are coming next.

Let us resist fear, division, isolation, and hate.

Let us build relationships across identities and generations.

Let us make room.

Let us share power.

Let us become the ancestors that future generations will be proud to claim.

Together, let’s build what comes next.

Kirk Adams, PhD
Executive Director
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion
www.i4sdi.org           

We can’t wait to see you at the next workshop.
Until then, please share this post with anyone you think would be interested.

The post What We Inherit and What We Must Build Next appeared first on Institute for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion.

Editor’s Note — September 2026: The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion has officially launched! What began as a vision is now a growing community of people committed to fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity, and human dignity for all. Together, we are moving beyond reactive, isolated efforts toward strategic, sustainable, collective power, grounded in courageous communication, shared learning, and meaningful action.

Your voice, experience, and participation can help shape what comes next. Join the Coalition today and stand shoulder to shoulder with people working to build a more just, inclusive, and connected world.

Learn more and become a member today at: https://community.i4sdi.org/coalition-founder.

This Is Our Season: Join Us September 1st  When We Launch—Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion

Register today for the virtual launch of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion and invite someone who should not have to do this work alone.

Tuesday, September 1st
11:00 a.m. to noon Pacific / 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. Eastern
We will gather online for:
RESIST! Join the Launch of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion

The event is free. Learn more and register here:
https://drkirkadams.com/join-the-launch-of-the-ccsdi/

September is a season of turning.

Summer begins to loosen its warm embrace. Students return to classrooms. Families settle into new routines. Morning air grows crisp. Leaves begin trading green for gold, crimson, and copper, reminding us that transformation can be both beautiful and necessary.

To everything, there is a season.

This is our season to come together.

This is our season to turn isolation into connection, fear into courage, exhaustion into renewed purpose, and individual effort into collective power.

This is the season for the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.

When You Feel Like the Only One in the Room

Across the country, champions of diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging, human rights, and human dignity are facing intense pressure.

Programs are being dismantled. Funding is disappearing. Language is being censored. People are being asked to abandon commitments that were never merely fashionable initiatives; they were promises of fairness, opportunity, dignity, and belonging.

In workplaces, schools, nonprofits, government agencies, and communities, many champions feel like the only one in the room.

Perhaps you know that feeling.

You raise the question no one else will ask. You identify the barrier everyone else has learned to ignore. You advocate for the person whose experience is missing from the conversation. You continue speaking even when the room becomes uncomfortable.

Then you go home wondering: Is anyone else out there? Does anyone understand how exhausting this is? How long can I keep carrying it alone?

You are not alone.

But too often, the people who share our values remain separated by geography, profession, identity, institution, or issue. We may be fighting similar battles without knowing one another exists.

That isolation is not simply painful. It weakens our ability to create change.

The forces working against inclusion triumph when we are exhausted, fragmented, and afraid. Our answer must be courageous connection.

From Isolated Survival to Collective Power

The purpose of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion is clear:

The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion empowers members to move from reactive, isolated survival mode to strategic, sustainable, collective power through courageous communication and connected communities.

And our “why” is equally clear:

We believe in fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity, and human dignity for all.

The Coalition is being created to help people address real-world issues, not simply discuss inspiring ideas.

It will be a place where champions can find practical resources, exchange strategies, learn from subject-matter experts, ask difficult questions, develop solutions, and organize collective action.

We will facilitate mentoring and peer-learning circles so people can support one another across generations, professions, identities, and experiences.

Coalition members will be able to gather in spaces devoted to the issues they care about most. They will meet people confronting similar challenges, engage with experts who can help them move forward, and contribute their own wisdom to others.

Because expertise does not come only from titles, degrees, or institutions.

Each of us carries knowledge shaped by our lived experiences. Each of us possesses a unique combination of gifts, skills, relationships, and perspectives. Something you have learned may be exactly what another person needs to take their next step.

The Coalition will create a space where we can bestow those gifts upon one another.

That is how community becomes power.

A Joyous Rebellion

Our launch is an act of resistance—but we are not building a community fueled only by anger or fear.

We are creating a joyous rebellion.

A rebellion against isolation.

Against division.

Against hopelessness.

Against the lie that expanding opportunity for one group must diminish another.

Against the idea that fairness, inclusion, accessibility, belonging, and human dignity are somehow too dangerous to name.

We will resist with courage and creativity.

We will resist with authenticity and love.

We will resist by forming relationships strong enough to carry us through difficult seasons.

Imagine people from every walk of life: across race, disability, gender, affectional orientation, generation, profession, geography, faith, identity, and lived experience, standing shoulder to shoulder and declaring:

We will not retreat. We will not be divided. We will build something better. Together.

Not Another Webinar

Our September 1 launch will not be another webinar where people talk at you for an hour while you quietly wonder whether anyone would notice if you wandered off to refill your coffee.

We are creating an Ask Us Anything conversation.

Bring your questions.

Bring your frustrations.

Bring your ideas.

Bring your lived experience.

Bring your hope, even if it is feeling a little bruised.

I will be joined by ISDI board members and community advisors representing a rich variety of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We will discuss why the Coalition is needed, what members will find inside it, and how we can transform courageous conversation into meaningful action.

Most importantly, we want to hear from you.

What challenges are you facing? What resources do you need? What knowledge can you share? What could become possible if you no longer had to stand alone?

Bring Someone With You

Register for the September 1 launch and then invite someone else.

Invite the person who keeps speaking up in difficult meetings.

Invite the educator helping every student feel seen.

Invite the disability advocate demanding access.

Invite the human-resources professional trying to protect inclusive practices.

Invite the employee-resource-group leader holding people together.

Invite the executive, organizer, activist, student, neighbor, colleague, or family member who believes human dignity is worth defending.

A new season is approaching, carrying both uncertainty and possibility.

We cannot control every change the wind may bring. But we can decide how we will meet it and who will stand beside us when it arrives.

Help Us Build What Comes Next

You can also help bring the Coalition to life by supporting our GoFundMe campaign.

Every contribution—whether it is $10, $25, $50, $100, or more—helps us build and sustain the Coalition’s online community and mobile apps. If you are unable to give right now, sharing the campaign with your networks can be an equally powerful act of support.

Support and share our GoFundMe campaign:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-our-fight-for-inclusion-human-dignity-for-all

Register now for the free September 1 virtual launch:
https://drkirkadams.com/join-the-launch-of-the-ccsdi/

Make a gift. Register for the launch. Share both invitations. And bring someone with you.

The leaves are turning.

The seasons are changing.

And so are we.

RESIST fear.

RESIST division.

RESIST isolation.

RESIST hate.

Together, let us build what comes next.

This is our moment. This is our community. This is our season.

Kirk Adams, PhD
Executive Director
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion
www.i4sdi.org           

We can’t wait to see you at the next workshop.
Until then, please share this post with anyone you think would be interested.

The post Join Us September 1st  When We Launch—Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion appeared first on Institute for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion.

Editor’s Note — September 2026: The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion has officially launched! What began as a vision is now a growing community of people committed to fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity, and human dignity for all. Together, we are moving beyond reactive, isolated efforts toward strategic, sustainable, collective power, grounded in courageous communication, shared learning, and meaningful action.

Your voice, experience, and participation can help shape what comes next. Join the Coalition today and stand shoulder to shoulder with people working to build a more just, inclusive, and connected world.

Learn more and become a member today at: https://community.i4sdi.org/coalition-founder.

RESIST! We Have Inherited a Legacy. Now It Is Our Turn.

Sign up. Show up. Stand up.

On Tuesday, September 1, from 11:00 a.m. to noon Pacific / 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. Eastern, we are launching the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion with a free livestreamed event.

RESIST! Join the Launch of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.

Register now:

https://www.linkedin.com/events/launch-communitycoalitionforsus7491207384133111809/

Don’t wait until September 1 to decide whether you are part of this.

You are invited now.

If you believe in fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity and human dignity for all, we need you.

If you are tired of watching diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and belonging programs being dismantled, we need you.

If you are feeling isolated, discouraged or afraid to speak up, we especially need you.

Because resistance has never been a solo act.

And neither is ours.

We Are Not Starting From Scratch

The Community Coalition will build upon, learn from, honor and respect the extraordinary work of people and movements that resisted injustice before us.

At the end of July, my wife Ros and I spent several days in Oakland, California, a city we love and where our daughter Rachel lived for many years.

Oakland is also the birthplace of the Black Panther Party, founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966. This year marks the Party’s 60th anniversary. (Oakland Museum of California (OMCA))

The Panthers developed an extraordinary network of what they called Community Survival Programs: free breakfasts for children, health clinics, food programs, sickle-cell testing, legal services, transportation, education, services for seniors and people with disabilities, and much more. (Black Panther History Project)

They understood something that remains profoundly relevant:

Resistance isn’t only about what we stand against. It is about what we build together.

That idea speaks directly to what we are creating with the Community Coalition.

We can resist attacks on inclusion while simultaneously building stronger communities.

We can oppose injustice while creating practical resources.

We can challenge systems while caring for the people living within them.

We can turn frustration into organization, isolation into connection and fear into collective power.

That is why our Coalition exists:

The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion empowers members to move from reactive, isolated survival mode to strategic, sustainable, collective power through courageous communication and connected communities.

When Movements Meet

There is another part of the Black Panther story that has particular meaning to me as a lifelong disability advocate.

In 1977, Judy Heumann and other disability activists occupied the federal building in San Francisco, demanding implementation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, a landmark civil-rights protection prohibiting disability discrimination.

The occupation lasted 26 days.

And the protesters could not have sustained it alone. (National Park Service)

Among them was Brad Lomax, a Black disability activist with multiple sclerosis who was also a member of the Black Panther Party. Lomax helped create a bridge between the disability-rights and Black-liberation movements. (ArcGIS StoryMaps)

The Panthers responded.

They brought food and supplies to the protesters throughout the occupation. The National Park Service reports that they provided a hot meal every day as well as supplies for additional meals. Other allies including churches, labor unions, gay activists and community organizations also stepped forward. (National Park Service)

Think about that.

People came from different communities.

They had different histories.

They faced different forms of oppression.

But they recognized something in one another.

Your struggle for dignity is connected to my struggle for dignity.

That story, captured powerfully in the documentary Crip Camp, reminds us that the movements for racial justice, disability rights, LGBTQ+ equality, economic justice, women’s rights and other struggles for human dignity have never existed in neat little boxes.

They overlap.

They intersect.

And at their most powerful, they show up for one another.

That is precisely the kind of solidarity we want to nurture through the Community Coalition.

Study Is Part of Resistance

Recently I learned about the new Seattle Black Panther Party Interpretive Center, created to preserve the history of the first authorized Black Panther chapter established outside California.

This history is not distant from our family. We are privileged to know the Dixon family. Brothers Aaron and Elmer Dixon helped establish the Seattle chapter in 1968, the first authorized Black Panther Party chapter outside California.

Our two beloved grandchildren receive pediatric care at the Carolyn Downs Family Medical Center, which traces its roots to the free medical clinic established by the Seattle Panthers. It is the only one of the 13 original Black Panther-founded health clinics still operating today. Every time our grandchildren receive care there, they are benefiting from a legacy of community members who saw an unmet need and built an institution to meet it.

That legacy is also present at the Madrona–Sally Goldmark Branch of The Seattle Public Library, where Ros and I took our children to check out books. Outside the library stands Richard Beyer’s sculpture The Peaceable Kingdom. Among its figures is a panther representing the Seattle Black Panthers, whose headquarters were in the Madrona neighborhood.

These are not merely artifacts from the past. They are threads running through our family’s life: the people we know, the clinic that cares for our grandchildren, the library where we nurtured our children’s love of learning and the neighborhood we call home.

The Seattle Panthers didn’t simply protest. They built. Their work included children’s breakfast programs, medical care, food distribution, transportation, clothing drives and legal assistance. The new Center describes these programs not simply as charity, but as models of collective power and self-sufficiency. (Seattle Black Panther)

I watched a video about the Center and something seemingly small grabbed me.

They have assembled the books that appeared on the Panthers’ required reading list, marked so visitors can identify them and read what the Panthers read.

I love that.

Because movements need more than passion.

Movements need study.

Panther culture placed enormous emphasis on political education, reading, discussion and learning together. The Seattle Interpretive Center continues that tradition as a place for education, dialogue, research and organizing. (Seattle Black Panther)

Our Coalition will echo that commitment in its own way.

We are creating a research and resource library, discussion spaces, opportunities to learn from experts and places where members can wrestle together with difficult questions.

Not talking points.

Not slogans.

Learning.

Listening.

Questioning.

Growing.

Then acting.

Black August: Remember, Study, Act

There is another reason this history feels especially meaningful right now.

This is Black August.

Black August emerged from California prisons in the late 1970s as a time to remember Black freedom fighters and political prisoners and to practice reflection, study, discipline and resistance. It grew from the commemoration of figures including George and Jonathan Jackson and has expanded into a broader remembrance of Black struggles for liberation. (America’s Black Holocaust Museum)

I didn’t grow up knowing about Black August.

I learned about it years later, when Ros and I moved to Arlington, Virginia, while I was serving as president and CEO of the American Foundation for the Blind.

We began listening to Washington, D.C.’s WPFW radio. Through WPFW, we learned about Black August and began attending Black August events in the D.C. area.

I was learning again.

And that matters to me.

None of us enters this work knowing everything.

We learn from people whose histories are different from ours.

We listen.

We show up.

And when we do it well, we allow what we learn to change what we do.

Put Your Dollars Where Your Values Are

August is also National Black Business Month, established in 2004 to call attention to Black entrepreneurship and encourage support for Black-owned businesses. (Black Enterprise)

So here is another form of action available to virtually all of us:

Spend some of your dollars with Black-owned businesses this month, and keep doing it after August ends.

Where we spend money matters.

When dollars circulate through locally owned businesses, they support entrepreneurs, workers, families and neighborhoods. Supporting Black-owned businesses is therefore more than a symbolic gesture. It can become part of a circular economy of community investment, people supporting businesses that employ, purchase from, mentor, sponsor and reinvest in their communities.

Resistance can look like marching.

It can look like organizing.

It can look like studying.

It can look like mentoring an entrepreneur.

And sometimes it looks like deciding where you buy dinner.

Now It Is Our Turn

We inherit powerful examples.

Not perfect movements.

Not histories without controversy or contradiction.

But examples of human beings deciding that injustice would not have the final word.

The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion will learn from those who came before us while building something for the realities we face now.

Our “why” is simple:

WE BELIEVE IN FAIRNESS, INCLUSION, EQUAL OPPORTUNITY AND HUMAN DIGNITY FOR ALL.

And on September 1, we begin bringing people together around that belief.

This will not be another webinar where experts talk at you for an hour.

It will be an Ask Us Anything conversation.

Bring your questions.

Bring your frustration.

Bring your ideas.

Bring your lived experience.

Bring your courage.

And bring somebody with you.

SIGN UP NOW

RESIST! Join the Launch of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion

Tuesday, September 1, 2026
11:00 a.m.–noon Pacific / 2:00–3:00 p.m. Eastern

Register here:

https://www.linkedin.com/events/launch-communitycoalitionforsus7491207384133111809/

And if you believe this Coalition needs to exist, please help us build it.

We are raising funds to create the Coalition’s online community and mobile app on the Circle platform. A gift of $10, $25, $50, $100—or whatever is right for you—moves us closer.

Donate:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-our-fight-for-inclusion-human-dignity-for-all

Sign up.

Make a gift.

Invite someone else.

RESIST fear.

RESIST division.

RESIST isolation.

RESIST hate.

And learn from those who resisted before us.

Because the strongest movements don’t just fight what is wrong.

They build what comes next.

Let’s build it together.

Kirk Adams, PhD
Executive Director
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion
www.i4sdi.org           

We can’t wait to see you at the next workshop.
Until then, please share this post with anyone you think would be interested.

The post RESIST! We Have Inherited a Legacy. Now It Is Our Turn. appeared first on Institute for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion.

Editor’s Note — September 2026: The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion has officially launched! What began as a vision is now a growing community of people committed to fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity, and human dignity for all. Together, we are moving beyond reactive, isolated efforts toward strategic, sustainable, collective power, grounded in courageous communication, shared learning, and meaningful action.

Your voice, experience, and participation can help shape what comes next. Join the Coalition today and stand shoulder to shoulder with people working to build a more just, inclusive, and connected world.

Learn more and become a member today at: https://community.i4sdi.org/coalition-founder.

When Speaking Up Feels Dangerous: We Need Community More Than Ever

There was a time when many of us working for diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging and human rights worried primarily about whether our organizations were moving quickly enough.

Today, some of us are asking a much more fundamental question:

Is it safe to speak up at all?

That question is not hypothetical.

People who advocate for immigrants, racial justice, LGBTQ+ equality, disability rights and other historically marginalized communities increasingly find themselves navigating an environment in which speaking out can carry personal and professional consequences.

That fear is real.

And fear, when people experience it alone, is powerful.

But community can be more powerful.

That is one reason we are building the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.

When Advocacy Carries Risk

Consider what has been happening around us.

In Texas, protesters connected to a July 2025 demonstration outside the Prairieland immigration detention center were prosecuted in an extraordinary federal terrorism case. The facts are complicated and should not be oversimplified: a police officer was shot and wounded, property was damaged, and one defendant was convicted of attempted murder. At the same time, other defendants received extraordinarily long prison sentences after convictions that included providing material support for terrorism. The case has become part of a much larger national debate about protest, dissent and the boundaries of government power. (The Washington Post)

The Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization with a long history of monitoring hate and extremism, is also facing federal criminal charges. The SPLC denies wrongdoing and has asked a federal court to dismiss the charges, arguing that the prosecution is politically motivated and vindictive. The Justice Department strongly disputes that characterization. (CBS News)

Whatever our individual political perspectives on these particular cases, they illuminate something larger.

The perceived cost of advocacy is rising.

An employee may wonder whether challenging an inequitable policy will cost them a promotion.

A DEI professional may wonder whether their job will exist six months from now.

A nonprofit leader may worry that taking a public position will jeopardize funding.

An educator may wonder which words are now considered too controversial.

A corporate leader may believe deeply in inclusion while wondering how publicly they can say so.

And ordinary people may simply decide that remaining silent feels safer.

That is exactly when community becomes essential.

Courage Should Not Require Recklessness

The answer to fear is not telling people to “be brave” and sending them into difficult situations alone.

That is not courage. That can be recklessness.

The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion will take a different approach.

One of the solutions we intend to provide is legal literacy and risk-aware advocacy strategies.

Legal literacy does not mean turning every Coalition member into a lawyer. It means helping people understand the landscape in which they are operating, identify credible information and expertise, ask better questions, recognize potential risks, and make more informed decisions about when and how to act.

Risk-aware advocacy recognizes something equally important:
Different people carry different levels of risk.

Sustainable movements must understand those differences.

We want to create a community where people can learn from experts and one another, share strategies, identify emerging threats and opportunities, and make informed choices about how they can contribute.

Nobody should have to navigate this moment alone.

Join Us September 1

On September 1, 2026, we will publicly launch the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion with a livestreamed virtual event.

I hope you will join us. There is no cost for this launch event. 

We will talk about why this Coalition is needed now, what we are building together, and how people who believe in diversity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging and human dignity can move from reactive, isolated survival mode to strategic, sustainable, collective power.

Register for the September 1 virtual launch on LinkedIn. 
Click the “Attend” button to receive a reminder for the live event at 11 am Pacific Time on Tuesday, September 1.
You will be directed to access the event on Zoom.

Please register—and then invite someone else who needs to be part of this community.
Share the invitation to your LinkedIn profile.

Help Us Build the Infrastructure for Collective Power

We also need your help to build the Coalition.

ISDI is raising funds through GoFundMe to help create the community infrastructure (a robust online meeting and collaboration platform) and resources that will make this work possible.

Every contribution matters.

A donation is more than financial support. It is a statement that people committed to inclusion should have places to connect, learn, strategize and act together.

Please support the Community Coalition through our GoFundMe campaign:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-our-fight-for-inclusion-human-dignity-for-all

And please share the campaign with your networks.

Fear Thrives in Isolation

This Coalition exists to solve problems.

Fear of backlash and retaliation is one of them.

We cannot promise that advocacy will always be comfortable. We cannot eliminate every professional, legal or personal risk.

But we can make sure people have better information.

We can connect them with expertise.

We can help one another think strategically.

We can stand beside people who otherwise might feel alone.

And perhaps most importantly, we can remind one another that fear does not get the final word.

Community does.

Join us September 1. for the Live Event. 

Support the GoFundMe campaign.

And help us build a community capable not merely of protecting diversity and inclusion, but of advancing and sustaining this work for the generations to follow. 

Kirk Adams, PhD
Executive Director
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion

We can’t wait to see you at the next workshop.
Until then, please share this post with anyone you think would be interested.

The post When Speaking Up Feels Dangerous: We Need Community More Than Ever appeared first on Institute for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion.

Editor’s Note — September 2026: The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion has officially launched! What began as a vision is now a growing community of people committed to fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity, and human dignity for all. Together, we are moving beyond reactive, isolated efforts toward strategic, sustainable, collective power, grounded in courageous communication, shared learning, and meaningful action.

Your voice, experience, and participation can help shape what comes next. Join the Coalition today and stand shoulder to shoulder with people working to build a more just, inclusive, and connected world.

Learn more and become a member today at: https://community.i4sdi.org/coalition-founder.

This Is Your Invitation: Help Build a Community Where Everyone Belongs

Please make a gift of any size today—and then share our campaign with your friends, family, and colleagues. Together, we can build something our communities need right now.

Donate here: GoFundMe.com Support our fight for inclusion and Human Dignity for all

There is a place for you here.

Whether you use the term DEI or not, if you believe every person deserves dignity, opportunity, belonging, fairness, accessibility, and the chance to thrive, this Community Coalition is being built for you.

Everybody.

People with disabilities. Veterans. LGBTQ+ people. Women. People of every race and ethnicity. Rural communities. Faith communities. Business leaders. Educators. Students. Parents. Nonprofit professionals. Labor leaders. Entrepreneurs. Allies. Dreamers. Builders. Neighbors.

If you believe our differences make us stronger and that communities flourish when everyone has a chance to contribute, you already belong.

Over the past year, I’ve had the privilege of serving as Executive Director of the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion (ISDI) on a part-time basis. Alongside an extraordinary team of dedicated volunteers, we’ve poured our hearts into creating something we believe has never been more necessary. Last summer, we facilitated an authentic strategic planning process involving more than 60 leaders working across diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging, human rights, and social justice. Their backgrounds were different. Their organizations were different. But their message was remarkably consistent.

People feel isolated.

Many feel under pressure.

Too many are fighting the same battles alone.

They long for a place where they can connect with others who care, learn from one another, celebrate victories, solve problems together, and find the encouragement to keep going.

That vision became the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.

This isn’t another organization asking people to choose sides.

It’s a place to come together.

A place to exchange ideas.

A place to learn.

A place to organize.

A place to celebrate progress.

A place to remind one another that hope grows stronger when it is shared.

We’re now just weeks away from launching the Coalition on the Circle platform, and we’re asking our community to help us cross the finish line.

If this vision resonates with you, I hope you’ll consider making a gift of any size.

Every donation brings us one step closer to opening the doors to a welcoming community where people can discover resources, build relationships, develop leadership, exchange ideas, and create lasting impact together.

You can contribute here: GoFundMe.com Support our fight for inclusion and Human dignity for all

  Click to go to GoFundMe.com

Throughout my career, I have been blessed with opportunities to work alongside remarkable people who believe that accessibility, opportunity, and inclusion are not special favors—they are essential building blocks of a healthy society.

This Coalition has become one of the projects closest to my heart because I believe it answers a question so many people are asking today:

Where do I belong?

Our answer is simple.

Here.

Step into the circle.

Bring your experiences.

Bring your hopes.

Bring your questions.

Bring your passion for building a world where every person is valued.

You’ll be welcomed with open arms.

And if you’re unable to give financially today, you can still make an enormous difference. Please share our GoFundMe campaign through your social media networks. You never know who might be inspired to join this movement because you took a moment to spread the word.

Thank you for believing that communities are stronger when everyone has a seat at the table.

Thank you for helping us build something that will serve people for years to come.

Together, let’s create a community where everyone belongs.

With gratitude,

Kirk Adams, PhD
Executive Director
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion

P.S. Please make a gift of any size today, then take one more minute to share the campaign directly from the GoFundMe page with your social networks. Every donation expands our reach. Every share expands our community. Every person who joins strengthens our collective ability to build a more just, welcoming, and inclusive future.

  Click to go to GoFundMe.com

We can’t wait to see you at the next workshop.
Until then, please share this post with anyone you think would be interested.

The post This Is Your Invitation: Help Build a Community Where Everyone Belongs appeared first on Institute for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion.

Editor’s Note — September 2026: The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion has officially launched! What began as a vision is now a growing community of people committed to fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity, and human dignity for all. Together, we are moving beyond reactive, isolated efforts toward strategic, sustainable, collective power, grounded in courageous communication, shared learning, and meaningful action.

Your voice, experience, and participation can help shape what comes next. Join the Coalition today and stand shoulder to shoulder with people working to build a more just, inclusive, and connected world.

Learn more and become a member today at: https://community.i4sdi.org/coalition-founder.

We Are Stronger Together. Join the Circle.

Over the past several years, something has become painfully clear.

Those of us working to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging, human rights, and social justice often care deeply about many of the same values. We want communities where every person is treated with dignity. We want workplaces where everyone has the opportunity to thrive. We want a society that lives up to its highest ideals.

Yet too often, our efforts remain fragmented.

One organization focuses on disability. Another on racial justice. Another on LGBTQ+ equality. Another on women’s leadership. Another on veterans. Another on aging. Another on economic opportunity.

Every one of these efforts matters.

But when we work in isolation, our collective voice becomes quieter than it should be.

The challenges we face are simply too interconnected for any one movement to solve alone.

That is why the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion is building something different.

We are creating the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion; a national gathering place where champions of human dignity, fairness, accessibility, and justice can connect, collaborate, learn from one another, and build lasting relationships across every identity, every sector, every generation, and every community.

This coalition is not just for DEI professionals.

It is for nonprofit leaders.

It is for business leaders.

It is for educators.

It is for disability advocates.

It is for civil rights organizations.

It is for veterans.

It is for faith communities.

It is for labor leaders.

It is for students.

It is for parents and grandparents.

It is for anyone who believes that every person deserves to belong.

In short…

This coalition is for everybody.

America recently celebrated its 250th birthday, a reminder that our nation has always been a work in progress. Generation after generation has helped bend the arc of our shared story toward greater freedom, greater opportunity, and greater justice.

Now it is our turn.

Not by standing apart.

But by standing together.

We believe the future belongs to people who build bridges instead of walls. People who choose collaboration over competition. People who understand that our differences are not obstacles, rather they are strengths.

That’s why we’re asking for your help today.

We are raising funds to build and launch the Coalition on the Circle platform that will serve as the digital home for this growing community. It will be where members share resources, solve problems together, mentor emerging leaders, organize around common challenges, and discover that none of us has to do this work alone.

Here’s the beautiful part:

You don’t have to make a large gift to make a meaningful difference.

Give what you can.

Five dollars.

Ten dollars.

Twenty-five dollars.

Fifty dollars.

Whatever feels right.

Every contribution says the same thing:

“I believe we are stronger together.”

Your gift is more than a donation.

It is your name added to a growing community of people choosing hope over division.

It is your hand reaching out to someone you’ve never met.

It is your voice joining thousands of others who believe that collaboration is more powerful than isolation.

And if you’re not able to give today, you can still make an enormous difference by sharing this campaign with your friends, colleagues, family members, and professional networks.

Movements grow one conversation at a time.

Communities grow one relationship at a time.

Coalitions grow one person at a time.

Today, I invite you to become one of those people.

Join us.

Help democratize our collective power.

Help build a community where everyone has a place.

Help bring more people into the circle.

Please make a gift of any size today, and then share this campaign with someone else who believes that our best future is one we build together.

Together, we can create something far greater than any of us could build alone.

Please donate here: GoFundMe  Support Our Fight for Inclusion & Human Dignity for All

Thank you for believing in this vision.

I’ll see you in the Circle.

— Dr. Kirk Adams
Executive Director
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion

We can’t wait to see you at the next workshop.
Until then, please share this post with anyone you think would be interested.

The post We Are Stronger Together. Join the Circle. appeared first on Institute for Sustainable Diversity & Inclusion.