Power mapping and DEI

a helpful tool in gauging your workplace

The best organizing campaigns I’ve been a part of have engaged in a process called power mapping. And if you don’t know by now, I think the best Diversity/Equity/Inclusion work is actually a form of community organizing. Here’s why:

• a small group of passionate people are seeking to effect culture shift and policy shifts that will require moving others who aren’t as passionate as they are

• The strategy is shaped by the people most impacted by injustice but committed allies/co-conspirators play key roles in helping it take root

• Over time, when it’s done well, it becomes normalized, so that people within the organization are proud of that work, and it draws the kinds of people who want to be part of it.

• EDUCATION IS NEVER ENOUGH TO SHIFT ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, so it can never stop there. (That’s a foundational principal of community organizing you may have heard before but it bears repeating. One of my favorite racial and worker justice organizations based in Mississippi used to say of themselves, “we educate, and we agitate.”)

Please hear me say this is not how all DEI work goes. It’s just how the DEI work I invest myself in goes. And to my mind, those are the hallmarks of good community organizing.

So why not use some of the best organizing tools to ensure success? And power mapping is one of those tools.