Changing more than faces, changing spaces.
Phase 1: Building Individual Skill
Winning a campaign doesn't mean you have the knowledge to govern, let alone change historically exclusionary systems. Particularly for women, and people of color, operating in institutions not built by them, for them, or with their inclusion in mind can present overwhelming obstacles. The toolkit developed by Political Equity Partners, LLC provides newly elected officials with confidential governance coaching, organizational trainings, and equity assessments that help treat political institutions like places of work that must work better for women and people of color.
Phase 2: Promoting Collective Will
As individual elected officials develop better change management skills, promoting a collective will that holds them accountable to systems change comes in the form of incentives elected officials understand in the current system, donations. Using a political action committee model that promotes an "equity" agenda through systems change, we look to help motivate change behavior in elected officials that promotes process and systems change to reform political institutions and make them more inclusive.
Phase 3: Enabling Systems Change
Part of changing the system we have is in understanding how the system came to be, what systemic inequities and exclusions have been built into it - whether intentionally or not - and what evidence-based best practices exist to execute equitable change. The Center for the Advancement of Political Equity is a non-partisan non-profit think tank focused on bringing research and academic effort to supporting elected officials in their professional development and organizational change efforts.