Equity: Value is put on “equal outcomes”; assumes everyone starts from different places.

Inclusion: An environment that engages multiple perspectives, differing ideas, and individuals from different backgrounds to define organizations policy and practice, and shape organizational culture.

Diversity: The full range of differences and similarities, visible and non-visible, that make each individual unique.

Bias: conscious or unconscious prejudice against an individual or group based on their identity.

Racism: individual- and group-level processes and structures that are implicated in the reproduction of racial inequality; prejudice, discrimination or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group.

*Racial bias is a belief where racism is what happens when that belief is translated into action.

Anti-Blackness: the name given to the specific kind of racial prejudice directed towards black people in order to not erase their lived experiences or clump those experiencing anti-blackness within a vague form of racism understanding.

White Privilege: a set of benefits granted to those who, by race, resemble the people who dominate the powerful positions in our institutions; this includes the primary privilege of white people having greater access to power and resources compared to people of color purely on the basis of their skin color. 

White Supremacy Culture: White supremacy culture is the idea (ideology) that white people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions of white people are superior to People of Color and their ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions; the artificial, historically constructed culture which expresses, justifies and binds together the United States white supremacy system.

White Savior Complex: The merging of practices, processes and institutions that work to shine light on historical inequities to ultimately validate white privilege; a, usually emotional, experience that is used to validate privilege; refers to a white person who provides help or aid to non-white people in a self-serving manner.

Civic Engagement: Thought as promoting the quality of life in a community through political activism, social activism, environmentalism and community service (volunteerism).

Volunteering/Volunteerism: Focused on an individual or group providing a service voluntarily or freely

Passed by the Board of Directors August 19, 2020