WHAT DOES ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION LOOK LIKE?
Throughout 2021 and into 2022, Seachange Collective supported a global team from the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) in a collaborative and participatory process to deepen organizational commitment, capacity, and practice related to embodying equity and justice, both internally and externally.
HEAR WHAT OUR PARTNERS AT CESR HAVE TO SHARE about the work we did together:
“At the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR), we work to transform our unjust economic system by harnessing the power of human rights to inspire fairer and more sustainable economies. Our research sheds light on the systems and structures that fuel inequalities worldwide. Our advocacy promotes rights-based alternatives, working with different movements to boost our collective power to bring about change.
Collaboration with Seachange Collective
“In 2020, as the pandemic was unfolding, we embarked on a new organizational strategy aimed at envisioning a rights-based economy and catalyzing action towards it. We recognized that to change the world we had to begin by changing ourselves, growing into an organization with more deep-rooted connections to the movements and communities we serve. We came to Seachange to help us design a strategy for Embodying Equity and Justice (EEJ) in our workplace and organizational culture, as well as in the work we do externally.
“It’s been a rich, challenging and eye-opening process over the last year, one which has engaged our whole staff team, as well as our Board and some external stakeholders (allies, partners and funders). Guided by a Board/Staff Steering Group, facilitated by Seachange, this process fed into an Embodying Equity and Justice Strategy outlining where we’re starting from (diagnostic outcomes), where we want to go (vision and commitment statement) and how we will get there (roadmap and plan of action).
Looking To The Future
“Though still ongoing, the collaboration has already had a significant impact on our understanding and practice. For example, all recruitments carried out since the process started have foregrounded equity and justice considerations more consciously, transforming the composition of the staff team (with the majority now in or from the global South) and bringing in competencies and identities previously unrepresented, including at the Leadership Team level. Crucially, it has resulted in a concrete, ambitious but achievable set of commitments and a plan of action which will be integrated into and implemented over the life of the broader organizational strategy, and which has the full ownership of the staff and Board. We’re deeply grateful to Seachange, as we simply would not be here without their skillful, thoughtful and ever-responsive support.”