Guides & Workshops

The Western States Center seeks to support organizations in going through an anti-racist organizational development process. This includes creating shared language and understanding among staff and leaders, exploring current priorities and the racial disparities that exist within these areas, and looking at the organization’s internal culture and process. It wants to help organizations create an internal process and culture that allows them to lift up racial equity in their current work and build a culture that allows them to manage this process internally rather than rely on external facilitators and experts.

The Western States Center provides technical assistance to organizations that are engaged in activities related to racial equity/justice and structural racism, and it focuses on building the capacity of the community to carry out these activities. It also provides racial justice training and workshops and civic engagement support.

The following information about its workshops was provided by the organization:

• Topics—Racial Justice; Structural Racism; Dismantling Racism.
• Focus—individual awareness, structural racism, anti-racist organizational development.
• Frequency—annually and as requested.
• Location(s)—at its offices and onsite at the receiving organization.
• Lengt h(s)—one day standard; other workshops tailored to the needs of the group.
• Fee(s)—workshops at its annual training conference (the Community Strategic Training Initiative in Portland, OR) cost $60/participant for those in its geographic region (OR, WA, ID, NV, UT, WY, MT, AK) and $80-$100 for others.
• Number of People/Workshop—25-30.
• Desired Outcomes—create a shared understanding of racial equity, help participants understand the different kinds of racism, begin to think about how the organization engages on issues of racial equity.

Technical assistance in the above topics is offered for a flat fee or at an hourly rate of approximately $100/hour. The Western States Center also has published a resource book, “Dismantling Racism: A Resource Book for Social Change Groups,” that is a compilation of materials designed to supplement a Dismantling Racism workshop. It can be downloaded for free here.