Equity Everywhere for Everyone: A Place-Based Model for Community Change

The status quo of current policies, processes, and institutions that perpetuate inequities in the American South must change. The solution is to transform perceptions, beliefs and behaviors so that a community-driven value of racial equity is common place. To do so requires a movement, a set of coordinated interlocking community institutions working in unison to create normative change. Fifteen organizations in Spartanburg County, South Carolina came together to form the Spartanburg Racial Equity Collaborative and produced the Spartanburg Racial Equity Index and the Spartanburg Racial Equity Collaborative Strategic Plan. The American South needs transformative change, and this model will be scaled throughout the American South so that community-driven solutions will transform racial equity into a regional value experienced by everyone, everywhere, every day.

In this session, we will share how a small city of 300,000 is advancing racial equity through systems change and racial healing. Our logic model includes four goals: 1.) spreading the word to increase awareness; 2.) mobilizing citizens for individual and collective action; 3.) providing opportunities and resources for individual and organizational change and; 4.) institutionalizing change.