Training & Technical Assistance
Many organizations that serve community members lack the specific skills and approaches necessary to engage with those directly impacted in ways that center their expertise and result in real, accountable change. Research in Action has worked with hundreds of people — those with lived experience of racial injustice in housing, criminal justice, displacement and so many other systems — to develop a powerful, ground-breaking and proven model: Equity in Action.
The work to dismantle and replace oppressive systems with just and equitable approaches is incredibly complicated. But there are specific skills and strategies that make it possible to transform conditions in ourselves, our organizations and our communities. That’s the insight we offer in our trainings.
Advancing Equity in Action
As we have created this path while walking it with the community, we have identified specific strategies and tools to reimagine relational work between systems actors and directly impacted people to advance racial justice. These emergent methodologies and equitable practices represent a major shift to the field of community engagement and participatory action research.
Like any professional discipline, understanding and integrating the values and practices embedded in the Equity in Action model requires targeted support that meets an organization within its specific context to address a development need and build its capacity to sustain that change over time. As a sought after expert nationwide, Research in Action provides Technical Assistance (TA) and Training on all aspects of our model, from convening space across lines of power to translating community experience into actionable policy changes.
Our TA and training offerings range from individual-topic workshops to multi-day trainings to months-long engagements. Our expertise has been adapted to meet the needs of philanthropic institutions, nonprofits, government agencies, community-based organizations and more. To request a discovery meeting to discuss your needs, click here.
What we provide
We provide expertise and support that builds your capacity around:
Approaches to innovative mixed-methods action research
Co-creating community-led and transformative processes
Strategies to cultivate self awareness, shared values and accountability for groups or teams
Tools for conflict navigation, creating intentional spaces, and strategic facilitation
Cultivating authentic leadership
Developing racial justice policy and practice
What it looks like
Training: Minnesota Department of Human Services Equity Committee and Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault (MNCASA)
DHS and MNCASA wanted to strengthen their team and build their capacity to handle conflict, share power and lean into difficult tasks. They contracted with RIA to provide a two-day training to that focused on:
Naming our individual and collective values and fears
Understanding the role of white supremacy in conflict, comfort & accountability
Exploring shared values & accountability
Discerning between fear and discomfort
Establishing ground rules
Exploring hindrance to receiving and believing
Learning the importance of self and community care
Showcasing practices of self and community care
Technical Assistance: Heading Home Minnesota Funders Collaborative (HHMFC)
HHMFC wanted to ensure that two grantee organizations in Greater Minnesota had the knowledge and ability to work in effective, meaningful and accountable partnership with communities directly impacted by housing instability. They contracted with RIA to provide multi-year, direct coaching support to the grantee organizations to identify their unique challenges and provide customized tools designed specifically to increase their capacity to center community expertise and achieve actionable outcomes in their work. Read the full case study on our work with HHMFC.