Over the next few months, we will share a four-part series called “Equity in Action: How Awardee Leadership is Shaping Racial Justice at The BUILD Health Challenge.” Through our partnership with alumni from The BUILD Health Challenge® (BUILD) over the last year, we sought to address questions about racial justice in the context of strategic planning and decision-making at BUILD and learn how to support BUILD awardees in their racial justice work. This four-part series will cover 1) the awardee engagement process, 2) community-level learnings, 3) awardee recommendations, and 4) BUILD’s commitments going forward.
Overview of the Awardee Engagement Process
At BUILD, we have been on a journey to center racial justice in our work. Our journey has involved learning how to support BUILD awardees in their racial justice efforts and aligning with BUILD communities on our commitment to racial justice as a national initiative. In keeping with our core belief that no one is better suited to inform our planning and decision-making than those most impacted by our work – our awardees – we formally and informally engage awardees in all aspects of the BUILD process. For example, we engaged past and present awardees in a Listening Tour in 2020 and our strategic planning process in 2022. We were excited to strengthen the relationships we have developed with awardees over the years, where we have been honored to feel trust and growth. It was critical to our initial community engagement strategy that we consider the power dynamics inherent in our relationships that exist in all funder-awardee structures. To ensure that awardees could provide open and honest feedback, we brought in partners at Success Measures to facilitate the discussions in our Listening Tour.
During the Listening Tour in 2020, we heard from awardees that although health equity was a clear focus of our work, they wanted to see BUILD more explicitly center racial equity and racial justice in our work. As we designed our fourth cohort plans in 2022, we responded to that call to action by integrating an explicit focus on racial equity in the program’s design and in BUILD’s refreshed strategic plan.
Beyond these immediate changes, we wanted to take our efforts further. In 2023, we sought guidance from alumni awardees involved in racial justice work in their own communities to help BUILD define racial justice and progress as a national initiative. Partnering with Success Measures to facilitate the learning process, we held a series of conversations on racial equity and its role in BUILD’s strategy and operations with a group of BUILD alumni. These discussions addressed the different contexts within each alum’s community, the realities of working with and within large governmental and health institutions, and the complexities of centering racial equity within a community health-focused collaborative.
Advisory Group Participants
Participants in the awardee alumni engagement process were individuals with whom BUILD has developed strong relationships. As a program, BUILD leans into the work’s relational and trust-based aspects, which has resulted in long-term relationships with awardees and alumni. Members of the alumni network engage with BUILD informally and formally, including serving as mentors to new awardees and as advisors to BUILD’s National Office.
We identified the core questions we wanted to explore and invited eight alumni to participate in an Advisory Group to inform BUILD’s racial equity strategic plan. The alumni invited to participate all explicitly focused on racial equity in their BUILD award and brought personal and professional expertise. Advisory Group members encompassed diverse geographic backgrounds, perspectives, and professional experiences.
Engagement Process Design
The engagement itself was short and focused: The process included three group conversations and an optional one-on-one conversation with awardees. Each group session offered breakout sessions so the Advisory Group members could share stories and speak more candidly. Creating space for more honest discussion helped Advisory Group members better understand the socio-political contexts that fellow participants worked within and their beliefs and approaches and allowed them to delve further into issues of racial equity.
During this process, BUILD reached a point in its strategic plan refresh where it determined that the term “racial justice” would best align with the strategic systems change goals referenced in the newly updated mission statement. Facilitators shared the revised language with the Advisory Group, which began incorporating that language into their conversations.
During this conversation series, we sought to explore three key questions:
- What does it mean to awardees to center racial equity in their health work?
- What constitutes progress toward racial equity for awardees at the community level?
- What are the implications of centering racial equity for BUILD, and how can BUILD support awardees’ racial equity efforts?
The arc of the three conversations facilitated an environment of psychological safety in which participants could have candid discussions about racial justice and health.
Conversation 1: The first conversation explored building a foundation of trust among participants through community agreements emphasizing shared language, open-mindedness, and non-judgmental spaces. Shared language is an integral part of trust building; participants developed a shared definition of racial equity as “an intentional process of dismantling hierarchies, repairing harm, and recognizing trauma.” They further defined racial justice, the ultimate goal, as “involving dismantling white supremacy culture, valuing dignity, and engaging in conversations that create space for healing.”
Conversation 2: Facilitators introduced a method called PhotoVoice, a method for taking photos based on questions or themes that the photographer captions. Utilizing a co-design community engagement method, facilitators first gathered input on the method to determine if this would be the right approach. With agreement from the group, they co-developed the questions accompanying the activity. For their PhotoVoice projects, participants focused on sharing their community’s local context and surface themes around racial justice.
Advisory Group members shared their photos before the second meeting, allowing time to reflect on fellow participants’ perspectives. During that meeting, they explored themes from the Photovoice assignment and what resonated about pursuing racial justice in their communities. The group continued to build on the themes through small-group breakout conversations. Emergent themes included the importance of collaboration, understanding history, meaningful community engagement, and shifting mindsets to drive systems change.
Conversation 3: Before the third meeting, Success Measures summarized meeting notes and offered group members the chance to reflect and respond to the notes. Participants reflected on the following four themes in the third meeting, which they further refined.
- Theme #1: Advancing racial justice through authentic relationships and action.
- Theme #2: Confronting structural racism through acknowledging a shared history and place.
- Theme #3: Centering racial justice in collaborative endeavors.
- Theme #4: Shifting mindsets toward systems change.
Advisory Group members discussed translating these insights to benefit new BUILD awardees, recognizing the importance of creating spaces for open dialogue, sharing resources, and holding decision-makers accountable. Through small discussions and a group report-out, the Advisory Group discussed the connections across themes and how they align in pursuing racial justice. These conversations led to a commitment to share the Advisory Group’s collective wisdom with future BUILD cohorts, starting with the convening in September 2023.
Compelling insights and recommendations emerged from one-on-one conversations with alumni, highlighting the power of collective learning to drive transformative change and action. (More to come on these themes in the next part of this series.) 
Putting Our Racial Justice Focus into Action
This process for awardee engagement helped us deepen our relationships with awardee alumni and honor their trust in sharing their wisdom with us. We are committed to integrating their perspectives into our work in the future. At our September 2023 in-person convening, Advisory Group members shared the findings from these conversations with new awardees. They also facilitated an activity for BUILD’s new cohort that asked them to reflect on how they would integrate racial justice into their BUILD projects. We are grateful for their partnership with BUILD and for working to ensure that we all learn from each other on this journey.
Next in this four-part series, we’ll examine the themes around community-level racial equity work that emerged from this process.
This report was written with Success Measures. Thank you to Jessica Mulcahy and Helen Moore for their partnership.
This report was also informed by past BUILD awardees who shared their expertise and provided leadership on this initiative. Special thanks to the alumni: Donyel Barber, Eric Burmeister, Natasha Butler, Manuel Castaneda, Allen Noah, Jamilla Pinder, Vanessa Rodriguez, and Andy Wessel.
