We believe that nature is inclusive to all beings and that diversity is fundamental to the ecological health of our planet. Our work—connecting young people to themselves, each other, science and the natural world—must be as inclusive and diverse as our national park classrooms.
At NatureBridge, we examine when and how forms of inequity appear in our programs and workplace. We listen, learn and aim to change individual mindsets and organizational practices to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to thrive at NatureBridge.
Our Core Values reflect this: We are inclusive. We create an equitable, welcoming and empowering learning and working environment for all people.
In our strategic plan, NatureBridge set the goal to become a more equitable organization. The plan highlights three ways to reach our goal provide EI&D training for all staff; recruit and retain more staff members from traditionally marginalized communities; and establish clear systems and policies to support our EI&D efforts.
A few specific examples:
Students
To make NatureBridge more equitable and inclusive for students, we are committed to increasing scholarship funds in order to increase access to our programs. Financial scholarships support students and schools that face systemic and financial barriers to accessing outdoor education programs. Over the past 20 years, the percentage of schools that benefit from scholarship support has increased from 5% to 43%. Thanks to this effort, our students more closely mirror the demographics of the regions we serve. To further close the opportunity gap in our parks, we will continue to expand outreach efforts and raise the total funds available for scholarships.
Our Annual Impact in Numbers
Staff
We promote fairness, access, inclusion and belonging at various stages of the employee journey.
Board
The NatureBridge Board of Directors has an internal EI&D committee that focuses on two priorities: board engagement and education and board member recruitment and onboarding. We are also working on strategic goals within each board committee that provide accountability to our equity work. The national and regional boards are engaged with The Avarna Group for discussion, training and learning opportunities to support our mission, staff and the students we serve.
Our EI&D Framework maps out the “how.” Creating lasting change requires commitment at both the individual and organizational level. This framework offers areas to grow as an individual, in allyship, as departments and as an organization. To become a more equitable and inclusive NatureBridge we use a BOTH/AND approach, both examining ourselves and growing as individuals, and changing systems and mindsets within the organization.
Individual-Internal: Building self-awareness and knowledge. Examples include: Understanding your own identity, uncovering and interrupting your hidden biases, confronting your privileges and power and allocating time for learning.
Individual-External: Building allyship and relationships with other people and your communities. Examples include: using inclusive language, challenging bias, addressing microaggressions, practicing micro-affirmations, receiving feedback and mentoring others.
Organizational-Internal: Building workplace culture whereby your department engages to create an equitable and inclusive work environment. Examples include using fair hiring practices, and training and evaluating physical work spaces to meet the needs of individuals.
Organizational-External: Building programs and communications that increase access and representation, and create equitable and inclusive experiences for people outside of NatureBridge. Examples include marketing, communication, fundraising, customer service, partnerships, scholarship allocations, event planning, curriculum development and program.
COVID-19 has exposed systemic inequity not only in our society but also within our organization. We recognize our failures and, thanks to staff feedback, are working on these critical elements to make NatureBridge a more equitable and inclusive organization:
In October 2020, we engaged Justice Outside (formerly Youth Outside) in a six-month organizational audit to assess NatureBridge’s areas of opportunity for deepening commitments to equity, inclusion and diversity. Justice Outside is an Oakland-based non-profit whose mission is to advance racial justice and equity in the outdoor and environmental movement.
We are currently processing the report with all staff. Our next steps are:
If you would like to read the Justice Outside executive summary, please reach out to Miho Aida, our Director of Equity and Inclusion, at maida@naturebridge.org
What I deeply care about the most in this world is summarized in five Es: environment, education, empathy, equity and empowerment. Since 2000 when I started my career as an environmental educator at NatureBridge, my life has been dedicated to increasing the visibility and access of those from marginalized communities to our parks, environmental education and its workforce.
My role as the Director of Equity & Inclusion is to listen to our staff, collectively review and process the external audit report and plan a path forward; onboard all NatureBridge staff by creating trainings and systems; steward the EI&D Core team, support CEO and the board to actualize EI&D goals; improve our communication with all staff on our progress with regard to Equity, Inclusion & Diversity work.
—Miho Aida, Director of Equity & Inclusion