The Equity Institute presents

Communities of Belonging

Expanding your equity insight, one experience at a time

Join us at:
  • calendar 1on demandMastery Series

What is Communities of Belonging?

Stop for a moment and look around your workplace, your school, your community… maybe even your family. On the surface, these places may look like the picture of diversity and inclusion, but when you go a bit deeper, too often, there’s something missing. There’s a good chance a lot of people are gritting their teeth and bearing it. They don’t feel seen, valued, or safe to be themselves. They’re not invested.

This isn’t the picture of equity. It’s the picture of tolerance.

And the fact is, tolerance isn’t working. After all, who wants to be tolerated?


Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity work has been theory-focused for a long time. We had to wrap our heads around it. And now it’s time to go deeper. We need to wrap our whole selves around it.

  • To internalize it
  • To be curious.
  • To challenge our perspectives.
  • To have human experiences.
  • To take risks.
  • To make mistakes.
  • To work for repair.
  • To ask for grace.
  • To learn to see each other, value each other, and offer each other safety… even––or especially––when we disagree.
  • To go from understanding it on paper to knowing it in our bones.

Communities of Belonging takes an experiential, inside-out approach to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work, filling it with heart, soul, and humanity.

Remember that missing something we mentioned before? It’s belonging. And it’s the difference between clocking in and showing up.

Why is belonging important?

  • 40% of people feel isolated at work
  • 56% increase in job performance among employees who feel they belong*
  • 93% increase in job performance among employees who feel they belong*
*Harvard Business Review
*Global Human Capital Trends
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Research shows that the need to belong in the workplace comes second only to the need to belong at home.**

**Society for Human Resource Management

Build you own Communities of belonging

Mastery Series

iconon demand

The Online Mastery Series offers an opportunity for in-depth learning and reflection that allows you to develop a personal
connection to the material you’re learning. Each session builds upon the previous one, creating a transformative experience leading up to the Communities of Belonging Virtual Institute.

  • 5 monthly 90-minute deep dive sessions with our founders, Nancy, Jon, and Eddie
  • Learning and reflection
  • Support and tools to integrate equity intelligence into your personal and professional life
  • Interactive experiences
  • Relationship-building format
  • Online sessions

Contact Us

What you’ll learn…

  • The complexities of identity and intersectionality
  • The origins of our beliefs and how they impact the relationships we choose
  • Skills to interrupt biases
  • Ways to expand our perspective and see the value beyond our comfort zone
  • Challenging ownership and responsibility for dismantling marginalization beyond the concept of allyship and towards anti-oppression

What
people say

Create communities that our students feel a part of. They can either hurt themselves or have a master plan to hurt a lot of people that have hurt them. And we see that evident in our country, they are hurting in the community that they’re in and something hasn’t happened. We haven’t done our job to help them connect and feel a part of a community because if we did, they’d never go back and hurt it again. So for me, it’s a matter of life or death. If we don’t fix that, we’re going to continue to see these outrageous acts of harm because it all stems from pain and hurt and feeling disenfranchised.

Monica Gonzalez Williams Educator

We have a large rate of out-of-school suspension. So when you’re looking for the root cause or the why, why are these kids always in trouble? Why are they acting out? Where are they so violent or angry? And it’s because there’s a lack of belonging. So, and that’s something that I’m just going to really take back because we know there’s something going on and we try to get in there and help, but sometimes we’re doing more hindering than we are helping… so belonging means when everybody can feel safe, accepted, and cared for [their] genuine concerns.

Jean Cole Educator

Meet The Equity Institute Founders

founder1@2x

Dr. Nancy Dome

CoFounder & CEO Epoch Education

Dr. Nancy Dome is a renowned speaker and leader on Equity in school systems and workplaces with over 20 yrs in the education field as a child care worker, a teacher and a professor. Nancy currently serves as CEO of Epoch Education.

Bio Pic_Jon Eyler

Dr. Jon Eyler

CEO Collaborative Learning Solutions

Dr. Jon Eyler is a national consultant and speaker on topics of equity, educational reform, and educational psychology. Jon currently serves as the CEO of Collaborative Learning Solutions.

founder3@2x

Dr. Eddie Fergus

Principal Manager Collaborative Equity Solutions

Dr. Eddie Fergus is best selling author and an applied researcher at Temple University. Eddie’s work explores the effects of educational policy and practice as it intersects the lives of populations living in vulnerable conditions.

Communities of Belonging

Mastery Series

For more information please contact us directly

Why is belonging important?

What does belonging mean to you?

How do you create a community of belonging?