Equity & Advocacy

The Equity and Advocacy Division is integral in leading Interrupt Racism, an initiative that was born in 2020 following renewed focus and awareness on unjust and deadly police practices as well as the systemic racism laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic. The initiative strives to be the leading regional racism interrupter, agitator, awakener, community leader and voice, educator, and curator of information. Ultimately, Interrupt Racism’s one goal is to Put Racism Out of Business.

In November 2020, we welcomed the Racial Equity and Justice Initiative (REJI) as part of Interrupt Racism. Formerly housed at St. Joseph’s Neighborhood Center, REJI addresses racism by focusing on organizational change at the individual, interpersonal, institutional, and structural levels and building community capacity for racial equity. With the transfer of this initiative, ULR intends to enhance the model based on lessons learned and best practices. The comprehensive training helps institutions, organizations, businesses, and agencies engage in anti-racism work by providing workshops for staff, senior executive leadership, and board development with: Managing the workplace through an Equitable Lens Training; Racial Equity and Implicit Bias training and Advocacy.

INTERRUPT RACISM™Summit: The annual Summit is an immersive learning experience designed for adults and youth alike to participate and come together to develop a deep understanding of what work needs to be done to dismantle systemic racism; develop pathways for learning and healing from race-related matters; and create realistic action plans for ensuring the health, wealth, and safety of BIPOC individuals. The 2024 Interrupt Racism Summit will take place on September 18th. Tickets and more information.

INTERRUPT RACISM COHORT™: The interrupter Cohort is a one-year commitment to learning equitable and unlearning racist practices targeted at the self and the workplace. We use a cohort model to build bridges and share knowledge between our community’s leaders. Each participating organization or business has a "Change Team," a working committee of up to 10 members, ideally from all levels of the organization. The Change Team receives training and support to help their organization more deeply engage with race and racial equity in their specific context.

The Cohort model provides workshops, conferences, regular group sessions, and private one-on-one coaching for organizations that are guided by each Change Team. Participants take a deep dive into their internal work culture, policies, procedures, brand, and hiring practices in reflection of modern standards and antiracist practices. We have sliding scale costs for not-for-profit organizations.

Powerbrokers of Rochester: Each month, the Urban League convenes a group of more than 200 for-profit and non-profit leaders from across our community to seek action steps to shift power in Rochester toward equity and justice.

Partnering for Vaccine Equity (P4VE)

The Partnering for Vaccine Equity program aims to support efforts to increase COVID-19 and influenza vaccination coverage for groups who have disparities in vaccine uptake, especially among racial and ethnic populations. Outreach strategies include increasing the trusted community voices supporting vaccine education and delivery; increasing the availability of community or population-specific messages, and increasing the vaccination opportunities in communities experiencing disparities. The program is funded by the National Urban League via a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

PROGRAM PLANNING, RESEARCH, AND EVALUATION

The Program Planning, Research, and Evaluation (PPR&E) Department provides technical assistance and secures funding for agency programs and services. The work of PPR&E contributes to the pursuit of all agency programmatic goals and, through them, to the overall League mission. The department conducts program planning, grant writing, research, and evaluation activities essential to the implementation of both the League’s advocacy strategies and its human service delivery strategies.

Contact

For more information about Equity and Advocacy programs, please contact Sr. Vice President, Dr. Candice Lucas at clucas@ulr.org.