Heeding the Call for Equity, Justice and Inclusion

In recent months, discussions with Initiators Fellowship key stakeholders—including current Fellows, staff, steering team members and a Board of Trustees committee—have led us to make a substantial change to the program and its focus.

We used to say the Fellowship was designed to support leadership, enterprise and network development. And from the start, diversity, equity and inclusion have been underlying values. At the urging of the Fellows, and in the spirit of the times, we have realized that the aims of the Fellowship need to be recalibrated. We still must select and lift up high-potential leaders and help them develop social enterprise ventures. At the same time, we need to amplify our efforts to support Fellows and alumni in becoming effective champions and catalysts for diversity, equity, inclusion and justice in their Greater Minnesota communities.

It’s not enough to hold these values as guiding principles; they need to be central to the program’s focus. It is our belief that Greater Minnesota communities need to be open and welcoming—because it’s the right thing to do, and because we firmly believe that the more open and welcoming our communities are, the more everyone will thrive by all traditional measures.

Figuring out how to strengthen this focus is a learning journey for us—one we hope you’ll support and help to inform.

Contact, Chris Fastner, Initiators Fellowship program manager, at cfastner@ifound.org or (320) 631-2019.