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Conducting any community food assessment is not always linear, and the team you begin with may not be the same team you develop for each stage of the process. Reminder: You can always return to these tools as you bring more people into the ECFA process during different stages.
ECFA Stages & Steps
ECFA Stages & Steps
Stage One: Build your Core Team
Stage One: Build your Core Team
Assess/Re-assess your readiness for an Equitable Community Food Assessment (ECFA)
Establish the CFA team and roles
Define the purpose of the CFA
Identify the “community” of interest
Scan your food ecosystem – conducting a robust food landscape
Create a map of the community food environment
Stage Two: Plan for Community Outreach & Engagement
Stage Two: Plan for Community Outreach & Engagement
Confirm the scope of the community of interest and food system sectors to be included
Identify key stakeholder groups whose input should be solicited
Create a community engagement plan
Stage Three: Gather Data through Community Engagement & Outreach
Stage Three: Gather Data through Community Engagement & Outreach
Identify appropriate indicators or measures and data sources
Determine data collection methods
Estimate timeline and resources needed
Gather data
Stage Four: Move from Ideas to Action Planning
Stage Four: Move from Ideas to Action Planning
Analyze data
Synthesize learnings into an action plan
Disseminate results
Mindsets for a Brave and Equitable Space
Mindsets for a Brave and Equitable Space
When problem solving with an equity- and community-centered lens, you should acknowledge the various perspectives and backgrounds in which you and the larger community will be approaching the same problem.
When problem solving with an equity- and community-centered lens, you should acknowledge the various perspectives and backgrounds in which you and the larger community will be approaching the same problem.
Mindsets are ways of being and thinking that support an equitable community-centered lens. We created them to name some things that work for and against co-design. How we relate to each other, how we lead, how we behave in groups and communities, what we believe and how those things support or get in the way of working together.
The rules of respect and assumptions below will help you retain an equity-centered mindset and create safer spaces. Not only is it encouraged for you to be consciously aware of these “agreements,” we also encourage you to start each working session with collaborators and co-designers with the acknowledgement of these mindsets (as well as create your own).
Remember!
Remember!
Despite good intentions, when we're stressed, un-supported, isolated, or uncertain, we often go back to ways of working that don’t support equity in our designs (e.g. controlling others, valuing learned expertise over lived experience, or rushing to solutions).
Reading the mindsets is a good start, but it’s not enough. We also must experience the mindsets, practice them, hold ourselves accountable, and help others do the same!
Nine Mindsets
Nine Mindsets
There are nine mindsets needed for creating a brave and equitable space:
There are nine mindsets needed for creating a brave and equitable space:
Acknowledging and dismantling power constructs
Acknowledging and dismantling power constructs
Power constructs are invisible delineations of power that are created and maintained by larger systems such as government, media, education, and private industries.
We need to acknowledge and dismantle these systems because they continually disenfranchise marginalized communities by limiting and erasing their social, economic, and cultural growth.
Abundance
Abundance
An abundance mindset is the opposite of a scarcity mindset in every way.
Abundance firmly believes that there is more than enough of everything to go around, that we are gifted with opportunities to grow in compassion, grace, forgiveness, and resilience when we make mistakes, and that each and every one of us benefits by prioritizing solidarity and equity (fairness, justice) before the illusion of personal gain.
Elevating lived experience
Elevating lived experience
Elevating lived experience in the EFCA is about ensuring many seats at many tables. And the right conditions for participation and partnership. It’s about leading, too, not just being a food council or food organization member.
It’s about being a part of a community.
Practicing curiosity
Practicing curiosity
Being curious means softening our judgements and certainty about solutions so we can notice more about the situation and each other.
Offering generous hospitality and dignity
Offering generous hospitality and dignity
Generous hospitality is about care-full planning to meet people’s physical, emotional, access and cultural needs. And our own needs, too.
Being in the grey
Being in the grey
Being is the grey is our willingness to be unclear and patient while we discover the work together. Not all parts of the ECFA involve being in the grey.
Shared Language Setting
Shared Language Setting
We believe that common language is a crucial foundational step in dismantling systemic oppression and designing equity. Language reflects the values we hold and helps us navigate the world. We offer the following definitions for a few core terms that are vital to creating an equitable community food assessment. We encourage you to engage in your own activities to explore these definitions.
Community
Community
Community is a group of people in a shared space or with a shared interest, identity, or goal. Some communities bring a sense of fellowship and bonding due to commonalities.
Design
Design
"Design is the intention (and unintentional impact) behind an outcome. It’s also the art and practice of planning and projecting ideas and experiences with physical products, such as a plan, visual and textual content, or attire. Every design has an impact onEquity, including the decisions we make in a community project, the blueprints created for a new building, and the policies implemented in our workplaces."
Field Guide: Equity-Centered Community Design, 2018, p. 11
Diversity
Diversity
“Diversity involves the recognition of characteristics that make an individual or group of individuals different from one another, celebrating that difference as a source of strength for the community at large.”
Equity
Equity
Equity refers to the enactment of specific policies and practices that ensure equitable access and opportunities for everyone.
Equity-centered community design
Equity-centered community design
"The Creative Reaction Lab defines this as “ a unique creative problem solving process based on equity, humility-building, integrating history and healing practices, addressing power dynamics, and co-creating with the community.”
Field Guide: Equity-Centered Community Design, 2018, p. 3
Equitable Food System
Equitable Food System
The food system promotes just and fair inclusion in a society in which all people can participate, prosper and make decisions to reach their full potential.
Definition adapted from CRFS Racial Equity Statement
Inclusion
Inclusion
“Inclusion puts the concept of diversity into action by creating an environment of involvement, respect, and connection—where the richness of ideas, backgrounds, and perspectives are harnessed to benefit all.”
Note: diversity and inclusion are not interchangeable. There can be diversity without inclusion and inclusion without diversity.
Developing Community Agreements
Developing Community Agreements
Community agreements help all participants engage fully and respectfully. Establishing community agreements is not a one and done activity; they need to be revisited and actively applied.
Community agreements help all participants engage fully and respectfully. Establishing community agreements is not a one and done activity; they need to be revisited and actively applied.
The Equity-Centered Community Design Field Guide from the Creative Reaction Lab outlines several key things to remember:
People are not born with prejudice. Prejudice and bias are learned through experience.
We are all members of many social identity groups, based on race, gender, ethnicity, class, age, ability, sexual orientation, religion and others.
People are not defined by one identity, but a myriad of identities and characteristics. Everyone is intersectional. However, the ability to define oneself’s primary identity, or preferred lack of, is up to that person and not others.
Oppression takes many forms, including prejudice, discrimination, marginalization, powerlessness, exploitation, violence, and cultural imperialism.
There is no hierarchy of oppression. Oppression is oppression. Underrepresented and marginalized groups should not compete for the “most heavily oppressed prize.”
Many community agreements often include a statement such as, “assume positive intent.” However, this statement often places the burden of assumption of positive intent on people who have experienced historical and systemic harm, rather than requiring accountability of the person who may be perpetuating harm.
A better agreement would include acknowledging the difference between intent and impact, and encouraging accountability.
Arthur Chan via LinkedIn Post
Example Community Agreements
Example Community Agreements
Michigan Local Food Council Network (MLFCN) Community Agreements
We acknowledge that perfectionism and fear are characteristics of white supremacy culture and often get in the way of taking risks together and making mistakes that lead to valuable learning and transformation. We agree to be courageous in this space for our collective learning and relationship building. That includes bringing up uncomfortable topics, sharing when harm occurs, and attending to that harm, even when we’re not sure how.
We acknowledge that often when harm is done, it is unintentional. While we want to operate under the understanding that everyone in our network has good intentions, we also want to tend to the impact of harm no matter the intentions.
We understand that white supremacy culture has conditioned us to fear open conflict and to think of it as a negative thing. We know that conflict can be generative and want to embrace that in the network so that we may learn from new perspectives and challenge our ways of thinking so our work can be most effective.
To make space for these kinds of conversations, we agree to value our people alongside the agenda. If we need to adjust our agenda on the fly due to emergent needs, we will name this in the group and make space for that which best serves the group’s growth and learning. We encourage all participants to express their needs – to the group or via private chat to facilitators – and facilitators will focus on tending to the needs of the group.
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