Saturday, January 12 was a powerful day of learning and connecting for the 150 women who attended Impact Austin Discovery Day. In case you couldn’t make it to the event, here are some highlights of what you missed.
1. We heard from information-rich panels with experts in the areas of diversity and inclusion sharing their valuable knowledge and helping us understand how implicit bias can impact our funding decisions on grant review committees.
2. We learned how large organizations such as St. David’s Foundation individualize data they analyze for each of their nonprofit applicants so as to better inform their grant review process.
3. We heard from panelists about simple techniques they employ to extract better information from reviewers, such as asking the quieter people at the table for their opinions and inviting guest reviewers.
4. We were inspired by Keynote Speaker Toya Cirica Bell, who discussed the wide range of what diversity means other than just race, including ability, political viewpoint, religion, gender, generation, socioeconomic status. She shared her message of how to become an anti-racist, multi-cultural organization with a more diverse membership, including becoming comfortable with discomfort, listening and connecting more, and being open to transformation. She suggested watching Verna Myers TED talk on overcoming biases.
5. We connected with women in our Zones during post-event lunches held all over the city! Here are some of the women at the Zone 8 and 9 post-event lunch.
To view our short video interviews of our panelists head over to the Impact Austin Facebook page and click on videos on the left menu.
