At Inclusity, we strongly believe in the power of inclusive communities – that’s why we were excited to support Hancock County and its IDE efforts   through culture assessment, consultation, and inclusion training!

Inclusity conducted a series of interviews and focus groups with a variety of members of the Hancock County community, including (but not limited to) young professionals, members of the clergy, the superintendent of schools, high school students, the mayor, and community leaders. Through this process, we gained a more solid understanding of the existing community culture, the specific benefits of inclusion for the community, and leadership’s role in becoming more inclusive. Inclusity then provided recommendations for actions Hancock County could take to become more inclusive, as well as led Cultural Humility and Health Equity and Conscious Inclusion Training. In addition, we developed an Inclusion Toolkit for Hancock County, which includes fundamental unconscious bias training, tools to help them create/amend policies to be more inclusive, and templates for climate survey

As a result of these efforts, The You Belong Campaign, a program spearheaded by the Hancock County Leadership Class of 2022, was launched. They have also partnered with the Hancock County Cultural Humility & Health Equity Delegation for the annual project. The delegation is comprised of local community members, establishing a Community of Belonging in Findlay and Hancock County, focusing on ensuring accessibility of all things and designing a code of humility.

One of the key goals of the You Belong campaign is to create a more accessible community. This means making sure that all individuals, including those with disabilities, have access to the resources and opportunities they need to thrive. This includes everything from accessible transportation to inclusive community events.

Hancock County has recently hit one of its Inclusive Milestones. The Hancock County Board of Developmental Disabilities has agreed to turn over daily operations of the preschool at Blanchard Valley School, 1700 E. Sandusky St., to the county’s public schools in the fall, ensuring all children with developmental disabilities in Hancock County will be served by their home school districts.

In April of this year, You Belong grantees participated in a Poster Gallery Session at the Findlay-Hancock County Public Library’s annual CommunityREADS event. It was inspiring to see and hear about each organization’s commitment to creating a Community of Belonging in Findlay-Hancock County.

Inclusity is proud to partner with Hancock County and so thankful to be a part of the community’s journey. We look forward to collaborating with other organizations and individuals to promote these values of inclusion, diversity, and equity – and to create positive change in Hancock County and beyond.

Since our inception in 2013, Inclusity has committed to building a culture that supports inclusion and fosters a sense of community. Our belief is that everyone should have equal opportunities to thrive and be successful, regardless of their background, gender, race, or ethnicity. We are dedicated to creating an inclusive environment where everyone feels valued, respected, and supported.

So, Inclusity was proud to sponsor the 10th Annual GEMS (Girls Empowered by Math and Science) Conference in SE Wisconsin.The conference objectives are to provide young women with opportunities to learn about the importance of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in careers and to promote young women’s participation in STEM courses in high school and college. 

Pictured here: Inclusity-trained Relationship Skill Building facilitators at We Energies (Laura Halfmann, Elizabeth Ehrke, Clarice Zellmer) and Inclusity Facilitator Robin Smerchek helped at the conference.

With 450 girls attending the conference, most found it to be “fun”and “inspiring.” One participant shared: “No matter what background you come from you can become successful.” Another remarked “That getting denied a job because you’re a woman or a woman of color or because of your appearance shouldn’t stop you from trying again.”   

Keynote speaker Miss America 2023 Grace Stanke is using her title to advocate for education and support young girls. She has worked with organizations like Girls Inc. to inspire and support girls in STEM fields and has spoken about the importance of diversity and representation in STEM fields.

Inclusity was happy to again sponsor this event and support efforts that promote a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion that benefits everyone. 

“To hear Vern’s story first hand….his struggles, his perseverance, his drive, his inner thoughts, his wit, his connection to his community…was a gift for each and every one of us,” shared one participant following one of his presentations. Other participants call him “dynamic” and “super engaging.”

What’s the most inspiring part of your job?

The most inspiring part of being a facilitator is sharing personal life experiences with people who have no idea of what it means be Black in America. During our Racial Justice workshops, I tell my story from childhood in the segregated south to fighting for civil rights as a teen to working in corporate America in the ‘70s. This gives perspective to the conversation on race and helps to facilitate understanding. Just seeing the impact of my stories and sharing is very rewarding. People come in with limited knowledge, but they leave wanting to know more, understanding that people who look like me have a different reality when they come to work every day.

What does inclusion mean to you?

Inclusion is viewing all employees, regardless of their Elements of Individuality, as valuable and prized resources that can help the team achieve desired goals. If you can master the people skill of treating everyone in your organization with dignity and respect, inclusion becomes effortless. If treated with dignity and respect, employees will come to you and that gap that we call the social gap will close, and you can evaluate a person’s ability and what they bring to the job without the noise of difference – it’s just a person that you’ve hired with skills and talents.

How did you get involved in IDE work?

Spending 25 years in a corporate environment as a black man, I was a living example for diversity and inclusion. When I finished that career and I looked at what I achieved, why I achieved it, and what I went through to achieve it, I felt that I could spend the rest of my life helping others, based on my experience, navigating these environments. Those 25 years gave me the knowledge and real-life experiences that propelled me into this diversity and inclusion workspace for the last 27 years.

How has the IDE field changed since you first got involved in this work?

Early in my diversity and inclusion career, organizations gave lip service to the work. When organizations did engage in the work, it was a check-the-box engagement without the requisite commitment to see it through. There was something called a consent decree that may require an organization to do sensitivity training. It was a temporary solution to an ongoing issue. Today, organizations recognize the importance of valuing all employees and the unique differences that each bring to work each day. They address the issue of how to make those differences be sources of strength rather being divisive and a source of weakness.

I’ve seen progress, and this is one reason why I’m still doing this work 27 years later. Today organizations are engaging partners like Inclusity on this IDE journey so that they can understand what’s causing this divide and what are the issues, and as the issues bubble up, how can they address them. Inclusity has been working with numerous clients long term. What [these organizations are] trying to do is impact their culture, how they do business, and set the expectations of employees as they come to work every day as it relates to people. Most corporations are concerned with the product, the process, the profit. If you focus on your people, the other things will happen.

Do you have a motto or personal mantra?

When I was in high school, I was a jokester and always acting out. One day my high school guidance counselor was giving me one of her “you’ve got to be serious about life” talks and shared the following quote which I adopted as my personal mantra. “He who knows not and knows not that he knows not, is a fool, shun him. He who knows not and knows that he knows not, is a child, teach him. He who knows and knows not that he knows, is asleep, wake him. He who knows and knows that he knows, is wise, follow him.”

What are three career lessons you’ve learned?

Be prepared. When you’re prepared, you’re ready to compete with anyone. Understand where you are, meaning understand your environment and spend time learning the culture. When you understand the environment, you can make an informed decision that you’re where you need to be. Be receptive to take feedback. Constructive feedback is a gift. Typically people will not take the time to provide the feedback unless they were vested in your success. Change your mindset and try to see the message as an opportunity.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to join the Inclusity team?

Make sure that you have taken a deep introspective look at who you are. Once you’ve done that, ask yourself why do I want to do this work? What do I bring to the Inclusity environment that will make me a valuable resource to the team? And most importantly, am I ready to invest the time to get ready?

As Inclusity’s Director of Research and Evaluation, Mitchell helps develop our programs and services and performs evaluations to determine their effectiveness. He earned his bachelor’s degree at Carleton College and a Master’s of Science in psychology and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

What aspect of your role as Director of Research and Evaluation do you enjoy most?

Honestly, I think it changes every week depending on what I’m working on at that time. Right now, I’m working on client assessment results from client surveys, focus groups, and interviews. That’s really exciting because the only knowledge I have about a client before we conduct an assessment is what we hear from their leaders. So, hearing from the people is fascinating, and it’s great to learn more about their unique challenges and the ways in which those things do or do not line up with what we hear from leadership. I’m also really pumped about creating LGBTQ+ awareness training.

What would people never guess that you do in your role?

One thing that I do when assessing our training or creating new training is actually read research literature. I look up the big repositories where all the journal articles are stored to see what work has been done on these topics before. And, since this is my area, I reach out to the researchers and ask them questions, especially because the academic work lives in a bit of a silo where there’s not much work that applies in the real world context. I have to do a lot of asking about it or thinking through how this can apply in the real world and not just in a lab setting.

What’s the most inspiring part of your job?

I think that in the future seeing the long-term impact of our work is most inspiring. And, because I also facilitate trainings, creating training content is most inspiring. I see the whole process from looking at the client assessment, seeing that there is a client need, creating the training, and implementing the training. I feel like I’m meeting a need and really helping people. So, for example, the training around LGBTQ+ awareness, we’re working with a client that in the client assessment, this was identified as a need for their organization and one of the people groups where they wanted to focus inclusion efforts. This was already interesting to me, because I’m a nerd about this stuff, but then figuring out how to structure this is very satisfying. Ultimately, we get to help people and that’s awesome!

What gets you excited about working for Inclusity?

I have a lot of confidence in the work that we do. I think the approach that we take to our work is not only innovative but also realistic. The founder of Inclusity views herself as a behaviorist, and I also consider myself a behaviorist. The best route that we have to changing things is trying to change behavior first. It’s exciting to me to be working in an environment where I have a high degree of confidence that what we’re doing is actually making a difference.

What’s a fun fact about you that people may not know?

I cross country ski competitively and do a number of races in the Midwest region. My favorite race is the American Birkebeiner, one of the biggest cross country ski races in the world. Earlier this year, I placed 69th out of about 4,000 people in this race. Also, my mom and stepdad owned a karate studio growing up, and I started karate at four years old and have a black belt.

Do you have a motto or personal mantra?

One way that I try to organize my life is by always doing the thing that is most life giving. The thing that I like about the term life giving is that it can be for me or for others. Life giving means something that is a combination of fulfilling and energizing. My work with Inclusity is life giving, as I try to help improve work situations for others. One of my personal goals is that I want to infuse more positivity into the world. In many situations where people may not think about the way they’re behaving toward other people, I try to be very mindful. For example, interacting with service employees is an opportunity where it’s really easy for me to do something that makes someone feel better and actively infuse positivity into their world.

What career lesson have you learned thus far?

Another lesson that I’ve learned is that every situation and client is different and they need different things, but there are commonalities across the clients that we work with that are sometimes unexpected. Clients that are in very different industries or that are different sizes or with different surface level cultures, sometimes have similar challenges.

What does inclusion mean to you?

Inclusion means really feeling that you can be your full authentic self and feel supported in working toward your goals. One of my deep personal values is that we should level the playing field as much as possible so people can do the things that they’re passionate about, explore their talents, and grow their skills and abilities by having access to all of the same resources. So, to me, inclusion is leveling that playing field and making people feel not just that their allowed to be somewhere but their actively being made a part of the things that are going on.

Building relationships is at the core of Inclusity’s mission, and we try to live this mission not just at work but in our homes and communities as well. We are proud to announce that this month The Girl Scouts of Western Ohio elected Inclusity CEO, Maria White, to its board of directors. 

“I’m so excited to partner with an organization that means so much to me personally,” says White. “Girl Scouting helped me make friends and learn skills as a child. I led troops for both of my girls when they were younger, and I provided strategic direction and diversity training to them in the 1990s.” 

She joins the board during a challenging time. Because the Girl Scout Cookie Program was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic, troops are losing crucial funds to support their goals and activities – things like camping trips, troop outings, community service projects, and more.

To continue to support the troops and spread goodwill, ​Inclusity is proudly participating in the Girl Scouts  Business Bosses Supporting Cookie Bosses initiative ​and encourages you to do the same. You can showcase your business and your community spirit by purchasing at least four cases (roughly $250) of Girl Scout Cookies from Girl Scouts in your neighborhood. You can use these cookies to: 

• Say thank you to prospects, clients, or customers.
• Provide employee incentives throughout the year.
• Donate to your charity of choice
• Donate to the troop, and they will share with a local food bank, school, hospital, or first responders. 

Complete the form here and you’ll be paired with a troop that has remaining inventory. In return, you’ll receive troop information and digital assets to display your support of the next generation of female entrepreneurs!

With your help and generosity, we can not only share treats across our communities, but more importantly, we will teach tomorrow’s business bosses the importance of community and helping each other.