Being the Change for Equity
Written by Joan Cameron, SVP Partner SVP Portland is committed to advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion. As a Partnership, we have the opportunity to support each other’s personal journey. One of our newest Partners shares her story and why she joined SVP.
I joined SVP Portland in May of this year as a way to make a difference in my community. After working in the corporate world at Hewlett-Packard for most of my career, I founded Your Beliefs Matter to help people tap into higher levels of performance and results through unleashing the power of their minds. My passion for coaching, combined with SVP’s capacity building model, seemed like the perfect way to engage with other skilled venture philanthropists. Most of all, I was inspired by SVP’s deep commitment to advancing racial equity. This is my story. I didn’t think I had a racist bone in my body, but one day I realized I was wrong. In 2010, an incident in my neighborhood helped me realize that, despite my desire to treat all people equally, I wasn’t exempt from the cultural and societal programming that comes with white privilege. As I continue my own journey of discovery, my mission is to help others transform, by examining beliefs, perceptions, and biases to create more equitable solutions for problems facing our society. I believe that we can change racism, prejudice, and bias, and create a world we ALL love by looking within, deciding who we want to be, declaring our goals, and holding ourselves responsible. Building personal awareness is the first step needed to create change on a larger scale to dismantle the systems that have caused such deep rooted pain and injustice.Since one’s equity journey is never complete, I look forward to participating in SVP’s newly-designed Equity Team (E-Team), which kicks off this month! The E-Team is comprised of 19 Partners and staff, and will be investing significant time to learn more deeply about issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice. As a Team, we will serve as champions for becoming an anti-racist organization, drawing on our collective passion, will, and urgency to transcend the limitations of dominant culture. And I look forward to meeting more of my fellow Partners!
Sincerely, Joan