Power is the ability to change my life and others' lives through access to money, information, community, audience, decision makers, and decision rights. This access is a set of levers that can move, create, or diminish that ability to change your or others lives. I always introduce this definition of power to clients because it takes power from being this ethereal feeling to something you and your team can see and discuss.

We have dived into the work of multiracial and multicultural institution building because we have a point of view on what systems need building, skills need training, and what moves people could be making.  Ultimately, I think all of those things are in service of expanding the emotional bandwidth of an institution so that in the most critical moments of moving power or making tough decisions the entire team doesn’t enter into a dysregulated state where everyone is reaching for fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

The people with the most access to power (in this case information) insulate themselves from the risks of shock while leaving people with much less access to power (and in this case, information) fully exposed to all of the harmful effects of unexpected shocks in our system.

At Brava we’ve been hard at work thinking about what changes we could make to be more accessible to more people in a time of incredible duress for multiracial and multicultural institutions. I know that I’m not alone in observing that the federal government is actively making it legally difficult for multiracial and multicultural organizations and businesses to exist and thrive.