Growing Diverse Leadership Committee

Listed below are the current members of the Committee.

Go to Growing Diverse Leadership Initiative Homepage

Members of BYM's ad hoc Growing Diverse Leadership Committee respond to the queries: What draws you to do this work? What makes it matter to you?

At Third Month 2019 Interim Meeting, the Yearly Meeting approved making the Growing Diverse Leadership Committee as standing committee of the Yearly Meeting. The committee's charge as approved at that time is below. Click here to see the committee's description in the Manual of Procedure.

Growing Diverse Leadership Initiative:
Growing in equity, diversity, inclusion, friendship, & wholeness throughout BYM

Goal – to help volunteers and staff in BYM to be effective in their work to promote equity, diversity, inclusion, friendship, and wholeness (EDI) over time

Program components
Give leadership to developing vision for anti-racism and diversity initiatives in our Yearly Meeting

• Emphasize the need for a multicultural, pluralistic approach to this work
• Share an understanding of where we are in our growth process and what we need to do to move forward
  • Learn more about diversity efforts among Friends, and learn from their successes and challenges
  • Learn more about diversity efforts of other religious and other nonprofit organizations, and learn from their successes and challenges
  • Identify organizations who can serve as consultants for BYM in this work to discern our way forward
• Discern goals for growth for the Yearly Meeting each year, working with the Growing Diverse Leadership Committee, the Working Group on Racism, other BYM committees and working groups, and the BYM staff – short-term and long-term planning
• Establish concepts and vocabulary that can be brought to the YM so that we all start to think differently than we have before, but in unity with each other as we move forward
• Work in collaboration with a GDL Advisory, Visionary, & Accountability Committee made up of Friends of Color

Serve as the home committee for the STRIDE Program, Core Groups, and Coordinator

• Support work with STRIDE program (main focus of STRIDE Coordinator)
• Support work with other aspects of the Yearly Meeting – this may change depending on the goals set year-to-year (the STRIDE Coordinator would give guidance and, in some cases, lead parts of this program)
• Support members of this committee and the Working Group on Racism when they are leading workshops and discussions, to help with the dissemination of program, skills, language, etc.
• Seek to provide the resources and problem solving needed to help the Coordinator be successful

Provide program support for the Yearly Meeting and Local Meetings

• Offer workshops at the Annual Session, Interim Meeting Days, and in specially created events for BYM
• Lead discussions and workshops as requested by Quarterly Meetings, local Meetings, staff, BYM committees, and Young Adult Friends, as time is available
• Offer support to Change Groups as the groups develop in local Meetings

Offer problem-solving support to:

• Each Meeting to discern and name a “Listening Ear,” someone tagged, and trained, to listen to people who have not felt included
• BYM’s Clerks, General Secretary and other staff leadership, committee clerks, and others who find themselves with a problem concerning EDI.
• Individual Ffriends who find themselves facing a problem or set of problems concerning equity, diversity, inclusion, friendship, or wholeness, as they arise.

Community Statistics Report

The GDLC is requesting information about current demographics of the Yearly Meeting, so that we can know more about our current community and chart change. To that end, the annual Community Statistics report now asks for information about age and racial/ethnic identity.

We know that age is often just a number and that race as a biological concept does not exist. Yet, we know also that in the context of our society, each of us can have very different experiences based on our heritage and the ways the world perceives us.  Because of this, these identities can have a very real impact in our day to day lives and on determining the communities with whom we end up sharing fellowship. As BYM commits to taking on increasing participation of young adults and people of color, it is important for us to have ways to recognize the demographics of our current community and to assess how that changes over time. This survey is one—though certainly not the only—method we will use to do this. The process of collecting this data also allows us to have important conversation about how we identify and how we form and express community.

• Survey Questions
• Survey FAQs
• Sample surveys from local BYM Meetings
• Psychology Today article discusses the importance of recognizing identity
• Beauty of Babel: BYM Demographics Survey allows us to engage in important conversation around identity and community, Interchange article
• Results: coming soon

Change Groups and Local Meeting Initiatives

Learn more about how your local meeting can create, support, or create a “Change Group”. These groups engage in action and reflection to understand and lower barriers to Friends and seekers of color. This includes self-reflection on behaviors and systems within the meeting that may contribute to racial bias and/or inequity.

Young Adult Resources and Campus Ministries

Young adults seekers, members, and attenders are a diverse part of our Yearly Meeting. We are of many different identities, backgrounds, life-stages, and bring a variety of gifts, needs, and interests. One way that BYM is bringing community to our Young Adult Friends in college, is by leading Campus Ministries. Click here to learn more about those efforts, how to start a campus ministry, and other ways to welcome, support, connect to, and learn from Young Adult Friends in their life and spiritual journey.

Listed below are the current members of the committee

ad hoc Growing Diverse Leadership Committee Annual Reports

ad hoc Growing Diverse Leadership Committee Interchange Reports