Story Arts of Minnesota

Anti-Racism & Inclusivity Action Plan

As SAM board members we commit to the following:

We will build partnerships with BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) community leaders through conversations, outreach, and attending in-person and virtual storytelling events. Through these partnerships we will support all Minnesota storytellers and develop SAM’s membership to be more representative of the storytellers we serve. The Community Partners committee will oversee outreach.

We will create an equitable and welcoming space for underrepresented voices and communities at our annual StoryFest and other SAM sponsored events. We will do this by inviting BIPOC community members to participate and by ensuring that storytelling opportunities are accessible and widely promoted. We will seek to reserve space for underrepresented voices and measure our progress in performance and facilitation time allocated to those tellers. We will uphold our code of conduct relating to hate speech and derogatory language or inference at all times. The Programming committee will oversee outreach.

We will build a more inclusive board representative of our communities. We will draw on our relationships with communities of color to guide us and recommend potential BIPOC board members. Additionally, we will apply for an organizational development grant to support our learning and our inclusivity planning in order to fully implement active representation. The SAM board will oversee outreach.

We will continue to evaluate our own progress through reflection and measurement of action as a standing agenda item for monthly SAM board meetings. We will deliver a report to membership at the Annual General Meeting each year on our progress. The SAM board will oversee evaluation.

We will share this commitment with any current and or future partners and co-sponsors in joint events. This action plan shall be published on the SAM website and distributed to members. 

We commit to ongoing reflection in order to deeply examine our own inherent biases, with a commitment to changing ourselves and working to dismantle structures of inequity. We will revise and update this plan and our code of conduct when learning, reflection, and evaluation deem it necessary; and we commit to reviewing this plan annually.

Next task: Overhaul and rewrite Code of Conduct

Adopted unaminously by the board of directors, Story Arts of Minnesota, July 13, 2020.