DEI Coordinator & Administrator | Legal Assistance of Western NY

Project Management and Program Leadership

• Initiated and facilitated a strategic organizational assessment (hybrid method) across three project teams to evaluate root causes of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) issues;

• Coordinated stakeholder engagement with partner organizations, internal executives, contracted SMEs, project teams, and organizational committees;

• Integrated deliverables from multiple teams into a single DEI report with 40 highly detailed and actionable organizational policy changes.

• Collaborated with internal stakeholders to execute the directives from the DEI organizational assessment, developing new SOPs for talent recruitment, screening, and interviewing, and managing these knowledge products for use across 7 field offices and 6+ projects (ex: criminal justice, housing, pro bono, etc). 

• Trained a DEI team in agile methods (ex: kanban/WIP limits, sprints/timeboxing, etc) and facilitated the design and execution of a new program to collect and report demographic staff and applicant data using the Bamboo HR platform.

• Facilitated sprint planning/sprints/reviews/retrospectives and launched new people-centered, DEI-aligned and EEOC-compliant data collection process.

• Chaired organization-wide Data Working Group.

• Used servant leadership techniques to guide a cross-functional technology project team (IT specialists, functional managers, attorneys, operations director) to tackle root causes of a complex, long standing challenge of aligning user experience (UX), database design, and Federal and New York State reporting obligations for the organization’s customizable SQL CRM (Legal Server) across functions of client intake, case management, and reporting. Completed product roadmap and backlog prior to leaving for graduate degree. 

• Managed 70k annual DEI program budget; Introduced new billing codes to track DEI work taking place operationally and in advocacy

• Managed 120k of general program grants, applications, reporting, and staff budget allocations (at standard 1/10th of an hour billing).

• Wrote RFPs and sole source justifications for third-party DEI consultants;

• Executed contracts and managed staff-consultant teams for on schedule, scope and budget services (training, coaching, climate survey) and deliverables (tools, templates, reports). 

Facilitation, Presentation and Communication

• Organized and point of contact for Undoing Racism Training facilitated by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond for LawNY supervisors, management, and DEI committee members; workshop ran twice for 20 staff at each session

• Designed and conducted experiential DEI sessions using anti-racist facilitation covering topics such as implicit bias, difficult conversations, and stakeholder engagement.

• Collaboratively developed and facilitated customized, multi-day strategic planning retreats (in person and online) for the DEI committee in 2019, 2020, and 2022.

• Developed an organizational cultural assessment workshop based on “White Supremacy Culture” by Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun to identify patterns in organizational culture and develop relational alternatives

• Facilitated twice-monthly meetings for a diverse, 40-person DEI committee, fostering collaboration and advancing strategic organizational DEI projects.

• Developed and delivered a comprehensive, experiential new-user training program for CRM platform (Legal Server), resulting in improved data quality for internal and federal/state/local reporting and enhancing user skills, efficiency and satisfaction through interactive and engaging learning experiences.

• Designed curriculum, launched and facilitated a white anti-racism caucus, 2019-2023