2024 Equity Challenge Day 1: Welcome to the fourth annual 21-Day Equity Challenge!
I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept.
American political activist, professor and authorAs we begin our fourth annual 21-Day Equity Challenge, we are honored to have you join us on our continued journey towards equity and justice for the next four weeks and beyond.
We have been so moved by our community’s commitment to the Equity Challenge over the last three years. In 2023 our challenge had more than 9,000 participants from 27 states and three countries. As we kick off the 2024 21-Day Equity Challenge, we honor the work that has been done before us to set the path towards equity in motion and are excited to share this experience with you. We continue coming back to the challenge for it is a special time to unite across our varied lived experiences, identities and sectors to commit together to learning, engaging, reflecting, celebrating and putting action towards building a more equitable community.
Over the next 21 weekdays, you will receive materials curated by our United Way DEI Committee and our Equity Challenge Community Group. These groups are comprised of individuals from United Way and our community partners across Macomb, Oakland, Washtenaw and Wayne counties who united to tell stories of what equity looks like in our various communities. Each day, you will receive an email with a few challenge options, like reading an article, watching a video or listening to a podcast. There will also be an option to listen to a recording of the written summary. Set aside 15-20 minutes to consume as many of the resources as you would like and take a few moments to reflect on what you have learned using the reflection questions included in that day’s email.
Also, don’t forget to fill out our pre-challenge survey.
We encourage you to utilize this first email to stretch your equity muscle and get in the practice of coming back to your commitment to equity each day. Don’t forget to tell us why you’re taking the 2024 Equity Challenge on social media! Use hashtags #EquityChallenge and #RiseToTheChallenge to get the conversation started!
We look forward to embarking on this journey with you and hope to see you at today’s virtual kickoff event at 12 p.m.
TODAY’S CHALLENGE
Read
- Review our Equity Challenge Shared Definitions sheet. As you look through the definitions, take note of which terms are new to you and which ones you need to learn more about. Consider saving the list to use as a helpful reference throughout the challenge. (4 minutes)
- Missed any content from our 2023 Equity Challenge? Check out our catalog of emails and take some time to review a concept you want to learn more about. (15 minutes)
Act
- Send the 21-Day Equity Challenge sign-up to three people in your community.
- Fill out our 2024 21-Day Equity Challenge Pre-Survey! This survey helps us enrich content and Equity offerings.
- Join us for our Community Action Fridays! Learn more and sign-up for a project on our Volunteer Portal.
- Our virtual Equity Challenge Kickoff takes place today at 12 p.m. Join us as we celebrate the start of our fourth annual challenge!
Reflect And Share
- What do you hope to learn during the Equity Challenge?
- How will you keep yourself accountable to finish the Equity Challenge?
- If you participated in a previous Equity Challenge, what did you learn? How did that impact you?
- How have you showed up for equity since the last challenge? What actions have you taken?
- Don’t forget to share your reflections with us on our virtual word cloud!
TALK TO YOUR SOCIAL CIRCLE.
Start the conversation. Send the tweet. Share to your story. Make the Facebook post. Sharing what you learn and experience with your family, friends, and co-workers is the first step toward allyship.
