I share with my colleagues at Civic Consulting Alliance in feeling profound sadness, disappointment, and outrage over the brutal killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, the most recent Black Americans to die as a result of our nation’s long history of systemic racism. As Chicagoans and people across the country raise their voices in protest, we are reminded also of the importance and urgency of our work.
Civic Consulting Alliance’s mission is to make the Chicago region a great place for
everyone
to live in and work. We have been working to achieve this by addressing issues at a systems-level—by facilitating public safety and criminal justice reform to ensure that everyone is safe and justice is exercised consistently across all communities; by creating an education system that provides equitable access to opportunity for all students and prepares them for lifelong success; and by growing an economy throughout the city that works for everyone.
I recognize that we have a long way to go to achieve this mission, and the work begins on the inside. As an organization, we commit to:
- Manifest our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion by building a more diverse team and board, and nurturing a more inclusive organizational culture;
- Double down on our efforts to center equity in all of our work;
- Do more together with our partners to create an inclusive civic culture in Chicago, where all stakeholders have a seat at the table and all residents’ voices are lifted up; and
- Support the leaders of institutions that may perpetuate systemic racism to imagine and work towards a just future.
We pledge to develop specific next steps in order to operationalize these commitments. Today, I ask each member of our team and our partners to follow through on our resolution to continue to learn and change so that we may better support leaders across communities working to make Chicago a more just, equitable city. We are determined to achieve the mission we have set for Civic Consulting Alliance, and to do the difficult work that it requires of us all.
