Our Approach
Center for Diversity & the Environment
With deep gratitude, we welcome you to the Center for Diversity & the Environment (CDE) website. We honor and acknowledge our interconnection and the importance of our relationships with one another and the world. We are delighted that you are here and that you are, on some level, in the midst of healing the systems that separated us from one another and from the natural world. Many of you work diligently to tend to the harms that extractive and consumer-based economies have done and continue to do to the planet. We acknowledge that your work often strengthens your relationship to place.
At CDE we see a direct line between healing place and healing our human relationships this is the work of healing justice and we know that this work takes intentionality. Each of you will have your own way of traveling this journey and we hope that our paths cross. The work of equity, diversity, healing justice, and liberation is an invitation to envision a new way of honoring all of our relationships.
We guide and support individuals and organizations at every point in the equity, diversity, inclusion, healing justice, and liberation change process. Our programs meet people where they are and provide a supportive space for the transformational experience of un-learning, learning, and re-imagining a new environmental movement.
“CDE does the most important, essential work in the most impactful and intentional way. Not hyperbole. Every time I interact with CDE (for an afternoon, a day, or weeks at a time) I am transformed and moved to be more prepared to help create the world we all deserve.” – Equity Engagement & Strategy Process client
Inspiring Transformation Rooted in Love.
Be part of the change.
We work from the inside out, engaging people’s minds, hearts and hands. Our minds bring us to new awareness and analysis; our hearts drive our motivation to engage in this work; and our hands lead us to action. In our curriculum design, program delivery, coaching and consulting, we draw on numerous approaches, which invite participants to imagine and think about their work moving forward.
We explore the ideas of reciprocity and an abundance mindset—Indigenous ways of being that stand in stark contrast to the extractive, transactional systems that currently dominate our lives and harm the planet. We enter each learning, coaching and strategy session with open minds and open hearts, and we ask those with whom we work to do the same. We lead with compassion, meeting each person where they are in the learning process without judgment or shaming. We call this radical love.
Radical love frames our efforts to understand our individual and collective roles to create a more equitable, just, systems-changing movement. It guides us in mending our broken relationships with one another and the natural world, so we can re-envision culture change that embraces us all.
Our approach is distinct in the way that we foster long-term relationships with our program participants. We don’t just train and advise—we build community. We are part of that community as well. We hold ourselves accountable to our community members, and we are present during the challenges as well as the celebrations.
What We Do
For Individuals
We offer transformational leadership opportunities for individuals who wish to become effective change agents in their organizations and communities. The evolution of the environmental movement is carried day to day by these innovators and thought leaders.
For Organizations
We support organizations along the change continuum, from the establishment of a solid foundation to customized programs that help them navigate this nuanced work. Our services include retreats, trainings, strategy development, coaching and consulting to support ongoing institutional evolution.
Movement &
Community Building
Ultimately, the success of this movement depends on our ability to work together across difference and build relationships of reciprocity among our communities. We support coalition building, network coordination and community engagement to bridge the historical divide between the highly funded, white dominant environmental movement and Indigenous, Black and People of Color who have been excluded from decision-making tables, and whose cultural values have been silenced in mainstream dialogue.
