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CCI Examples of Cultural Competency

Cultural Competency in Capacity Building

Examples include:

An Asian-American executive director was in danger of being fired by her predominantly White board of directors. A culturally based coach helped this leader understand and articulate her own leadership style that valued a more humble, consensus-based approach. She was able to help her board and staff understand that her approach to leadership may look different than "mainstream" leadership styles, but is no less effective.
In a largely African-American neighborhood of Cleveland, residents wanted to embrace a wave of development while not losing the area's character. The consultant designed and led community-wide planning, taking care to let residents know their voices would make a difference, and to keep the language user-friendly across levels of formal education. From this rare opportunity to imagine and act together, they created a weekly community walk that replaced the types of meetings that most people could not attend. Instead, a team of neighbors began regular outreach leading to shared accountability for concrete changes in their neighborhood—street lighting, cleanups, business development, recreational and educational resources.
Native American consultants involved in a statewide tobacco prevention coalition developed a culturally grounded alternative to the mainstream "just say no to tobacco" campaigns in reservations and urban areas. Recognizing the traditional value of tobacco in Native culture, campaigns against harmful tobacco use now have the theme "keep tobacco sacred" by using it only in ceremonial ways.
Starting work with a Latino-led organization, a Latino consultant recalls an approach that placed a premium on personalismo. The earliest stages of contact were about genuinely connecting and showing respect, rather than defining a scope of work as a basis for a contract. Personalismo meant understanding that a relationship of trust and understanding of common ground needed to be established before beginning the process of negotiating contracts and deliverables. And in going forward, the consultant set a pace and division of labor to fit the needs of an executive of color who faces the constant pull of leadership roles across the community.

The Alliance Cultural Competency Initiative aims to document practices like these to help capacity builders understand that paying attention to culture is essential in order to be effective.

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"As nonprofit leaders and technical assistance providers, we need to understand how group dynamics, race, power and privilege influence organizations both internally and externally. We also need to challenge ourselves to remember that things that work for mainstream or large institutions may not necessarily work for grassroots organizations or communities of color."

– Vicki Asakura, Executive Director, Nonprofit Assistance Center