Meet the Council Expert! Q&A with Yoo-Jin Kang, Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs

Yoo-Jin considers herself bi-coastal with roots in the Pacific Northwest and the D.C./DMV area. In addition to her work with the Council, she’s currently working towards a Master’s degree in Public Health at UC Berkeley. Her focus is on how racism impacts health, especially in the workplace. She also brings a background in sociolinguistics (language and power dynamics) and culture, and violence prevention that helps her navigate the complexities of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

Erin Oppenheim, one of our newest team members, recently interviewed Yoo-Jin to learn more about her background and how members can access her expertise.

Yoo-Jin, our members are eager to get to know you and your work better. Can you tell us more about your role and how members can connect with you? 

Since I started with the Council, I’ve connected with members and philanthropic serving organizations (PSOs) to learn more about what our members and partners want from us in terms of DEI guidance. So, all my work is member driven. I want to hear from members about what would be helpful, specifically from the Council. We’ve tried a few things so far.

Last fall we had a DEI roundtable series that centered on pressing topics that members surfaced as important, such as how to champion DEI within small and rural foundations. This roundtable series will return this coming fall. We have a monthly DEI peer learning circle led by Celia Yapita, who's the Community Leadership & Learning Director at the Albuquerque Community Foundation (and amazing). The peer learning circle is free for all members. That meeting is every last Thursday of the month, and I would love to meet people there too. The peer learning circle is for people who are engaged in any type of DEI work. It doesn't have to be in your title. You can be brand spanking new to it. We want to see you. So that's a really open space, especially for people who are in the earlier stages of implementing and looking for that community and peer feedback. Folks can sign up for each monthly circle on our website!

Something else I’m doing is DEI Discovery Consultations. That is a new member service launched this year, and it's an opportunity to get personalized support from me. It's a members-only service, and you can receive DEI consulting and support through email or through live chats on Zoom. It can be something as simple as, "Help me look at this policy and let me get another set of eyes on how we can make this more inclusive," or "We're newer to this strategy, how can we get started? Can you look up a resource on _____ for me?" 

There are a few ways to get in touch with me directly, and I can’t wait to hear from folks! For DEI Discovery Consultations, there is a form that goes directly to me for scheduling. You can also always reach me via email at YooJin.Kang@cof.org with any questions and we can always set up time to meet that way. 

I would love for people to reach out to me, and even if they don't know what questions they could ask, that's okay. We could just meet and I can help you brainstorm. 

That’s amazing! I’m sure members would love to know what initially drew you to DEI work.

I realized just looking back on my career, I was doing DEI work without even knowing that's what it was called. It's more recently that I've had this formal title, but throughout my entire career I've weaved DEI through all my work, especially because most of my work is in social issues. 

So, it's been deeply ingrained throughout my entire career, especially as it relates to health. I can't look at people's health without also thinking about what systemic factors impact it. When we think about gender-based violence or larger scale violence or substance abuse prevention, trauma recovery, I can't talk about any of those things without thinking about intersectionality, racism, classism, all the isms.

Then, shifting from the violence prevention field, I moved into DEI because I realized, one, I was already doing this work, two, I really enjoyed it, and lastly, it felt like a good entry point to talk about other issues that are all connected. 

How have you integrated your experience in violence prevention and trauma recovery into your work with the Council and Council members? 

I think my experience directly informs how I approach DEI work. There is the professionalized field of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, which can lean more toward Human Resources or employee experience, which is important. Or it can be like what I'm doing at the Council, which is really thinking about external DEI programs and how members are experiencing our services and resources.

The way I bring in my background is through a public health lens. Thinking about people's health has been an important aspect of how I talk about our work. So, thinking about the somatic impact of racism and all the other isms that happen in the workplace and beyond. 

Especially when we think about philanthropy, we're talking about how to support communities. We can't talk about communities without talking about the health of our communities.

Sometimes that's a good entry point for people who are newer to DEI in philanthropy. It can feel really abstract with all these new terms, but when we talk about, "Well, how are people feeling in our space," that can be a good starting point to talk about inclusion, belonging, and diversity.

In your experience, what are a few challenges and opportunities for philanthropic organizations when it comes to improving DEI and building sustainable programs and policies?

What comes up a lot is people are very passionate, very committed, but don't know where to start. Often, we have organizations where folks are a team of four total, or it's just one of one, or DEI programs are housed under an additional full-time role. So, there's not a lot of room for capacity building.

The small steps that don't feel as glamorous are where I would love for people to start, because that starts to build the foundation for some of the bigger work that does require more resourcing and time.

That’s my biggest word of advice to members getting started: Think about how to scale and stay committed. It's like building a habit. It's not glamorous at first when you're starting something new.

And think about the low hanging fruit. What are things that already exist that connect to DEI, like an anti-discrimination policy.  Can you make that more robust? Or do you have an internal staff experience person? Great. Do you ask about experiences related to DEI in our organization?

Instead of trying to think of building something new all the time, start where you are and think about how you can make that more robust before creating something brand new.

Sign up for a DEI Discovery Consultation!