Our Work and Mission

True North EDI is a Black-owned consulting and professional development firm that operates within the diversity, equity, and inclusion space. We were founded on the belief that organizational and institutional change can only happen through deep and informed reflection on the ways in which identity, history, and power intersect and impact our lives. We thrive in spaces where commitment and curiosity are present, but where the skill to give life and actions to those commitments require development.
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Through workshops, coaching, and consulting, we support professional communities in the design and development of practices, policies, and cultures where historically marginalized individuals and communities can thrive. We do this work with the knowledge that our professional spaces--and society as a whole--were not designed for all people to be regarded as innately valuable and whole. Our facilitators bring reverence, knowledge, and joy to this work, and seek to be a partner to organizations, institutions, and companies who want to walk shoulder to shoulder with us toward meaningful and lasting change.   

HOW WE WORK
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​​Imagine you want to begin a journey to the North Pole. You reach into your pocket, pull out your compass, and follow the needle, right? Not exactly. To get to the North Pole, or “true north,” simply following your compass needle won't work. You need to have learned and understand the difference between magnetic north — where your compass is pointing — and true north, your actual destination. This is why the term true north has become synonymous with knowing the right path.

THE OPPORTUNITY

Even with the best of intentions, organizations and institutions aren’t designed with whole people in mind. Our society values production, urgency, and returns on investment; it contextualizes people not as who they are, but for what they can produce. As a society, we’ve inherited this way of being. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way. 

In fact, the long-term success of organizations, companies, and institutions depends on it not being this way. Only when we allow ourselves and others to show up un-severed from our passions, identity, emotions, and histories, can we truly manifest the respective impacts we aim to achieve. 

PRINCIPLES OF PRACTICE

Equity, Diversity, and Interdependence 

​We believe that moving forward with integrity requires deep education and understanding of the systems, practices, and beliefs designed to produce and maintain power for select groups, and ultimately, create inequitable outcomes. We believe that diversity and representation is of great importance, but does not in and of itself hold us appropriately accountable to challenging persistent and harmful power structures. We believe that when it comes to the work of disrupting and dismantling systems of inequity—but also as it relates to any dream humankind can dream for itself—we are more powerful together than alone. Allyship is key, but only when power is a point of constant reflection.​

​Transformative Facilitation 

​A True North EDI session lives in our growing edge, that space in which we are invited into new, sometimes intimidating, but inspiring possibilities. During a session, at the moment one finds themselves thinking, I don’t know if I can do this, our facilitators are there to assure them, “You already are.” True North EDI facilitators play the role of both guide and companion. They are charged with bringing light, compassion, and a keen ability to demonstrate and engender powerful connections in groups

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