Register today for the virtual launch of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion and invite someone who should not have to do this work alone.
Tuesday, September 1st
11:00 a.m. to noon Pacific / 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. Eastern
We will gather online for:
RESIST! Join the Launch of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion
The event is free. Learn more and register here:
https://drkirkadams.com/join-the-launch-of-the-ccsdi/
September is a season of turning.
Summer begins to loosen its warm embrace. Students return to classrooms. Families settle into new routines. Morning air grows crisp. Leaves begin trading green for gold, crimson, and copper, reminding us that transformation can be both beautiful and necessary.
To everything, there is a season.
This is our season to come together.
This is our season to turn isolation into connection, fear into courage, exhaustion into renewed purpose, and individual effort into collective power.
This is the season for the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.
When You Feel Like the Only One in the Room
Across the country, champions of diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging, human rights, and human dignity are facing intense pressure.
Programs are being dismantled. Funding is disappearing. Language is being censored. People are being asked to abandon commitments that were never merely fashionable initiatives; they were promises of fairness, opportunity, dignity, and belonging.
In workplaces, schools, nonprofits, government agencies, and communities, many champions feel like the only one in the room.
Perhaps you know that feeling.
You raise the question no one else will ask. You identify the barrier everyone else has learned to ignore. You advocate for the person whose experience is missing from the conversation. You continue speaking even when the room becomes uncomfortable.
Then you go home wondering: Is anyone else out there? Does anyone understand how exhausting this is? How long can I keep carrying it alone?
You are not alone.
But too often, the people who share our values remain separated by geography, profession, identity, institution, or issue. We may be fighting similar battles without knowing one another exists.
That isolation is not simply painful. It weakens our ability to create change.
The forces working against inclusion triumph when we are exhausted, fragmented, and afraid. Our answer must be courageous connection.
From Isolated Survival to Collective Power
The purpose of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion is clear:
The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion empowers members to move from reactive, isolated survival mode to strategic, sustainable, collective power through courageous communication and connected communities.
And our “why” is equally clear:
We believe in fairness, inclusion, equal opportunity, and human dignity for all.
The Coalition is being created to help people address real-world issues, not simply discuss inspiring ideas.
It will be a place where champions can find practical resources, exchange strategies, learn from subject-matter experts, ask difficult questions, develop solutions, and organize collective action.
We will facilitate mentoring and peer-learning circles so people can support one another across generations, professions, identities, and experiences.
Coalition members will be able to gather in spaces devoted to the issues they care about most. They will meet people confronting similar challenges, engage with experts who can help them move forward, and contribute their own wisdom to others.
Because expertise does not come only from titles, degrees, or institutions.
Each of us carries knowledge shaped by our lived experiences. Each of us possesses a unique combination of gifts, skills, relationships, and perspectives. Something you have learned may be exactly what another person needs to take their next step.
The Coalition will create a space where we can bestow those gifts upon one another.
That is how community becomes power.
A Joyous Rebellion
Our launch is an act of resistance, but we are not building a community fueled only by anger or fear.
We are creating a joyous rebellion.
A rebellion against isolation.
Against division.
Against hopelessness.
Against the lie that expanding opportunity for one group must diminish another.
Against the idea that fairness, inclusion, accessibility, belonging, and human dignity are somehow too dangerous to name.
We will resist with courage and creativity.
We will resist with authenticity and love.
We will resist by forming relationships strong enough to carry us through difficult seasons.
Imagine people from every walk of life: across race, disability, gender, affectional orientation, generation, profession, geography, faith, identity, and lived experience, standing shoulder to shoulder and declaring:
We will not retreat. We will not be divided. We will build something better. Together.
Not Another Webinar
Our September 1 launch will not be another webinar where people talk at you for an hour while you quietly wonder whether anyone would notice if you wandered off to refill your coffee.
We are creating an Ask Us Anything conversation.
Bring your questions.
Bring your frustrations.
Bring your ideas.
Bring your lived experience.
Bring your hope, even if it is feeling a little bruised.
I will be joined by ISDI board members and community advisors representing a rich variety of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. We will discuss why the Coalition is needed, what members will find inside it, and how we can transform courageous conversation into meaningful action.
Most importantly, we want to hear from you.
What challenges are you facing? What resources do you need? What knowledge can you share? What could become possible if you no longer had to stand alone?
Bring Someone with You
Register for the September 1 launch and then invite someone else.
Invite the person who keeps speaking up in difficult meetings.
Invite the educator helping every student feel seen.
Invite the disability advocate demanding access.
Invite the human-resources professional trying to protect inclusive practices.
Invite the employee-resource-group leader holding people together.
Invite the executive, organizer, activist, student, neighbor, colleague, or family member who believes human dignity is worth defending.
A new season is approaching, carrying both uncertainty and possibility.
We cannot control every change the wind may bring. But we can decide how we will meet it and who will stand beside us when it arrives.
Help Us Build What Comes Next
You can also help bring the Coalition to life by supporting our GoFundMe campaign.
Every contribution, whether it is $10, $25, $50, $100, or more, helps us build and sustain the Coalition’s online community and mobile apps. If you are unable to give right now, sharing the campaign with your networks can be an equally powerful act of support.
Support and share our GoFundMe campaign:
https://gofundme.com/f/support-our-fight-for-inclusion-human-dignity-for-all
Register now for the free September 1 virtual launch:
https://drkirkadams.com/join-the-launch-of-the-ccsdi/
Make a gift. Register for the launch. Share both invitations. And bring someone with you.
The leaves are turning.
The seasons are changing.
And so are we.
RESIST fear.
RESIST division.
RESIST isolation.
RESIST hate.
Together, let us build what comes next.
This is our moment. This is our community. This is our season.
Dr. Kirk Adams, Ph.D.
Advocate, Leader and Keynote Speaker on Disability Inclusion & Leadership
Leading the Way to Accessible Innovation
” Inclusion isn’t just the right thing to do — it’s a strategic advantage. “
Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion (ISDI)
Executive Director
Strengthening individual and organizational capability for creating diverse, inclusive and equitable workplaces.
Innovative Impact, LLC Consulting
Managing Director
Impactful Workforce Inclusion Starts Here
American Foundation for the Blind
Immediate Past President & CEO
To create a world of no limits for people who are blind or visually impaired.
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