- The nonprofit, operating for 85 years, cites federal funding cuts and anti-DEI sentiment as key challenges.
- Key programs: IncluCity, LeadDIVERSITY, Omaha Table Talks, Transformational Leadership, Conversations for Change, and the Humanitarian Awards will continue.
- Watch to learn more about the nonprofit's hardships and how they're working to overcome them
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Inclusive Communities started as a volunteer-based non-profit over 80 years ago. Up until the new year, they had a staff of 12. But Executive Director Cammy Watkins says they're not seeing as much funding as they did in years past…and had to make a tough decision to lay off eight people.
"They've been phenomenal throughout this whole piece and like the messaging and how we've talked about this and like shared it with everyone and then them echoing it and then like their support of me through this has been just unbelievable," said Watkins.
Inclusive Communities leads workshops on "identity, intersectionality, and bias," for businesses, schools, and other community groups. Watkins told me many of their clients receive federal funding and told her they're afraid they'll lose it if they use it for these initiatives.
"Unfortunately were impacted by the federal cuts or the decisions to shift people away from supporting programming that supports diversity and inclusion so that's where we kind of ended up with no clients to, we would go from around this time having it around 15 to 20 workshops scheduled from like January through March to having one," said Watkins.
Though the non-profit is going through these unfortunate circumstances, Watkins said they have a resilient spirit.
"This is a hard time, but we don't let that scare us away, and we aren't going to let this moment be the end of our movement," said Watkins.
Inclusive Communities programming that will continue:
- IncluCity
- LeadDIVERSITY
- Omaha Table Talks
- Transformational Leadership
- Conversations for Change
- Humanitarian Awards
Watkins and an operations specialist will stay full-time; six of the eight employees' last day was Monday. The few remaining will stay through April 15th for the IncluCity camp.
