Dear Friends,
In late 2024, our church committed to working on diversity, equity, and inclusion work here at Normal Heights United Church. This decision was a continuation of several commitments that we made as a church community in the summer of 2020, and was a commitment to work that would take us beyond only book groups, discussions and conversations about race and equity here at our church. We committed to the work and raised funds totaling more than $20,000 to hire an organization to guide us through this important and essential work that we were committed to doing.
We took the process seriously as we evaluated over 20 different organizations and/or persons who do this work, and eventually narrowed it down to four different organizations- each of which received a zoom interview by our pastors and a smaller subcommittee of folks gathered to help us make our decision. Eventually, on the basis of the strength of their interview with the founder of the organization, we settled on a company called Amanah. They sent us an outline of their work and its intended goals as well as a breakdown of costs, and we agreed that it matched what we were hoping for from this work and partnership with them.
And so, in early 2025, we enthusiastically began our work with them. They visited us on a Sunday to get a feel for the congregation and we began having meetings on zoom with them and our two executive committees, Personnel and Finance/Trustees. The early meetings were quite basic in their teaching, but when we provided feedback to them their response was that it was groundwork that was needed to bring everyone up to speed. That seemed logical to us and so the process continued.
However, when Pastor Brent was gone over the summer for my renewal leave, their presentations and approach continued to be overly-simplistic and indicative of what many of us felt to be a surface level approach to diversity training. Additionally, it was during this time that they informed us that one of the original partners had left the company and was no longer a part of the work. This was the same partner who was our original contact with the company and the source of our decision to go with them over other organizations. When Pastor Brent returned from his sabbatical we had a conversation about what had been going on, and we sent them an email with our concerns and a clear desire and demand for the work to be more in-depth. We were surprised to receive their response which stated that from their perspective they considered a majority of their work with us to be done.
To say we were shocked was an understatement. This began a long and arduous process of back-and-forth emails using their outline schedule of work as a basis for what had not been done. It was during this process that they informed us that they were closing the company at the end of the year and hoped to wrap up our work in the next few months. This was the final indicator to us, after many, that they were no longer effectively working with each other or with us.
At this, we made the decision to let them know that we did not feel like we could continue our work with them as they did not seem to be dealing with us in good faith or taking the process seriously. We requested a partial refund on this basisâŚwhich they agreed to. This to us is a concrete indicator that they realize that they have not fulfilled their promises to us.
We are extremely disappointed in this process and our partnership with them, and feel like our work in this area has been unnecessarily delayed. We are now reopening the search for an organization and or individual to guide us in this important work, and are committed to finding the right fit. Especially in these days, when DEI work is under renewedhy attack, we feel it is more important than ever to do this work well as a church.
Here’s how you can help. If you know of someone that you would personally recommend to help our church do this process we would love to talk with them. It is our hope by having someone who comes to us by personal recommendation that we will not end up in this situation again. We want to partner with an organization who takes this work as seriously as we do who can help guide us through it. If you know of anyone, please let Pastor Molly or Pastor Brent know. This work is too important to fall by the wayside, and we will keep pressing ahead.
Regretfully,
Pastor Brent and Pastor Molly
