From 8 – 14 September it is National Inclusion Week. So, to celebrate, we thought it would be good to check in with Action Hampshire’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Team to see what they’ve been up to recently and what they have planned for this important week… read on to see how YOU can get involved!
In late 2024, Action Hampshire was awarded a National Lottery Community Fund grant, to undertake organisational development so we can better support the VCSE sector. Our aim is to develop our staff skills and capabilities, as well as our policies and practices, in EDI, environmental sustainability, impact measurement and strategic planning. Once we have achieved this, our second aim will be to share this knowledge and experience with the VCSE sector to support them to develop their skills and capabilities in the same areas.
We formed our EDI Team back in January, with Claire V, Kishor, Matthew, and Jess showing interest in this area of focus. The team quickly realised the vast number of ways EDI intertwines with organisational practices and although we were excited by all the possible opportunities and areas of development, we also felt overwhelmed and unsure where to start! As detailed in our project proposal, we thought it would be best to first undertake a full audit of existing practices. This would allow us to understand what we were doing well so we could maintain these practices and the areas and means by which we could improve our approaches.
After reviewing different audit options, we decided to commission an organisation who had been recommended to us by another Local Infrastructure Organisation. Coliberate who “provides coaching, consulting, speaking and training to individuals, groups and organisations seeking to improve their impact for positive social and/or environmental change.”, set out our three goals of the audit:
- To identify the quality of our EDI practices to date
- To plan what steps we need to take next
- To improve our EDI practice by implementing these actions
As part of this first stage, we shared our work with Coliberate by providing copies of our policies, communications materials, recruitment documents, and more. Staff also took part in short interviews to discuss their experiences of Action Hampshire, to develop an understanding of our organisational culture.
The resulting report produced by Coliberate outlined that Action Hampshire:
“does incredible work to meet the systemic needs of a diverse range of marginalised communities. With generally inclusive staff that follow their communities’ lead, projects are intersectional and work well to improve the wellbeing and living standards of a diverse range of social groups.”
As well as the overall positive reflections, the report identifies ways Action Hampshire can formalise some of its processes to take practical steps to improve our EDI practices. This will help us move from being a team who are morally committed to EDI, to a team that lives out these morals through specific actions/our practice.
The second part of our audit involved us reviewing the recommendations and turning these into an action plan for our work over the next couple of years. In line with our NLCF funding, we decided to focus on our internal practices in 2025/26. Some of our actions focus on updating our policies such as our EDI Policy, Maternity, Paternity, Adoption & Parental Leave Policy, and Recruitment Policy. Other actions we’ve planned include:
- Creating an EDI Vision Statement
- Establishing an intersectional diversity monitoring processes for staff, recruitment, and VCSE organisations involved in our projects
- Reviewing our contracts templates and updating these to include EDI expectations and standards
Carrying these out will be the third and final stage of our audit process, where we will check-in with Coliberate and the NLCF to update them of our progress and learning! Once we have refined our internal practices, we aim to develop new workshops, toolkits and support for our members and the community groups we serve, so that we can extend and share our learning to the wider VCSE sector.
The other strands of our NLCF will intersect with EDI as we aim to embed this practice through every part of our organisation.
Therefore, Action Hampshire’s new strategy development process led by our NLCF funded Strategy Team, will involve YOU – Hampshire’s VCSE sector. As part of our commitment to centring and empowering the VCSE sector and their communities, we’d love to invite as many VCSEs as possible to be involved in our strategy development workshops. These will be facilitated by Action Hampshire staff and aim to increase our understanding of what is important to Hampshire-based VCSEs and how this can be embedded into Action Hampshire’s new three-year strategy.
The first workshop will be hosted online on Wednesday 8 October, 10:00 – 12:00.
Attendees will be reimbursed at a rate of £25 per hour. If you attend the workshop, you would be expected to take part in the second workshop later this year (details to be confirmed).
Follow the link here to express your interest in taking part
This form will close on Wednesday 24th September, when we will let you know if you’ve been selected to take part.
Any questions?
Contact jessica.johnson@actionhampshire.org
So for now, get involved in our strategy development workshop, and check back in during National Inclusion Week 2026 for an update on how we’ve implemented our action plan and what new things we have in store!
