Columbia Springs Mission is to offer a unique setting and educational experiences that foster a greater awareness of the natural world and inspire stewardship.

EQUITY STATEMENTS

Columbia Springs commits to championing policies and practices of community equity that empower a just, inclusive, and equitable organization. Columbia Springs commits to building equity into its organizational structure and culture through its mission, leadership, policies, and programs. Columbia Springs commits to building relationships across differences to provide experiences and resources centered in fair access to environmental education and a public, urban natural area where we can gather in community.

COMMUNITY EQUITY

Community Equity embodies the values, policies and practices that ensure that all people, including, but not limited to, those who have been historically underrepresented, ignored, and/or oppressed based on race/ethnicity, age, disability, sexual orientation or identity, socioeconomic status, geography, citizenship status, religion, education, or housing status are represented in the advancement of environmental education. We acknowledge that access is often granted unequally, and that it must be continuously addressed and improved upon.

We see diversity, inclusion, and equity as connected to our mission. These are critical to ensuring the well-being of our staff and the communities we serve.

We commit to a nondiscriminatory approach. We will provide equal opportunity for employment and
advancement in all our departments, programs, and work. We respect and value diverse life experiences
and heritages, and value all voices.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Community equity is critical to the long-term viability of the environmental education sector. We must all hold ourselves accountable, because acknowledging and challenging our biases and societal inequities and working in partnership is how we will make change happen. Everyone deserves equal access to environmental education, and the feeling that everyone belongs in the outdoors, which are essential to the health of our society, our communities, and our planet.

GOALS & OBJECTIVES

To act on and provide informed, authentic leadership for cultural equity, we strive to:

  • Pursue and provide education, training, and access to resources for staff, board members and volunteers.
  • Acknowledge and remove any inequities within our policies, systems, programs, and services. This includes increasing access to environmental education for historically underserved communities. We will regularly review our policies and programs and report organizational progress.
  • Commit time and resources to expand our leadership to better reflect the demographics of the communities we serve.
  • Seek, partner, and connect with other organizations committed to diversity and inclusion efforts
  • Practice and encourage transparent communication.
  • Lead with respect and inclusion. We expect all employees, the board of Directors and volunteers to embrace this notion and to express it in organizational interactions and practices.
  • Make incremental and reasonable progress towards measurable goals, making community equity more visible within our organization.
  • Generate and compile data related that will allow incremental, measurable progress toward the effectiveness of our efforts. This includes but is not limited to, an official organization-wide annual review that will include input and feedback from the staff, board and those outside Columbia Springs. These actions will be organized by the Justice Equity Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Columbia Springs acknowledges the Indigenous Peoples of this land were the first stewards of salmon and the ecology of the Pacific Northwest. We invite you to remember that wherever you are you are on native land.