Meet the Co-Creating Inclusion team
The magic is in the team, and the CCI team has a special kind of alchemy that means that we all have very different backgrounds, identities and experiences, yet there are also so many ways in which our experiences resonate and come together in both expected and unexpected ways.
We work to model solidarity and co-creation while also embracing and leveraging difference.
We appreciate neurodiversity and strive to explicitly name the different ways each of us thinks and works.
We are continually working to build structures and processes that give space to each of us and meets each of us where we’re at while fostering both autonomy and collaboration.
Like our clients, we are a work in progress, a culture in development. We try to walk the walk and practice what we preach. We are in it with you and we don’t always get it right. Some days are hard. We don’t always want to talk to each other, but we also laugh a lot and find joy and comfort in the fact that we are not doing this work alone.
Our team is spread across five states and has been working fully remotely since before the pandemic. Our clients are also across the country although mostly on the east and west coast, and occasionally international. As of spring 2023 we are still mostly facilitating and working with clients virtually, although intentionally and strategically designing and available for in person meetings and workshops where purposeful.
Although we do have some structure and differing levels of responsibility as far as running the company, on projects our teams are flat, and while one or other of us might take a leading and/or coordinating role, we do not consider any one of us to have a voice that carries more or less weight than another with our clients.
DEI CONSULTING
Our DEI facilitating team is intentionally a team of women and gender-expansive people of color. We are familiar with the model of pairing a white facilitator with a BIPOC facilitator. We can see the benefits to this approach but also the pitfalls. We have found that we prefer to co-facilitate with other women and gender-expansive people of color, and to work with clients who appreciate this approach, knowing that dominant culture is such that white and/or male perspectives are not at risk of being under-represented, even if not as present literally.
We have all worked with white people our entire careers and enjoy our collaborative relationships with the white folks as well as the BIPOC folks in our client organizations.
If your organization is such that you think a team that includes white facilitators will be more successful - that’s ok! Feel free to get in touch and we can make a referral.
Alethea Cheng Fitzpatrick
Principal & Founder | Senior DEI Consultant | Director of Strategy & Design
Alethea (she/her) started Co-Creating Inclusion in 2019 after getting more and more requests for DEI consulting work, and knowing that she wanted to create a container for the work that was bigger than herself. She is one of the extroverts and external processors on the team who learns daily how to create an introvert and internal processor friendly culture while still getting her own needs met. Lately she has been practicing how to slow down to process, integrate and communicate all the big picture connections and ideas that are firing off in her head so they are more explicit to others. Her future self thanks her also!
Malaika Aaron-Bishop
Senior DEI Consultant | Director of Methodology & Learning
There would be no Co-Creating Inclusion without Malaika (she/her), who began collaborating with Alethea before and during its inception in 2019, joining full time in the fall of 2020. Malaika and Alethea are both remarkably different and weirdly similar, and collaborate to both support and hold each other accountable. Malaika brings a deep commitment to justice, a power analysis, restorative justice and designing for the long view. To work with Malaika is to learn from her wisdom, humanity and humor.
Danaé Jones Aicher
Senior DEI COnsultant | Directory of history & analysis
Alethea and Danaé (she/her) met at a conference in early 2019 and went from becoming conference buddies to long distance friends to collaborators. Danaé started working with Co-Creating Inclusion in the fall of 2020 on a specific project, and joined the team after moving from North Carolina to Florida in 2021. Danaé brings a different perspective and body of work and experience to the team, deepening our historical analysis as well as a level-headedness, curiosity and approach to communication that has proven invaluable to us as well as our clients.
LaVoya “V” Woods
SENIOR DEI Consultant | DIRECTOR OF Trauma-INFORMED METHODOLOGY
LaVoya (ve/ver) first partnered with the Co-Creating Inclusion team in 2022 as a mental health consultant, supporting the team in prioritizing and maintaining mental wellness and later, offering insight on the psychological underpinnings of the DEI process. V is a healer-preneur and offers community consultation and coaching to support systemic trauma recovery. A systems thinker and social worker by trade, LaVoya is excited to join the team full time as a trauma-informed methodology specialist. As a recovering overachiever, V lovingly heals ver younger traumatized selves by prioritizing ease, rest, and recovery (usually on a kayak or forest trail) and supports ver fellow consultants in doing the same!
RESEARCH & EVALUATION
We are research geeks and proud to have researchers integrated into our team who have helped us refine our research and evaluation methods, design our process to incorporate research throughout, and to track the copious amounts of data, particularly qualitative data ie voices, input and feedback that we gather throughout our work with clients, starting with the very first discovery call. We use a variety of methods of analysis to identify themes, patterns and takeaways in our assessment of organizational culture, aptitude and appetite for change, and DEI readiness and effectiveness.
Karyn Kelbaugh
senior research consultant | Director of Research & Evaluation
Karyn (she/her) is our resident researcher whose enthusiasm and persistence has turned us all into researchers! Friends with Alethea for many years, she influenced Alethea’s approach to data gathering before Alethea even realized she had one, and was Alethea’s go-to resource for grappling with it all from the start. Karyn loves to geek out on tools and apps that foster both innovation and rigor in how we operationalize research processes, which is a fancy way of saying that she makes us write research diaries to articulate the themes and patterns that we see in every interaction with our clients! She also helps us create compelling graphics and charts that summarize our data findings in ways that are impactful and accessible.
Rita McWaters
Senior Research Consultant | Director of Reporting & Analytics
Rita (she/her) and Karyn have worked together for many years, since graduate school in fact. Rita brings to the team an additional research perspective as well a deep understanding of non-profit culture, and tools and methods for data analysis and report writing, including what we have come to call “Rita style questions” that help us gather rich, information-laden and actionable feedback for our clients. Rita has transformed the way we design our surveys and research processes as well as how we share the results.
OPERATIONS
Janice Dalager
Operations Manager
Janice (she/her) is a seasoned coach and consultant who manages a team of virtual assistants who pride themselves on making the lives of entrepreneurs and small business owners easier. She and her team provide operations, systems and administrative support so we can do our best work for our clients. With us from the start, Janice has helped us develop robust processes that have evolved as our work has evolved. She works with each of us individually as well as with the team to meet varying needs for operational support as well as zoom tech support during some of our workshops. Her team’s flexible and responsive approach helps to keep us resourced and supported.
Lori Press
Administrative Coordinator
Lori (she/her) joined the Co-Creating Inclusion team in 2023. Lori's innate desire to alleviate the needs of others in every manner possible has been an integral part of her character, and this innate passion for helping and supporting others translated seamlessly into this role. Having honed her skills and gained invaluable experience as an Administrative Assistant in the intense and demanding political sphere, Lori looks forward to utilizing her wisdom to aid the team to the fullest extent.
