Belonging at Chime®: Our 2024 CRG Summit
“Chimer Resource Groups (CRGs) exist to create belonging, but asking the groups’ leads to create belonging is a very intimidating task,” explains Andrew Udeshi (he/him/his), Chime’s Program Manager, People. “To do so, they have to unite and cater programming to people, as well as stay aware of and hold space for nuances within their communities — no community is a monolith, after all. It’s an incredibly difficult task.”
So Chime’s Diversity, Equity, and Belonging (DEB) team decided to support our CRG leads in their meaningful work by organizing Chime’s first-ever CRG Summit. Here’s a look at the event and how it came together.
Building connections among CRG leadership
“We assumed all CRG leads knew each other and were comfortable reaching out to one another, but that wasn’t the case,” Andrew says. “Turns out, their lack of connection was hindering collaboration. So, we set out to build connections across CRGs — in addition to the connection that exists within the groups. We decided the best way to do that would be to gather the leads in person.”
Being a CRG lead is a big responsibility, and Andrew and the DEB team hoped to create an opportunity for professional development and growth through the CRG Summit. They also wanted to provide space for leads to get to know each other’s working preferences and values and take time for strategic planning for the year. “We scheduled the CRG Summit to be in January so the leads were poised for a successful year with a clear plan, rather than being reactive to different cultural moments throughout the year or passive in their approach to engaging their members,” says Andrew.
The team was very thoughtful about the structure and content of the CRG Summit. They considered hosting a two-day event but didn’t want to create friction around the leads’ day-to-day jobs. They landed on three half-days of programming, providing ample time between sessions for leads to focus on their core job responsibilities and connect with each other outside of sessions.
The CRG Summit in a nutshell
“We kicked off our CRG Summit with leadership development, establishing roles, and setting expectations,” Andrew says. Breakout sessions on day one included our very own Dion Bullock on crafting your leadership story, Molly Payton on how to assess CRG member needs — something she does every day for Chimers as part of our Operations and Member Experience team — and Amanda Delaney and Rachel Prael from our Events team on how to design programming for CRG members when the level of interest and engagement are varied.
On day two, the Summit focused on capacity building and featured a personal user manual session. During this session, CRG leads explored what they value, when they like to work, how they like to communicate, and how they best receive feedback. They shared this information with other leads so everyone could understand how to collaborate best.
Day two also included the CRG fair, which was an opportunity for CRG leads to share their groups with Chimers and for Chimers to learn more about our CRG communities. Each CRG had a booth with three featured books, authors, or stories from their community. “The fair was an entry point for Chimers to learn about communities in a creative way,” Andrew explains. “Chimers were invited to take a book and explore the CRG’s community through writing.”
On the final day of the Summit, the CRG leads welcomed Maceo Owens, known as the ‘ERG homegirl,’ who spoke on engagement, communications, and ways to activate communities through CRGs. They then went into strategic breakout discussions to plan for the year ahead. The Summit ended with a social hour for the leads to connect on a more personal level.
Leveraging our internal strengths to deliver an impactful summit
“Besides Maceo Owens, all the session facilitators for our CRG Summit were Chimers,” says Andrew. “We wanted to showcase the different types of expertise among Chimers that are available to the CRG leads to learn from and remind them that they are not alone. They have so many folks to learn from and lean on: our DEB team, the events team, each other, and all the other CRGs as well. There are so many functional teams represented in our CRG leadership — they have so many people’s skills to leverage and folks to lean on during their journeys as CRG leads.”
Another reason for relying on Chimers to lead the Summit was to ensure that institutional knowledge is cultivated and maintained. Since CRG leads change from year to year, it’s critical that they pass on information and share it amongst themselves.
Helping Chimers feel seen
Several weeks following the CRG Summit, leads have already put their learnings into practice. For example, several CRGs have enabled a Slack feature that invites new channel members to introduce themselves.
They’ve also found ways to collaborate with each other. The CRGs plan to host a panel discussion about the pressure of being the eldest daughter in the family, a topic of discussion over lunch at the CRG Summit. “That discussion, and the upcoming panel, wouldn’t have happened without the Summit,” Andrew remarks. They are also organizing a joint session in April for Financial Literacy Month to educate Chimers about their own finances.
A lot of emotional labor comes with being in a CRG lead position, so supporting our CRG leads is a big priority. “We see many companies turning to ERGs to educate the organization about issues related to their communities, but the role of an ERG is primarily to support its members,” Andrew says. “Our goal is to ensure that our CRG leads feel empowered, equipped, and supported in enriching their communities at Chime. If we do our jobs properly, our CRGs can put on engaging, intentional programming to enable Chimers to feel more seen and welcomed. They then are more likely to feel happier at work, and do their best work — which directly impacts our members and ability to achieve our mission.”
We think that’s a win-win for everyone. We can’t wait to see all the great work our CRGs do this year!
