SHIFT Board of Directors acknowledgement and official response
November 6th, 2018
Dear _________,
The Board of Directors would like to acknowledge that we received your letter. We appreciate you describing your personal accounts and concerns about your experience at the 2017 and 2018 SHIFTjh Conference & the Emerging Leaders Program to our attention. We value your feedback and take this matter seriously.
Over the past week we have received numerous letters and emails that require our thoughtful and deliberate consideration as a board. We expect additional letters to arrive in the next week. As each letter must be considered, we have scheduled a series of board meetings to review the feedback.
Today, we convened for the first board meeting since SHIFT 2018 and began to discuss the wide and varying views and experiences expressed in these official correspondences.
We have collectively agreed that these conversations require investigation, due diligence and consensus toward a meaningful and actionable path forward for the Center for Jackson Hole and the important work the organization was created to pursue.
We have determined that it is our responsibility review the matter and we appreciate your patience in this process.
We welcome further correspondence and supporting information. If you would like to send additional information, please address the letter to the Board of Directors and email the document to Board Chair Len Necefer. We ask that all correspondence be sent as official letters via email for the record. These letters will be reviewed by the board as a whole. This system ensures that all information is made available to each of the board members in a timely and fair manner and so that we can act and respond accordingly per our organizational responsibilities.
Sincerely,
Signed
Len Necefer
Board Chair
Center for Jackson Hole
Alfonso Orozco
José González
Jessica Saba
Frederick Reimers
December 21, 2018
Dear ELP participants,
Thank you for reaching out to the Board of Directors of The Center for Jackson Hole about your experiences in the 2018 Emerging Leaders Program (ELP). We have received your letters and given them much consideration, and would like to share with you our thoughts regarding next steps.
Each year, The Center for Jackson Hole (The Center) solicits and receives feedback from participants about its two main initiatives, SHIFT and ELP. We then work to incorporate this feedback into improvements for the next year’s programming. We greatly appreciate it, and we respect the people who share it. Without this sort of input, we would not be able to improve as an organization.
Soon after this year’s ELP ended, we received your letters calling for the resignation of the Center’s Executive Director, Christian Beckwith. You told us that, under his leadership, this year’s ELP created an inflammatory, non-inclusive, and unsafe environment for you, and that in turn this created undue discomfort, pain, and stress. You told us that unanticipated requests for emotional labor affected you in ways that were both painful and unfair. You told us that this year’s ELP fell short of acceptable standards for participants, and you called on us to improve on a variety of levels.
We understand the seriousness of your experiences and your requests, and recognize the impact this year’s program has had on you. We appreciate the effort you put into making your experiences known to us as well, the additional emotional labor this required, and we acknowledge the sincerity of your complaints.
We also received letters that offered support for Mr. Beckwith. These letters, too, included suggestions for ways we could improve our programming. Both sets of letters have guided our decisions with a common goal of improvement.
The Center for Jackson Hole believes the coalition of stakeholders working to protect our public lands has the potential to become a movement. We also believe that, to preserve our public lands, the movement must include those who have been historically under-represented and marginalized in mainstream outdoors and environmental work. Until our efforts to protect lands, waters, and wildlife address systemic inequities that have precluded the equitable representation of the rights and interests of all people, they won’t be strong enough to succeed.
Our vision for ELP is to bring together a diverse group of early career leaders from around the country who have a stake in conservation to help lead the proceedings at SHIFT. This diversity is represented in ability, ethnicity, geography, race, gender, political affiliation, work, thought, and life experience. By convening such a group from across the core SHIFT audiences, we seek to provide an equitable cross-section of perspective and insight that in turn insures the outcomes at SHIFT are relevant to all people.
When we read, in your letters, that our efforts to create an inclusive and constructive environment for you had failed, and that that in turn caused you harm, we took your points seriously, and went so far as to discuss eliminating or pausing the program. You are the future of the movement. The only way to keep the conservation field relevant and our public lands safe is to continue to bring young leaders like you together. Because of this, we have decided to move forward, evolving the ELP to address your experiences and to incorporate your feedback.
Since starting SHIFT, we have brought together stakeholders from the outdoor industry, land management, conservation and public health communities in a way few other organizations have done. This is a direct result of Mr. Beckwith’s vision, tenacity and passion — factors that are also responsible for the creation of The Center and the ELP.
In the past, ELP participants have learned valuable skills and built incredible relationships, both with one another and with other SHIFT attendees. The program has provided a platform for the leaders of tomorrow to meet with current leaders and influence the conversation in the outdoor industry and the conservation movement. We feel there aren’t other programs out there trying to do this as boldly. This, too, is a result of Mr. Beckwith’s work, and we fully support his ongoing role as Executive Director of The Center for Jackson Hole.
Historically, we have tasked Mr. Beckwith with overseeing both SHIFT and ELP. In addition to his work on SHIFT, he has helped select ELP participants, develop the curriculum and monitor the program’s evolution, and done so in a way that has provided it with both an operational and financial framework.
The Board has decided to separate these responsibilities.
While Mr. Beckwith will continue to serve as the Center’s Executive Director, we are committed to:
• Restructuring the framework of next year’s ELP, with a particular focus on its leadership structure and curriculum
• Requiring the Board of Directors, Executive Director and all staff to receive training in diversity, equity and inclusion
• Retaining an outside organization that specializes in diversity, equity and inclusion work to identify shortcomings within our organizational framework and incorporate them into our planning
Additionally, we are directing Mr. Beckwith and other Center staff to take HR trainings to ensure a welcoming, professional and supportive work environment.
Certain moves will be made more quickly than others; our commitment to the program does not end with these actions.
Decisions regarding other ways to evolve will be made at upcoming board meetings, and will be guided by our belief that convening a cross-section of experiences and identities is critical to addressing the core challenges facing the next generation of leaders.
The work to convene such a group is incredibly hard and at times messy, as working across difference is challenging, but we believe in it, because we believe it to be essential to the future of conservation. It is for this reason that we are committed to continual improvement and reflection regarding SHIFT, ELP and how both programs are offered.
We deeply regret the negative experiences you reported and are actively working to rectify the factors that led to them.
We have heard your call to evolve and adapt the program to make it a safer place for you and future participants to connect and grow. We have taken your feedback and suggestions into careful consideration and welcome your continued recommendations, as we look forward to working collaboratively to insure the future of conservation.
Sincerely,
Len Necefer
José Gonzalez
Alfonso Orozco
Frederick Reimers
Jess Saba
Board of Directors, The Center for Jackson Hole
