An Update from Our Racial Audit Team

2021 began with the Organizational Racial Audit Team completing the second of three tools, the Continuum on Becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Institution.  This was the second instrument for qualitative analysis of patterns of white-supremacy culture and anti-racist policies and practices in MFSA.  It provided a method to examine the ways that MFSA was moving beyond functioning as passively non-racist and reaching toward becoming a multicultural institution.  

Following the completion of the Continuum, the audit team worked to begin drawing out common themes from that tool and the previously completed Matrix.   The Matrix examined ways that racism functioned on individual, institutional, and cultural levels in MFSA.  The themes that emerged from this comparison formed the basis for the third instrument, the Survey.

The Survey provides a quantitative analysis to be used alongside the two qualitative tools, forming a triangulated analysis of MFSA.  The Audit team wrote 30 questions to explore the eight common themes from the Matrix and Continuum.  These questions were them presented to a sample of respondents from among MFSA’s membership and stakeholders.

The audit team expressed deep gratitude to everyone who participated in the Survey process, in one or both of its phases.  The first phase of the survey was sent to a broad list, seeking as many respondents as possible to simply provide demographic information.  We received over 560 responses, which allowed us to create a sample for the second survey which matched the racial demographics of the UMC.  The second survey generated 116 responses, and while the responses were anonymous, they also included self-reported demographic information.

Since receiving the responses to the second survey, the audit team has been hard at work conducting a detailed analysis of the data it generated.  This has allowed the team to evaluate the themes not only by a general sense of the degree to which MFSA members and stakeholders see those themes present, but also the ways in which people of various races, ethnicities, and other identities differ in their perceptions of each theme.

Finally, the audit team has recently begun a triangulated review of each theme – drawing on information from each of the tools.  This review will form the heart of the final report, and will provide the basis for the recommendations that the audit team will ultimately bring to the MFSA Board of Directors.  We look forward to completing this work this summer, and sharing it with MFSA through the MFSA website, and a number of online presentations.  

Again, we are so grateful for the support of all those who have shared their feedback.  The focus groups, interviews, and survey responses have been invaluable in gaining a more complete understanding of the culture and practices of MFSA, its national bodies, and its chapters.  We look forward to the ways this audit will equip MFSA to take its next steps toward becoming an anti-racist organization.