Very much yes. Before COVID-19, we were very hesitant to offer trainings virtually because we value the communal aspects of this learning experience so much. However, when COVID-19 hit, we decided to give Zoom a try and have since utilized it for hundreds of trainings, check in meetings, small group sessions, and presentations. We are very comfortable with Zoom and can assure you that the overall experience will not be watered down in the least.

Our whole team is proudly fully vaccinated against COVID-19. As such, under the safety guidance of state and local authorities, we are open to in-person training sessions whenever gathering in larger groups is possible. The ETC team loves to travel, so please do not hesitate to consider whether you want your training session to be held in-person, even if you are outside of the Portland metro area.

Our strongest preference is for making sure our work together is as accessible as possible to you and your team. Each of these options have their own pros and cons, such as technological needs, travel time, and the ability to provide live captioning for the presentation. We’re happy to work with you to determine which option works best, depending on your team’s unique needs.

Our most common training series, the Opt In series, is about six hours total. We usually break this up into three, two-hour sessions over Zoom, or two, three-hour sessions in person. However, since all of our trainings are customized to your team’s unique needs, we can adjust these timelines however works best for you. We’ve done everything from full-day trainings to 60-minute “Lunch and Learn” sessions to facilitated, ongoing conversations between leadership and staff. Truly, what works for you, we can make work for us.

Not to sound too lawyerly, but it depends! We don’t recommend spacing out training sessions more than a month apart, but we do like to give some space for reflection and practice time between sessions. When these ideas are too condensed, it can get overwhelming for attendees.

Yes and no. We’ve worked with some large groups that have had over 100 attendees per session, and we’ve worked with some small groups with as few as just a handful of attendees per session. Over time, we’ve discovered that the sweet spot is usually right around 40-50 people per session, as this allows for everyone’s voice to show up in the space and for adequate small group work, but we can certainly be flexible.

The short answer is “usually no.” For organizations that bring ETC in to provide anti-racism trainings, we will sometimes send out a pre-training survey at the request of the organization to take a gauge of what issues are most at the forefront. For our partners who we engage in longer term leadership development and/or consulting coaching, we do sometimes assign homework, allowing for a deeper, more personalized dive into the topics that we cover. At the same time, because all of our workshops build off of each other, a natural level of “homework” will likely occur – oftentimes, workshop participants will recognize and experience the world differently between sessions and want to bring those observations into the next session for discussion.

Our typical fee is not dependent on the size of the group we are training. Instead, we charge an hourly fee per facilitator with some additional costs including preparation time and travel. Or we charge a flat fee for a workshop. We are fairly flexible in working with organizations and groups to get what they need in the budget that works. Before anything else, we do this work for the health of our community, so we always want to speak with you individually about the needs and restrictions of your budget.

Please check out our “past partners” on our About page for a list of folks with whom we have previously worked.

ETC is different for a lot of reasons, but the one that stands out most is the intersectionality that runs through each layer of our work. On an individual level, Kasia is a fat, queer white woman who shares her experiences with vulnerability and stories of flat out screwing up anti-racism during the training sessions. Rakeem is a Black man who grew up in Northeast Portland and has spent years of his career as an educator and mentor in this space. Both Rakeem and Kasia have lived experiences allowing them to become approachable and welcoming to learners of all levels and from a variety of backgrounds, including education, law, not-for-profit, social work, and state agencies. Whatsmore, ETC is founded in tight-knit friendship. Kasia and Rakeem have been friends since their days in law school and, since founding ETC, they have exclusively hired friends who they admire and have met in other areas of their lives who live and work with a community centered focus.
The trainings themselves de-center whiteness, implement a variety of adult learning principles, and are interactive, multimedia, and, put on by two introverts who think they are funny (though Rakeem’s teenager disagrees). Kasia and Rakeem have worked hard to identify and enable a variety of learning styles, and it is always their priority to help folks find their way into the work, both individually and systemically.

ETC is an adaptable and multi-skilled group. Not only do we provide anti-racism and anti-oppression trainings/workshops, but we also provide strategic planning, leadership development, community partnership, facilitated accountability conversations, restorative facilitated conversations, individual and group coaching, change management and resistance support, DEI group creation, policy review, affinity support for folks of color, and individualized workshops such as White Women and Internalized Sexism and Meaningful Care for BIPOC Folks. To learn more about what we provide, please check out our services page, or contact us to set up a conversation. We’d love to meet with you about how we can best support your team.