Part of this is having a people-centered approach, one that centers our staff, grantee partners, and collaborators as humans who are deserving of rest and wellness.

How this looks in a policy manual is that we have a four-day workweek, and we are not “open” on Fridays. This allows our staff weekday time to take care of errands, medical appointments, and (hopefully) to have one less weekday of hustle culture.

Part of centering wellness is a reaction to and rejection of the pressures and perfectionism of what is often called “white supremacy culture.” This has been documented as a force that pushes us all to center accomplishment and productivity, even at the cost of our personal wellbeing.

This is also a push back to the programming of unfettered capitalist culture – a system that posits that we humans are only of value if we are producing things, caring for others, and otherwise being productive. There is no space for rest or centering wellbeing.

Another value that Open Horizon seeks to lean into with our five-year-old organizational culture is telling the truth of our history. The United States has not traditionally owned or named the truth of its history, including the twin horrors of the forced removal, cultural suppression and violence against Native American people and the kidnapping and enslaving of African people.

For most of my life, I was unaware of the holiday of Juneteenth, the marking of the end of slavery in the US. The July 4th Independence Day holiday marking the end of the Revolutionary War against the British always had a lot of attention, but the holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved Black Americans was unknown to me until the 2010s.

Juneteenth is an important holiday as it celebrates the freedom of a whole subset of US Americans in a nation that claims to be a stronghold of “freedom” and “independence.” The entire long chapter of human chattel slavery in the US is one that contradicts and sullies our nation’s story and stated values. The end of legal enslavement is a cause for great celebration, a huge step forward in our moving towards living the true ideals of our founding fathers.

Our first full-time Executive Director, D’Lynn Jacobs, is to thank for our foundation’s policy to close during the week of Juneteenth each summer, in addition to closing between Christmas and New Year’s each winter. This policy is a chance to allow the OH team to rest and reset during the start of summer, as well as being an opportunity to lift up and commemorate the end of chattel slavery in our nation. This is a piece of our history that we believe is important to name and teach. We’ll be offline the week of Juneteenth and we’ll be back at our desks on Monday, June 23rd.

What policies does your organization have that reflect its values? What policy would you like to add in order to lift up one of your organizational values?

Lisa Cohen, Co-founder