We look forward to your contributions now and on December 3, this year’s Giving Tuesday. Donate here to support our work.
The outcome of the SCOTUS 2023 affirmative action decision in President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina has had a decisive chilling effect. Many corporations are no longer willing to stand behind their own DEI policies let alone engage in or send their employees to training. And that was before the election decisively pointed us in the direction of Project 2025, under which anything associated with diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging and accessibility is intended to be illegal. Meanwhile, nonprofit organizations, including public media, continue to seek out and request our training for either a discount or on scholarship. It’s likely they will be more motivated to do so under the 47th president’s regime. We developed this model of funding to expand access to our services to those not-for-profit companies.
With so much uncertainty, we appreciate donations of any amount.
Giving Tuesday: Three Things in Our Tiny Pitch
Headway isn’t a traditional fundraising operation. We don’t do events, telethons, create kits or recipe books, or attack our contact list with envelopes of personalized address labels and desk calendars. Nothing against those who do: I have about three 2025 wall calendars in the house and shed right now. (Four? Hmmm.) But we’re kinda small, and a little too focused on delivery, for that scale of activity. So I’d like to let you know three things about how we interact with the Giving Tuesday phenomenon.
First, our relationship with donations. In 2024, our income was split about 50-50 between services revenue and donations. The whole amount totals under $60,000, so you can see that a) no one’s heading to Cancun for our holiday party; and b) every donation has a big impact.
Second, where the money goes. It goes 100% into paying our teaching staff, sponsoring class participants, and covering our expenses. We end the year with a few grand in the bank–not even five figures. That’s by design. We’re all remote, so we don’t have office space or equipment. Our revenue funds our operations, and it also sponsors free tuition for one or two deserving students in every class we teach. That includes their books, everything. We have a waitlist.
Third, where your gift can help take us. For 2025, we’re not daunted by the change in our country’s political climate. To the contrary: we’re seeing strong interest nationwide in our expanding roster of classes, and in our presentations to public and private organizations. People still want to connect, to understand co-workers, and to foster a respectful and harmonious work environment. That’s what we do. It’s still valuable. As interest continues to mount, I’d love to hire another instructor or two next year.
So here’s my low-key, eco-friendly Giving Tuesday pitch. We feel it’s always going to be important to work with businesses and nonprofits of all sizes to help people listen, understand, and relate better. Whether it’s called DEI Training, Cultural Competence, Workplace Belonging or something else, we’re going to keep it up, and we’d like to keep expanding. Your help makes it possible. Thank you.
“Power is for everyone to share and wield together.”- GivingTuesday.org
Mike Poulson, Executive Director
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Headway Training is a 501c3 nonprofit providing science-based Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging and Accessibility training that changes company culture from within. We’re challenging the traditional top-down model so that anyone — employees, volunteers, facilitators & management, not just HR folks or consultants — can move their organization towards measurable progress. We offer our services to both for-profit and nonprofit organizations. In addition to increasing and improving belonging in the workplace via a healthy environment, we strive to provide training to registered nonprofits that can benefit from our help at very low or no cost.
Historically, most diversity, equity and inclusion programs, designed by HR professionals and lawyers, focus on limiting liability and risk-mitigation. Ironically, this can backfire because bias can be triggered or reinforced by attempts to reduce it. The billions of dollars U.S. businesses spend on D&I training is often wasted because they are not science-based and don’t focus on the need to feel included.
Headway Training relies on the best research in sociology, psychology and neuroscience to study what does work. We use scientifically proven techniques to increase awareness of inherent bias. We also teach what to do to change biased behavior, and how to avoid the mistakes that can prevent workplaces from becoming equitable and inclusive. We integrate evidence-based strategies into a set of actionable programs that work, centered around collaborative problem solving, healthy communication and behavioral change.
When we focus on belonging, a fundamental human need, companies benefit tremendously. A 2019 study by BetterUp found that workplace belonging can lead to an estimated 56 percent increase in job performance, a 50 percent reduction in turnover risk, and a 75 percent decrease in employee sick days. For a 10,000-person company, this would result in annual savings of more than $52M.