PBN Diversity Equity & Inclusion 2023 Awards
Diversity Champion: Adama Brown, United Way of Rhode Island Inc.
AS A BLACK CHILD IN TEXAS in the post-Civil Rights Movement era, Adama Brown discovered her path in life early on.
Her parents were federal employees and stressed the importance of education, says Brown, a sixth-generation Texan. “They taught me Black is beautiful, that I was [a] person of self-worth,” she said.
Compared with the Northeast, the racism in Texas was overt, she says. “I was bused to a school from an all-Black community to a predominantly white one,” Brown said. “Because I was passionate about education, it was difficult navigating two worlds, one Black and one white. Having to figure that out taught me how to navigate life and the workplace.”
After more than two decades spent in public health and academia, Brown moved to United Way of Rhode Island Inc. in 2020. She’s now the nonprofit’s director of research and data analytics, a position that promotes the concepts of diversity, equity and inclusion in-house and in the community.
During 2021-2022, United Way distributed $6.8 million in funding to organizations around the state. As part of her job, Brown oversees and determines strategies for evaluating the impact of those investments. Many of the programs strive to build racial equity and opportunities for Rhode Islanders.
Brown describes her role as a type of storytelling, using data to dig deeper into the effectiveness of those programs to assess how they lead to fundamental change. It could be as simple as the grantee partner recounting a personal story about how individuals or families were transformed by a particular program, she says.
“We’re getting away from having our grantee partners produce reports with numbers that aren’t that useful,” she said. “Because we’re concerned about housing and work development and out-of-school learning, we want to go further and see how these organizations are having an impact through individual stories. It’s more of a trust-based philanthropy.”
Brown also advises corporations participating in United Way’s equity challenge program, emphasizing that racial inequities happen here as well. These range from the effects of red lining on Black homeownership to national and local trends in the criminal justice system.
“Our goal [for equity] isn’t just awareness,” Brown said. “It’s a call to action.”
In fraught political times, Brown says the biggest challenge she and other DEI staffers confront is backlash to DEI programs around the country.
Brown said the U.S. watched the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and it propelled people to do more. It seemed like a great time for those who work in DEI, she said.
“Now in this political climate, we see backsliding,” Brown said. “The big challenge is to maintain and keep the common good of the community in mind rather than give in, to help other DEI officers stay the course.”
Brown points to colleges and universities in Florida, Texas and elsewhere that are rolling back DEI efforts.
“That’s a big problem,” she said. “We haven’t seen that here as much as in the South.”
Larry Warner, United Way’s chief impact and equity officer, nods to Brown’s effectiveness in increasing the diversity of organizations applying for grants and supporting them once they’ve been selected. It’s a testament to her thoughtfulness about the process, Warner says.
“Some 62% of the most recent applications were from organizations led by Black, Indigenous and people of color,” he said. “I’m glad she made that long trip from Texas.”
Despite the geographic distance, it turns out Providence and Austin, Brown’s beloved hometown, have things in common.
“They’re both foodie towns and home of state government, and the people are fairly liberal-minded,” she said.
