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Contact Us.

To contact us, please call us at 541-241-6467 or email hello@allyshipinaction.com.

About Us.

Allyship in Action makes the following evolving acknowledgements to recognize the power, joy, and brilliance of Indigenous and Black people whose legacies shape this place we call home.

Our company was formed in February 2019 by Erin Rook, Kerani Mitchell, and LeeAnn O’Neill, who are not indigenous to this place, on land adjacent to the Warm Springs Nation. By way of colonialism and white supremacy in our community and country, we have unjustly benefited from forceful displacement of and acts of genocide against the people who are native to this place. Through continual learning and unlearning, we aim to honor the histories of those whose land our work and lives unfold upon, in the indigenous territory of:

The Warm Springs bands, Wasco bands, and Northern Paiutes: In 1855, the Warm Springs and Wasco bands was forced to relinquish 10 million acres of land to the U.S. government, but reserved the Warm Springs Reservation for their exclusive use and kept their rights to harvest fish, game, and other foods in their traditional places. The settlement of the Paiutes on the Warm Springs Reservation began in 1879 when 38 Paiutes moved to Warm Springs from the Yakama Reservation. They were originally forced to the Yakama Reservation because they joined the Bannocks in a war against the U.S. army. Their descendants are members of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs today.

The Wadatika band of the Northern Paiutes: The Wadatika band of the Northern Paiutes maintain aboriginal title to much of their territory because their ancestors resisted encroachment of settlers and refused to cede their lands. In 1869, the U.S. government set aside 1.8 million acres of land for the Malheur Reservation, but the Bannock War forced the Wadatika band of the Northern Paiutes out of the Harney Valley. When they returned, they were left landless because the U.S. government took the Malheur Reservation back. A makeshift tribal encampment was established outside present day Burns. Their descendants are members of the Burns Paiute Tribe today.

The 6 tribes of the Klamath, the Modoc, and the Yahooskin-Paiute band: After decades of hostilities with the invaders, the Klamath Tribes were forced to cede more than 23 million acres of land in 1864 which began their reservation era. By the 1950s the Klamath Tribes were one of the wealthiest tribes in the United States due to their tribal timber industry. In 1954, the Klamath Tribes were terminated from federal recognition by an act of congress and the federal government stole 1.8 million acres of reservation land. They were recognized again in 1986, but their land was not returned. Their descendants are members of the Klamath Tribes today.

Allyship in Action also acknowledges the Black, African, and immigrant labor that was forcefully extracted to build the prosperity of our country, and the intentional exclusion of Black and immigrant people from that prosperity and from settling in Oregon and our community.

To honor the past and present, Allyship in Action engages in equity and social justice work from a collective liberation framework. The social injustices and inequities across our communities and people are inextricably connected, as are our triumphs and reparations on the path toward liberation. We believe that no one is free from our local community’s and country’s legacies of colonialism and white supremacy unless we are all free.

To that end, our company provides ongoing support for and donations to Indigenous and Black-led organizations, such as the Chúush fund, Warm Springs Community Action Team, Indigenous Helpers, Papalaxsimisha, Tananáwit, Indigenize, COCC First Nations Student Union, and The Father’s Group. 

[Allyship in Action last updated this territory acknowledgment on August 2, 2024. It is an ever-changing acknowledgment as we engage in ongoing self-reflection, as we learn more, and as our relationship with local Indigenous communities grows and evolves. For guidance in creating your own indigenous territory acknowledgment, check out A Guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgment by the Native Governance Center and A Perspective On Territory Acknowledgments by Jaylyn Suppah.]

Our Team.

Allyship in Action provides support for decolonized strategic planning processes, liberatory leadership development, and community based programs. Underlying all of our work is the goal of advancing collective liberation that is people centered, systems based, and grounded in restorative justice.

We work collaboratively to provide coaching, facilitation, and consultation services that are rooted in place and enriched by our lived experiences. We work with values aligned movement organizations to inspire transformative change and belonging in our Central Oregon and greater Oregon community.

Founding Partner.

Independent Consultant Team.

Legacy Partners and Consultants.

  • kerani mitchell (she/her) – Founding Partner
  • Erin Rook (he/they) – Founding Partner
  • Dana Gulley (he/they) – Managing Partner
  • Ashley Schahfer (she/her) – Consultant
  • Melissa Roma (she/her) – Consultant
  • Nancy Stevens (she/her) – Consultant
  • Shenika Cumberbatch (she/her) – Consultant
  • Eduardo Romero (he/him/el) – Consultant
  • Jamie Bowman (she/her) – Consultant
  • Gordon Price (he/him) – Consultant
  • Wesley Heredia (he/him/el) – Consultant

Resources.

Starting Your Personal Equity and Social Justice Work

Starting Your Organization’s Equity and Social Justice Work

Grounding Your Work in Central Oregon and Oregon.

White Supremacy Culture.

Non-Profit Organizations.

Equity Lens and Frameworks.

Upcoming Workshops.

Allyship in Action is excited to announce the following community learning opportunities. Our hope is to bring together individuals and organizations in Central Oregon to understand how oppression impacts our lives and communities. We equip participants with with skills, tools, and practice to foster social justice and equity. Workshop descriptions, accessibility information, and facilitator biographies are provided on the registration page for each workshop series.

To be added to Allyship in Action’s email list announcing new workshop series, please email hello@allyshipinaction.com or call 541-241-6467.

Work With AiA.

How do you know if Allyship in Action is the right fit for you and your organization? Please take a few minutes to learn our approach to consulting, what it might be like to work with us, and what we don’t do.

If your organization is interested in working with us, after you review this page, please:

  • Review our Sliding Scale — We believe in economic justice based on care for all – understanding that profit is not the answer – in our goals for collective liberation. In an intentional effort to distribute resources equitably, we use a sliding scale for all our services.
  • Fill out our Request for Services Form — Our current wait time for new clients and projects is about six months while we focus on the work we currently have committed to.

We also have a limited number of Community Learning Opportunities that are open to the public.

Our approach to the work.

  • We approach our work from a collective liberation framework — we believe that none of us are free unless we are all free.
  • Recognizing that at the core of our work is the need for our community to heal and repair from oppression, we strive to embed restorative justice practices and healing justice practices in all that we do.
  • The foundation of our work with clients and our connections to the Central Oregon and greater Oregon community is building and nurturing relationships. The client relationships we find most transformative often work with us for a year or longer and are proactive in resourcing both time and funds to engage in ongoing work.
  • We believe in generative conflict and leaning into discomfort and hard conversations as a part of our work. And we embrace radical transparency, mistakes, messiness, and imperfect nature of this work with self-love and self-forgiveness. 
  • We strive to meet you and your team where you are with grace in understanding that we are all in different places in our journeys.
  • We seek and prioritize opportunities to work with movement organizations and culturally specific organizations led by and for their own communities.
  • We draw our inspiration from so many teachers, including adrienne maree brown, Vu Le, and AORTA.

What we do with our clients.

It can be hard to summarize all the things we do to support our clients. A few things we do well are:

  • Decolonized non-profit board governance and board governance plans
  • Participatory needs assessments and strategic planning processes
  • Developing and facilitating custom curriculum and workshops
  • Contract project management for grassroots and movement organizations
  • Impact storytelling grounded in the history of Central Oregon
  • Holding together and moving forward right-sized collaborative partnerships

Your roadmap will not be the same as the next organization. However, in all that we do, we strive to:

  • Create space to get to know you and your organization on a deeper level and build relationships to foster trust.
  • Model accessible, inclusive, and deeply participatory processes.
  • Cultivate learning opportunities to provide shared language and understanding around your work.
  • Provide themes and questions to live into based on what we are learning throughout our relationship.
  • Create a long range workflow that is iterative and meets the organization at the right place in its journey and support leadership, change makers, and workgroups in creating sustainable and accountable processes for ongoing work.
  • Support deep rethinking around policies and practices and institutionalizing organizational values and be a sounding board and thought partner who will always share what we’ve seen be the most successful and where we’ve seen some lessons learned… and provide space and agency for each organization to decide what to do next.

We also recognize that organizations may have different access points to resources to engage in this work. We are always open to conversations about how to scale the journey in phases and welcome opportunities that provide collective learning opportunities or access points for those who may not otherwise be able to hire us.

Sliding Scale Rates.

AiA centers racial and economic justice based on care for all – understanding that profit is not the answer – in our goals for collective liberation. In an intentional effort to distribute resources equitably, we use a sliding scale for our services.

The idea of a sliding scale is to honor organizational access points, understanding we all have different resources, both material and community. Thank you to the wisdom of AORTA, We Are Finding Freedom, and Both / And whose sliding scale models supported the development of our sliding scale.

Sliding Scale Framework

AiA has developed the assessment below around organizational type, budget and employee compensation as a way to view an organization’s access to financial resources. We know this assessment is much more nuanced than the numbers we have shared below and that nonprofit organizations, government institutions, and for profit corporations have widely varying experiences. We work with organizations to identify a rate that reflects their access to financial resources and the value of our work together.

Solidarity Rate

This rate is typically provided to small businesses and less resourced nonprofit organizations. We reserve the lower end of our Solidarity Rate for organizations that provide culturally specific services led by folks from the communities they serve and/or whose mission has deep alignment with AiA’s theory of social change.

  • Has an annual budget up to $499,999
  • The highest paid staff member is paid up to $74,999 (FTE) or there are no staff members
  • For nonprofit organizations, the scope of work will be paid out of unrestricted operating budget funds

$75 – $150/hour per consultant

Sustain Rate

This rate is typically provided to medium sized businesses, less resourced philanthropic foundations, and nonprofit organizations whose work will be supported by grant funding.

  • Has an annual budget between $500,000- $999,999
  • The highest paid staff member paid between $75,000- $99,999/year (FTE)
  • For less resourced nonprofit organizations, the scope of work will be grant funded

$150 – $200/hour per consultant

Full Cost Rate

This rate is typically provided to larger business, more resourced philanthropic foundations, and more resourced nonprofit organizations whose work will be supported by grant funding.

  • Has an annual budget between $1M – $4.99M
  • The highest paid staff member is paid between $100,000 – $149,999/year (FTE)
  • For more resourced nonprofits, the scope of work will be grant funded

$200 – $250/hour per consultant

Redistribution Rate

This rate is typically provided to government institutions, large corporations, well resourced philanthropic foundations, and well resourced nonprofit organizations whose work will be supported by grant funding.

  • Has an annual budget above $5M
  • The highest paid staff member is paid more than $150,000/year (FTE)
  • For well resourced nonprofits, the scope of work will be grant funded

$250 – $350/hour per consultant

Privacy Policy.

Allyship in Action is a limited liability company incorporated in Oregon. This privacy policy will explain how our organization uses the personal data we collect from you when you use our website. If you find content on the Allyship in Action website you believe violates our Privacy Policy, please contact us by email at hello@allyshipinaction.com, by phone at 541-241-6467, or by mail at 1001 SW Disk Dr Ste 250 Bend, Oregon 97702.

Allyship in Action collects personal identification information (first name, last name, and email address).

You directly provide Allyship in Action with most of the data we collect. We collect data and process data when you:

  • Contact us through our website.
  • Sign up for our newsletter through our website. 
  • Use or view our website via your browser’s cookies.

Allyship in Action may also receive and store your data indirectly from the following sources:

  • Google Forms
  • Mailchimp
  • Facebook
  • WordPress

Allyship in Action collects your data so that we can respond to your request for services or email you occasional updates about Allyship in Action. Allyship in Action will never share your data with any other organizations and you should not receive any unwanted emails from other organizations with offers or solicitations as a result of sharing your data with Allyship in Action. 

Allyship in Action securely stores your data in GSuites for requests for services. Allyship in Action will remove your personal identification information from GSuites within one week of request for removal of personal identification data.

Allyship in Action would like to make sure you are fully aware of all of your data protection rights. Every user is entitled to the following:

  • The right to access – You have the right to make a request to Allyship in Action for copies of your personal data. 
  • The right to rectification – You have the right to request that Allyship in Action correct any information you believe is inaccurate. You also have the right to request to Allyship in Action to complete the information you believe is incomplete.
  • The right to erasure – You have the right to request that Allyship in Action erase your personal data, under certain conditions.
  • The right to restrict processing – You have the right to request that Allyship in Action restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
  • The right to object to processing – You have the right to object to Allyship in Action’s processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
  • The right to data portability – You have the right to request that Allyship in Action transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions.
  • If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us by email at hellp@allyshipinaction.com, by phone at (541) 241-6467, or by mail at 1001 SW Disk Dr Ste 250 Bend, Oregon 97702.

Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard Internet log information and visitor behavior information. When you visit our website, we may collect information from you automatically through cookies or similar technology. For further information, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.

Allyship in Action uses cookies in a range of ways to improve your experience on our website, including understanding how you use our website. 

There are a number of different types of cookies, however, our website uses third party cookies.

Allyship in Action uses these cookies to collect information about your visit to our website, the content you viewed, the links you followed and information about your browser, device, and your IP address. We use these cookies to understand how people interact with our website and to make improvements from time to time. We also use these cookies to see if you are logged into the website and to help prevent malicious users.

You can set your browser not to accept cookies, and www.allaboutcookies.org tells you how to remove cookies from your browser.

The Allyship in Action website contain links to other websites. Our privacy policy applies only to our website, so if you click on a link to another website, you should read their privacy policy.

Allyship in Action keeps its privacy policy under regular review and places any updates on this web page. This privacy policy was last updated on December 22, 2020.

If you have any questions about Allyship in Action’s privacy policy, the data we hold on you, or you would like to exercise one of your data protection rights, please do not hesitate to contact us by email at hello@allyshipinaction.com, by phone at (541) 241-6467, or by mail at 1001 SW Disk Dr Ste 250 Bend, Oregon 97702.

Should you wish to report a complaint or if you feel that Allyship in Action has not addressed your concern in a satisfactory manner, you may contact the Oregon Department of Justice (1-877-877-9392 | help@oregonconsumer.gov).