National Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion Launches September 1

A national alliance for inclusion practitioners opens to the public in a free online event on September 1, and opens Founding Membership the same day.

SEATTLE, WA, UNITED STATES, August 24, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- A national coalition created to support people working in diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and belonging will hold its public launch on Tuesday, September 1, 2026, in a free online event hosted by the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.

The Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion opens to the public at 11:00 a.m. Pacific time, 2:00 p.m. Eastern time, in a one-hour session built around an open question-and-answer conversation with the Institute's leaders and community advisors. The session is hosted as a LinkedIn Live event, and registration is free.

The Coalition came out of a strategic planning process the Institute ran in the summer of 2025 with more than 60 leaders working across diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, belonging, human rights and social justice. According to Kirk Adams, PhD, the Institute's Executive Director, the participants came from different sectors and different backgrounds but reported the same conditions: professionals feeling isolated, programs under pressure, and people fighting the same battles separately.

"Programs are being dismantled, funding is disappearing, and professionals are feeling isolated," said Adams. "The answer is not retreat. The answer is community."

The Coalition is positioned as an operating structure rather than a symbolic affiliation. Its stated purpose is to help members move from reactive, isolated survival mode to strategic, sustainable, collective power. The Institute has named four functions for it: rapid response to misinformation and attacks on inclusion work, shared tools, resources and referral networks, stronger storytelling and outreach to the next generation of leaders, and collaboration across sectors.

It is built as a national online community on the Circle platform, intended as a working home for practitioners, community leaders, educators, advocates, allies and people directly affected by the rollback of inclusion programs. Among its first named deliverables is legal literacy and risk-aware advocacy strategy, developed on the Institute's stated reasoning that different people carry different levels of professional and personal risk.

"The answer to fear is not telling people to be brave and then sending them into difficult situations alone," said Adams. "That is not courage. That can be recklessness. A coalition has to account for the fact that different people carry different levels of risk."

The September 1 session also opens Founding Membership in the Coalition. Founding Members help shape the Coalition's structure and priorities from the beginning and receive access to its network, resources, learning opportunities and collaborative initiatives.

The launch conversation features nine participants: Adams; Joseph Marth, the Institute's board chair; board members Barbara Deane, Effenus Henderson, Amelia Ransom and Constance Engelstad; and community advisors Jacob Davidson, Alexandra Matthiesen and Terry Loving. Their backgrounds span corporate leadership, nonprofit management, disability inclusion, racial equity, accessibility and public policy.

The Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion is a Seattle-area nonprofit incorporated in 2015 to institutionalize the Northwest Diversity Learning Series, a corporate education program that has run continuously since 1998 and completed its 27th year in 2025. The Institute reports reaching more than 350 participants annually, engaging more than 300 leaders through coalition and special events, and supporting more than 60 practitioners through leadership cohorts, including its first six-month cohort for practitioners. The Institute uses the DEIAB framework, which adds accessibility and belonging to the standard terms.

Adams, who has been blind since age five, was previously President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Foundation for the Blind and of The Lighthouse for the Blind, Inc. in Seattle. He is the author of The Disability Dividend and serves as Managing Director of Innovative Impact, LLC.

Registration for the September 1 launch is free. The Institute is also raising funds to underwrite the Coalition's first year on its community platform.

About the Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion

The Institute for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion is a nonprofit organization founded in 2015 to strengthen individual and organizational capability for creating diverse, inclusive and equitable workplaces. It operates the Northwest Diversity Learning Series, a practitioner learning cohort, consulting services and special events, and is the founding organization of the Community Coalition for Sustainable Diversity and Inclusion.

Kirk Adams
Innovative Impact, LLC
+1 206-660-1363
ein-presswire@drkirkadams.com
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