What Are We Seeing from the Data?

As we gathered for our second Community Call session in our Racial Healing series, the collective ‘we’ as retreat center leaders approached the work with the intention of creativity and collaboration. Victoria Santos and Jenyng Wu share the aggregated data and analysis collected through the retreat center assessment survey conducted in January 2022, to learn about the landscape of retreat centers in relation to racial equity and healing work.

Victoria Santos shared that 25 retreat centers had completed the survey, and the sample size was a ‘microcosm of a macrocosm;’ understanding what was going on in some retreat centers showed a larger, complex structure. Beyond collecting data, the survey also prompted leaders to take a moment and reflect on organizational identity, historical and continued equity work, and to understand what was happening in their communities. We sat with the data, but we were also reminded each number had a different face, a different story, and a different understanding of the work retreat centers were doing in the world. While each retreat center is unique, this survey reminded us of the overall system we are working in and that we can shift away from white dominance and move toward liberatory power and cross-community collaboration.

Jenyng Wu connected dots for the RCC community in understanding how this lives in our worlds. Giving us a framework of using our heads, hands, and hearts, Jenyng led us through what this could mean for retreat centers. In tandem, we can use our heads to understand and learn about JEDI, our heart space serves as the connective tissue for human thriving, and we can use our hands to work in and through the complexity.

As the call wrapped up, retreat center leaders shared they felt they had renewed energy to have more conversations, move into intentional action, and continue to learn.


You can watch the Community Call above.

Click here to view aggregate summary data from the RHI Retreat Center Assessment.


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Sharing Spiritual Heritage: Sweat Lodges, Hush Harbors, and Retreat Centers

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Human Resources at Retreat Centers