The Burlew Group

The Burlew Group was founded on the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ). We envision a world in which our systems are created to honor and accommodate the needs, experiences, and strengths of everyone. For us, that means a world in which a person’s outcomes cannot be predicted by their race, ethnicity, or membership in a historically excluded group. This is justice. A world in which every individual has an equal opportunity for success beginning at birth and extending over the course of their lifetime.

DEIJ is both a priority within the Burlew Group and the measure of our success. As such, DEIJ is integrated into everything we do and is treated as an organizational journey instead of a destination. This means that while our work and understanding of DEIJ will evolve over time, the journey will never end. There will always be more to learn and more to do.

In our work, we adhere strongly to the principle, “The people closest to the problem are closest to the solution.” We do not believe that any of the DEIJ inequities and disparities in our society can be effectively addressed without the expertise of those most impacted. This means working in partnership with impacted communities and trusting that they know best about their communities’ needs. In practice, this looks like forming community advisory groups to partner with us from design to dissemination whenever possible. We highly value these partnerships and are committed to paying community members in a way that meaningfully honors the expertise they bring to this work.

Achieving DEIJ goals requires fully engaging in challenging and necessary conversations. As such, a key to the success of our work is working with organizations to develop the skills needed for them to lean into discomfort and participate in the conversations and work that advance DEIJ goals. In service of these goals, we teach organizations to use a racial equity lens to understand the systems and policies that perpetuate organizational and societal inequities.

Just as we provide feedback to our clients about how they can achieve their DEIJ goals, we value and take seriously feedback we receive about our work. One of our most fervent desires is to move through this world causing as little harm as possible. We can only achieve this goal if we embrace the wisdom of the impacted communities we wish most to serve and use this as our organizational North Star.

Dr. Randi Burlew

The Burlew Group was founded in 2019 by Dr. Randi Burlew (she/her), to support her work consulting with organizations about how to best meet their DEIJ goals. Dr. Burlew has more than 20 years of consulting, research, evaluation, and policy experience working with philanthropic, nonprofit, government, community, and social service organizations. She has served as a thought partner for dozens of government, nonprofit, and philanthropic organizations as they have worked to strengthen internal processes and better partner with communities of color. The Burlew Group has built a network of consultants and organizations that are brought in to support projects and clients as needed.

Dr. Burlew is currently engaged as a racial equity consultant for Ohio’s University Consortium for Child and Adult Services (OUCCAS) and the Ohio Child Welfare Training Program (OCWTP). In this role, she performs racial equity reviews of instructional content developed for child welfare and adult protective services workers across the state, conducts racial equity training for OCWTP staff, and provides monthly training to a statewide racial equity working group.

Dr. Burlew currently serves as a racial equity consultant for the Mouse and Elephant, a firm that helps organizations develop inclusive workplaces. In this role, she works with Mouse and Elephant staff to provide racial equity audits, interview staff at corporate and nonprofit client sites about organizational culture, and facilitate large and small group racial equity training. She further works in partnership with Advisory Trail, a firm that works with corporate leaders and transformation champions to create unique learning experiences for themselves and their organizations related to humanity and civility across the spectrum of race, (dis)ability, gender, or other human characteristics that make our world unique and diverse. She is currently working with Advisory Trail to develop and implement a new DEIJ training curriculum and platform for large corporate clients. Dr. Burlew’s previous racial equity work includes several years spent as a guest facilitator on Implicit Bias for both the Diversity Learning Circle and the Diversity and Inclusion Teaching Academy at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, and facilitating racial equity trainings for groups including the Urban Minority Alcohol and Drug Abuse Outreach Programs of Ohio and Closing the Health Gap.

Dr. Burlew is a graduate of Spelman College and received her PhD in clinical psychology from the University of Michigan. She is also a graduate of Building Cultural Competence: A Program for Leaders, sponsored by the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, holds a Diversity and Inclusion Certificate from Cornell, and completed School Board School Cincinnati, a program for education advocates through which she co-authored a white paper for the Cincinnati Board of Education on racial disparities in school discipline. She has been appointed to the Hamilton County Commission on Women and Girls, the Hamilton County Elderly Services Program Advisory Council, the Hamilton County Economic Inclusion Advisory Council, and the City of Cincinnati Human Services Advisory Council.

Dr. Burlew also serves as Director for Research and Equity at Philliber Research & Evaluation (Philliber), where she has led several projects on racial equity. As an example, she recently completed a four-year project with the Rochester Area Community Foundation and the Wilson Foundation on trauma-informed care and racial equity. Dr. Burlew led the evaluation, including conducting organizational racial equity and trauma-informed care assessments of each grantee and tracking indicators related to the provision of trauma-informed and racially equitable services. Through this initiative, the foundations funded more than a dozen nonprofit and social services agencies in Rochester, New York to implement interventions that increase organizational capacity to provide trauma-informed care and support racial equity.

Dr. Burlew leads racial equity training for Philliber staff and leads initiatives around the organization’s racial equity goals. Dr. Burlew is the first person to hold the Director of Research and Equity position at Philliber, and as a result of her work the organization has continued its work towards becoming an equity-focused organization. This work has included:

•             Clarifying the organization’s commitment to equity for staff and setting standards for internal and external work and communication;

•             Committing to an ongoing training program focused on equity and research; and

•             Expanding the use of research and communication tools to use with clients that increase the input, participation, and power of impacted communities in the company’s work.