Prism Leadership
For two years I served as the New York City ERG lead for Prism, the LGBTQ+ employee resource group for Verizon Media. We work to engage and create community amongst members in the NYC office, along with helping to support key initiatives of the greater Verizon Media business. In 2020, we pivoted to keep our community connected with digital events.
Beginning in 2021 I was asked to step into a new role as the Global Co-Lead, helping to oversee 22 chapters across 13 different countries and 4 different continents. In this role, I not only create strategy for yearly initiatives but support emerging chapters, plan activations for the whole membership, and work closely with our partners and fellow leads in Verizon Prism.
Highlights of successful initiatives
A goal of my work within this ERG was to make sure we were creating a diversity of events that not only appealed to folks in the LGBTQ+ alphabet, but also those with intersecting identities. Furthermore, ensuring we were covering a variety of ways to get involved from panels to 1:1 chats to interactive sessions. In 2020, we pivoted to all online activations and strived to make sure our members still felt connected even while outside of the office. By collaborating with other internal employee resource groups we were able to achieve wider reaching and more inclusive activations than in any previous years.
Some of our successful initiatives that I’d like to highlight were:
Trans Day of Visibility Pop Up Shop
Werk Out Wednesdays
Un/doing Masculinity Panel
Plant Basics Workshop
Coffee Chats
Trans Storytellers Owning Their Narratives Fireside Chat
Trans Day of Visibility Pop Up Shop
This activation was meant to bring trans-owned small businesses and artisans into our NYC offices for a mid-day pop-up shop for employees. It’s planned timing for the end of March 2020 meant it quickly was delayed then nearly cancelled. In an effort to still elevate our vendors and create engagement for employees, we moved it to an online pop-up shop. Creating a custom page, we highlighted our vendors and their stories, along with highlighting a few selected stories from our own members.
My role:
I conducted the discovery and outreach of vendors who were initially going to come into our offices. During our pivot, I continued this communication. I additionally sourced stories from employees, and even contributed one myself.
Check out the live page here.
Werk Out Wednesdays
With our members all grounded at home, in April 2020 we started hosting weekly workouts in partnership with the non-profit the Out Foundation. These weekly workouts provided an inclusive space for members to come and get active after work, while supporting a great cause and connecting with their community. In May we also hosted a workout with our Veterans employee group in celebration of LGBTQ+ heroes in the armed forces.
My role:
As an avid fitness-er I’ve followed The Out Foundation for a long time and was thrilled to build a partnership during a time that their in-person fundraising workouts were also grounded. I reached out and managed the relationship with the organization as we hosted 3 months of workouts for our members.
Un/doing Masculinity Panel
As a part of our Pride month offerings, we had already been talking to the amazing group bklyn boihood on a collaboration. As an organization, they not only host spaces for queer and trans bois of color (and their allies), but also provide education opportunities with panels and events. We worked together to host an amazing panel talking about what masculinity means in the queer community, especially around how women, nonbinary and trans folks can use and transform this masculinity to make it more inclusive and less toxic.
My role:
Another employee shared this group with me, and I was really excited to not only add a panel to our Pride month offerings, but also represent and hold space for different intersections of our community in celebration of Pride. This event also brought together our Black, Latinx, and Asian employee resource groups as they partnered with me to bring this event to fruition. As the lead and coordinator of this event, I was really proud and happy with the result. A true testament to the power of collaboration and inclusion.
Plant Basics Workshop
Another great interactive event for our members was this plant basics workshop. In the Spring of 2020, we witnessed many folks turn to cultivating their house plants (now that they were forced to face their ailing states) and we wanted to see how we could distribute money to folks in our community who were out of work because of the pandemic. A connection of mine (a self-proclaimed “plant daddy”) had a lot of time on his hands as the nursery he worked at was closed, and he started to hold weekly sessions with his Instagram followers where they could get all of their plant basics questions answered. We hosted an amazing interactive session where our expert not only gave an introduction to helping your plants be successful, but also did a whole additional hour of Q&A where attendees took us on a tour of their homes to see their plant problems IRL.
My role:
I managed the relationship with my connection for this workshop and actually did very little during the event since it was such a success.
Coffee Chats
To help our members connect more 1:1 with each other and find time for socialization, we explored a new platform called Icebreaker for some informal connection time. We hosted monthly “coffee chats” in the AM where members could come and go and hop into 10 minute conversations with a coworker. The fun platform and informal nature allowed for a lot of casual connection that we were missing from our in-office days.
My role:
I mostly supported on this one. I helped to explore the new platform and test it out before our event, and then got to participate and meet folks during the events.
Trans Storytellers Owning Their Narratives Fireside Chat
Our final activation of 2020 was something we’d had in the works for months. In collaboration with the women’s employee resource group we hosted a fireside chat to help our employees in our media organization understand how they might tell stories about trans folks in an authentic way, as well as incorporate more trans folks into their stories. The amazing Imara Jones of TransLash Media was interview by a powerful and smart Gen Z connection of mine who brought an intergenerational lens to the conversation. This conversation was insightful and invigorating as we think about how far trans stories and representation have come, and how much farther we hope to take them.
My role:
After getting an introduction to Imara, I managed the relationship with her and with my connection for the moderator. I then worked internally at Verizon Media to find the team that could pre-record this discussion so we could air it later. After an initial call with both members of the fireside chat I created an outline based on their conversation for the recorded event.