Equity as a Practice: From Audits to Action

This week, Imagine Canada released two new resources related to equity work in nonprofits, in collaboration with some of our very own affiliate facilitators. The second one we are sharing is about “equity audits”, a term often used by organizations trying to assess their own equity, diversity and inclusion practices (or anti-oppression, or accessibility). The guide asks us to think beyond the idea of an audit – which can invite a “checklist” approach –  and instead think about building an equity practice.

An equity practice is circular, rather than linear. It’s not about following a checklist by rote; it’s about being adaptive, taking action, and learning from the experience

Equity Audits

Equity audits have become increasingly popular in the past 5 years, with many nonprofits in Canada choosing to conduct them. As the guide points out,

The term “audit” can sometimes be misunderstood or misleading in this context. Audits are understood to be a systematic review of organizational systems and structures to assess their accuracy or performance against an agreed upon standard or regulation… [but] there are no standardized or regulated frameworks to help guide or measure equity, diversity, and inclusion in Canadian workplaces

The other challenge with “equity audits” is that especially for small community organizations, it can feel overwhelming, or require too many resources. This resource is intended to support organizations who want to build in a manageable and realistic practice of reflecting, learning, and improving on equity issues in their organization, and do so without a lot of (sometimes expensive) outside help.

COCo’s Learnings About Equity Audits

We have worked with organizations to do work like equity audits in the past, whether it is called a “discovery” or “diagnosis” phase, or an “evaluation process”. We have learnt a lot doing this over the years, but here are a couple things we have learnt:

• Even when a process like is is focussed on equity issues, you can’t lose track of the overall health of your organization. One tool that can help make sure that an “equity audit” is holistic is the “Healthy House” – which you can adapt to have each section include questions about equity and inclusion issues.
• It is important to try to move past our initial assumptions about a group is facing equity issues. Often, the first “reasons” are not the real reasons. It is really important to really dig into the why. Some of you might be familiar with the “5 whys” method , which offers a simple framework for digging into the root reasons behind the problems. This tool offers some other ways to notice and challenge your own assumptions about equity issues.

The Guide Itself

To give you a sense of what the guide covers, here is an overview of the different sections:

• Introduction
  • Considerations Before You Start
  • Indigenous Experiences
  • Systemic Oppression
• What is an “Equity Audit”?
  • Equity as a Practice
• Five Guiding Steps
  • Why Equity?
  • Equity for Who?
  • What?
  • So what?
  • Now what?
• How do we stay in this work?
  • Revisit Your Why
  • When Criticism (Inevitably) Shows Up
  • Break Isolation
  • Holding Paradoxes
  • Reflect as You Go

Accessing the Tools

In order to access the tools, in French or in English,

• You can look at Imagine Canada’s website for this guide, and the companion guide on Equity Working Groups 
• We have included the PDF of the guide itself below
• You can register for Imagine’s Canada’s webinars about these guides, coming up in February and March of 2026

COCo’s Services

If you are interested in getting personalized support with an equity audit, evaluating your equity efforts, or taking action on your equity priorities, especially if you are based in Quebec, you can reach out to us!