City Surf Project x Fairground
Role: Workshop Facilitation, Executive Coaching
& Strategic Advisory
How can you provide youth with equitable access
to the ocean and surfing?
Melissa Andrada (Mel - she/they) has spent nearly four years partnering with City Surf Project, a 10-year-old nonprofit based in the Bay Area, to support their organizational vision of equitable access to the ocean and surfing.
Their partnership began in summer 2020, amidst the Pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement, when Mel facilitated a multi-day socially distant team retreat at Precita Park, in close partnership with Executive Director Johnny Irwin and Operations Director Meg Hanebutt, to empower their staff to have more honest compassionate conversations around feedback, oppression and allyship, alongside re-visiting their organizational vision and values.
"Mel was a strong support system and thought partner in co-designing and facilitating our socially-distant DEI retreat in 2020. She strategically partnered with a diverse array of key stakeholders at all levels of the organization, including program participants, to uniquely inform her approach to facilitating radically compassionate and difficult, but necessary conversations. As a result of our work together, we slowed down to gain clarity on some internal misalignments and became more trusting and unified to move forward together as a team in equity and access work."
- Meg Hanebutt McDaniel
Former Deputy Director, City Surf Project
To build on the training, Mel collaborated with youth surf program alumnus Jared Cruz Aureus, 23 years old at the time, to refine their organizational values, particularly dialing in the value of equity. Simultaneously, Mel developed a 1:1 coaching program to support Executive Director Johnny Irwin on team management, feedback and accountability throughout 2020-2021.
Mel joined their Board of Directors in 2022 with a focus on equitable fundraising and strategic planning, focused on queer BIPOC youth.
“She skillfully and compassionately tactfully facilitated some very tough conversations, which helped us grow immensely as a staff. She also helped us create a DEI lens with which to analyze our processes and procedures as an organization. Mel has an exceptional ability to hold a tough space and challenge staff to step out of their comfort zones, to reflect on their own personal biases.”
- Johnny Irwin, Executive Director & Cofounder
Our collaboration
Skills & Tools
Multi-day all-staff outdoor retreat focused on feedback, allyship and organizational values
Trust Building & Measurement
Leadership & individual contributor interviews
Pre training surveys
Post measurement surveys
Implementation
Advisory as Board Member on Organizational Vision, Fundraising & People Development
Strategic Consulting on Organizational Values
1x 1-Year 1:1 Executive Coaching Program with Johnny Irwin
2x Pride Surf-A-Thon Fundraisers
Our Impact
77% of our students identify as BIPOC
48% of our students self identify as female
87% of students feel they belong at the
ocean after participating in our programs96% of students believe they can overcome challenges after participating in our programs
$8,000+ raised to support queer BIPOC youth
Key strategies for scaling a culture
for equitable surfing
Training alone is not enough. It must be followed up with holistic implementation and accountability, across multiple years.
Our all-staff retreat was followed by 1:1 executive coaching and strategic advisory with Johnny Irwin and the Board of Directors on making the key behavioral changes and outcomes a reality.
How we are at a small scale is how we become a large scale.
Every conversation, every interaction is an opportunity to practice equity and inclusion. For example, compassionately giving feedback on sexist microaggressions in real time can contribute to cultivating an enduring culture of gender equity in the long term.
Develop a Theory of Change that plans for the next 10, 50, 100 years. We may not see the change in our personal lifetime.
Take time to imagine, on your own and in community, what a world of truly equitable access to the ocean and surfing would look like. What micro and macro steps need to take place to make this a reality?
