How to use the equity lens tool

What are the intended results or outcomes of this project or decision? 

The purpose of Question 1 is to make sure you begin with the end goal in mind when using the equity tool, and to ensure you reflect upon how the success of your project should be defined. The intended results or outcomes  of your project or decision can also be understood as the changes – or impact – you would like to see as a result of your initiative being implemented.  

Your overall outcomes may or may not be specific to Reconciliation and/or AREI as you begin this exercise. As you go through the Equity Lens Tool, you will be able to generate distinct equity-related outcomes and actions that further shape the overall outcome you will articulate by answering this question. You can return to this question in the Tool to further refine your outcome statement(s), as necessary.  

To answer this question, you may choose to start by reviewing your project materials to identify high level intended results and understand your starting place. If you already have equity-related outcomes identified, please include them in this section. Articulating the intended outcomes of your project, decision or initiative requires an understanding of the differences between outcomes, and outputs. Outcomes are actual or intended changes in conditions that interventions are seeking to support.³ While output are the direct products or services stemming from the activities conducted of a project, policy or program⁴. Examples of outcomes are: 

• Increased capacity/knowledge of municipal staff to expand grid of charging stations for electric vehicles. 
• Increased participation and retention of diverse groups of women in municipal leadership 
• Increased capacity of municipalities/communities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by generating energy from organic waste streams or landfill gas 
• Increased knowledge and capacity of municipalities to integrate AREI into their programs and services. 
• Enhanced capabilities of municipalities in developing climate resilience programs that are inclusive and equitable 
   

To ensure that we are identifying all project wins, it is also important to recognize that there are distinctions between immediate outcomes, intermediate outcomes, and ultimate outcomes.  

For example, you may have a program that seeks to increase the racial diversity of staff in leadership and management roles at FCM. An ultimate outcome would be measured by the increase of racialized individuals in those roles. However, intermediate outcomes may measure the number of junior staff who successfully graduate from a new management training program achieving a 80% satisfaction score . A more immediate outcome may be that graduates who complete one training course leave with an increased understanding of alternative management practices for diverse leaders.  

You should recognize these immediate and intermediate outcomes even if they are a step toward an ultimate goal, which in this case is transforming the demographics of FCM leadership.  

For example:

Considering the larger context that this program/decision exists within, describe any critical factors that should be kept in mind. These could include external political, social, environmental or industry trends, or internal FCM considerations. 

The purpose of Question 2 is to reflect upon where your decision, project or process fits within our broader societal context. Here, we would like you to think about the potential impact your initiative may have on current issues or vice versa: the potential impact current issues might have on your initiative. This may include considerations such as politics, public health, the economy, social and climate change or technology. You should also think about any internal issues within FCM that you should be responsive to, for example:  

• A commitment within FCM to ensure better representation for a region or community that has been underserved. 
• Ensuring that FCM’s work is seen as non-partisan, which may be amplified during a federal election cycle 
• Awareness of work happening in other FCM departments or project teams that may overlap to ensure there isn’t duplication of activities.  

Exploring this question could take up all of your time, but that is not the intention. We are simply asking you to identify “critical factors,” namely important trends or factors that could impact your decisions and Reconciliation and AREI priorities. This includes how the impact of your initiative may look given its scale or context – nationally, provincially or locally. If you have already conducted a risk assessment, you may find some of this information there. If you know a colleague has conducted a similar scan or analysis ask them about it. Let’s not duplicate work.  

To begin setting your context, keep the following factors in mind and quickly explore how they affect your project or decision at large and how they intersect with social equity issues at the scale and geography relevant to initiative:   

The above chart comes from the PESTEL analysis methodology.  Remember you are not required to conduct a full PESTEL analysis to complete this question, however you are welcome to if it makes sense in your context. Rather, use these categories as a starting point for more systematically considering the context surrounding your program or decision. 

An example of this is how projects and communities were impacted differently as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Developing programs during the COVID pandemic meant acknowledging the social context: there were a significant number of citizens who were mobilizing against vaccine and lockdown mandates. From the very start of the pandemic, however, public health officials clearly identified that lower-income and racialized communities were at higher risk of COVID impacts and that access to vaccines was impacted by the efficacy of local public health agencies. All of these would be important considerations to mention when applying the lens to a project happening during the pandemic. 

What equity-deserving groups might be impacted by the project or decision? Who will benefit from it and who will be burdened or negatively impacted? 

The purpose of this question is to identify what equity-deserving groups may be impacted by your project or decision. You can answer this question either by collecting primary data or using secondary data from previous research or engagement. The goal is to focus on understanding how equity-deserving groups may be impacted positively and/or negative by your initiative, and how the needs and barriers of different equity-deserving groups can be met and/or mitigated.  

FCM’s Anti-Racism, Equity and Inclusion Strategy identifies the following equity-deserving groups: 

• Women;                                                                                        
• Black communities;  
• Racialized groups; 
• Indigenous groups; 
• 2SLGBTQQIA; 
• Persons with disabilities; 
• Youth and Children; and  
• Small, Rural and remote communities 

FCM’s Reconciliation and AREI Glossary Playbook defines equity-deserving groups as a group of individuals or communities who are deserving of equity and justice due to their historical or current experiences of marginalization and oppression. Equity-deserving groups may include marginalized and underrepresented communities who have experienced systemic barriers to full participation and inclusion in society, such as people of color, Indigenous peoples, women, LGBTQ+ individuals, people with disabilities, and religious minorities.  In the Equity Lens Tool, please fill in those that apply to your project or decision.  

To identify equity-deserving groups: 

• Review studies already conducted about your geography in question (neighborhood, city, town, province, etc.)  

• Look at equity strategies developed by municipalities in the geography (think gender equity, anti-racism, poverty reduction or resilience strategies)  
• Review Statistics Canada or other sources of demographic data to see “who” lives in the geography and which groups face the highest rates of social disadvantage (e.g., low-income, poorer health outcomes, lower education attainment. etc.)  
• Go through the list of FCM’s identified equity deserving groups systematically and ask to what extent each group is present or will be affected by this work and how they may be impacted in the context of your analysis(Review the snapshot for equity deserving groups provided in the equity lens tool).  

• If you have questions that haven’t been answered through your research, reach out and speak to experts in the field or other advisory groups that may be in progress  
• Also considered undertaking key informant interviews with program staff who have undertaken similar programs in this area or geography 

Understanding Impacts and Barriers 

Impacts refer to the consequences, both intended and unintended, that will be experienced by the communities affected by your work. Impacts are not just the direct results of your project or initiative, they may also be experienced due to omission or a lack of consideration of the realities – or lived experiences – of different groups. For example, one could argue that an equity-deserving group that already suffers from high levels of unemployment and a lack of representation in FCMs current staffing demographics may continue to be excluded from roles in your project if current hiring practices are maintained. 

Barriers meanwhile are about access. A barrier is a physical or societal structure, design, practice, or rule that prevents or impedes individuals from accessing services and social, economic, and political life. Equity is a principle and process that promotes fair conditions for all persons to fully participate in society. It recognizes that while all people have the right to be treated equally, not all experience equal access to resources, opportunities, or benefits.  

Equity based initiatives, strategies, or considerations address specific needs, barriers, and accommodations to ensure all have equal access and opportunity to participate in all aspects of society and its benefits. In acknowledging that barriers exist and working with affected groups, you can create strategies that remove barriers and foster greater access to housing, employment, social inclusion, civic engagement, and services. 

Please complete the table for the equity-deserving groups that will be affected by your initiative. In this table you should identify how your decision or project may have a positive impact and/or negative impact on the communities that apply, alongside potential barriers that need to be mitigated to ensure fair participation and benefit. Generally, here are the kinds of impacts that you could consider: 

•  Engagement impacts: The impacts of your program or initiative not considering an equity-deserving group, for example an equity-deserving group that is not engaged in a program to build capacity of people to run for municipal office may have the impact of a continuation of low rates of political engagement at the municipal level 
• Social impacts: such as groups that are engaged in your program or initiative are engaged in negative, tokenistic or disrespectful ways that may lead them to come away with less trust in FCM or mainstream institutions in Canada in general.  Meanwhile, experiences of true engagement may lead to an impact of increased social trust or engagement for a community 
• Representational impacts: could this program help change the narrative about the equity-deserving group’s engagement with an issue area through an increase in visible representation? And vice-versa, what is the negative impact that comes from a lack of representation for an equity deserving community? 
• Environmental impacts: can this project cause noise, air or water pollution as a result of emission or generation of waste/by-products in ways that disproportionately impact equity-deserving groups? 
• Cultural impacts: could the project approach contribute to or reflect negatively on the culture of specific equity-deserving groups?  

Barriers to participation can be varied, but would include barriers such as: 

• Language: lack of access to content in a language you are familiar with, or at a reading level that you are able to engage with 
• Educational: is there a certain level of technical knowledge or specific training required to fully engage in the process? 
• Financial: would participation be affected by income levels? For example, if participation requires someone to be available during working hours, would this be possible for people doing shift work or work that requires them to be at the job-site during 9-5 hours? 
• Technology: lack of access to technology including the internet and internet-enabled devices (e.g. computers, tablets, etc.), which could limit ability to participate in online activities (e.g., meetings, conferences, etc.)  
• Transportation: travel to engage in in-person activities can be limited by geography and access to reliable public transportation options 
• Structural: elements of the built environment that limit accessibility (e.g., lack of ramps or narrow doors) 
• Time: the day of time your activity is scheduled to take place which may conflict with people’s working hours 

For example, the barriers to participation faced by a Canadian born woman who speaks both of our official languages, may be very different than those faced by a woman born outside of Canada who speaks English as a second language. Even if women are a focus for the initiative, intersectionality reminds us of we still must consider the other parts of an individual’s identity. Further, the barriers faced by a low-income, Black trans woman are different from those of a cis gender middle-income Black woman, however both face systemic barriers to equity because of their race.   

Finally, some barriers or impacts are distinct to a specific intersection of identities. For example, a Black woman or a newcomer with mental health issues may have distinct experiences that emerge from how those two parts of their identity come together. A newcomer with mental health issues may have to manage culturally based stigma that is unique to their cultural community, a distinct issue that might not be experienced by others with mental health challenges who are Canadian born or by newcomers without mental health issues. 

What strategies will you use to address needs or remove barriers (e.g., access, engagement, financial, language and knowledge)? 

The purpose of Question 4 is to identify the strategies and actions you will use to meet the needs of the equity-deserving groups you identified in Question 3 and remove potential barriers that might prevent them from meaningfully participating or benefitting from your project or decision. In order to discern needs, look at the positive and negative impacts you listed and consider what needs are behind them. 

For example, what are the needs that would need to be met to ensure that an individual experiences positive program impacts of ‘building employable skills and increased social networks’, by taking part in a conference that you are planning? You will need to understand what skills or resources they need to learn, to plan your workshops and ensure that your conference reaches your target audience through accessible marketing to increase their participation.  

Common barriers to participation equity deserving groups may face include barriers from finance, access, language, knowledge, and engagement. For each equity-deserving group you identified and the barriers you have defined, think about: 

• How likely the barrier is to occur (very unlikely to very likely probability) 
• How severe the barrier is to delivering an equitable outcome (manageable to severe) 
• What tactics you might use to mitigate these barriers  
• What resources you will require to adequately reduce these barriers and meet the needs of equity-deserving groups to ensure responsive budgeting  

You may document your analysis in the same way you would complete a risk assessment.  

To address these barriers you may develop a strategy to define your long term goals and how you’re planning to achieve them. Actions, however, are the concrete and often smaller steps you will take to achieve these goals. It is important that the actions that we aim to take- meet people’s needs and reduce barriers are grounded in our understanding of equity and intersectionality, as well as practices of dignity, cultural competence and accessibility. This may also involve the use of best practices, plans and additional resources.   

Some actions that can be  taken to increase accessibility of programs or activities include but are not limited to: 

• Providing compensation for participation and preparation 
• Covering travel costs to in-person events 
• Providing compensation for childcare coverage or ordering of a meal, even if individuals are remotely joining meetings 
• Creating plain language versions of key documents, providing video content or other alternative media that can be accessible to those with barriers around written language 
• Translating communication documents in multiple languages depending on target audience 
• Providing simultaneous interpretation during live events 
• Providing personalized onboarding or a buddy system when engaging equity deserving individuals in advisory or oversight bodies 
• Encourage multiple ways to provide feedback, whether via email or a phone call, or submitting voice notes or video 
• Using communication tools that suit the audience, such as allowing young people to communicate through text message over email with staff. 
• Having on-site mental health supports, or providing ‘wellness space’ on-site for individuals to be able to rest and decompress. 

Some common actions taken to mitigate negative impacts: 

• Creating targeted hiring or recruitment processes for specific equity deserving groups 
• Ensuring affected groups are engaged at all stages of planning and process design. 
• Partnering with organizations that have cultural competency working with specific equity deserving groups. 
• Building in additional time in work-plans to allow staff to build relationships and trust with communities (work at the speed of trust) 
• Training FCM staff on Reconciliation and AREI before embarking on programming, to ensure they have required levels of knowledge and cultural competency around equity deserving communities being engaged. 
• Communicating using inclusive languages  

• Communicating using materials that do not reinforce stereotypes.  

Is there an opportunity to partner, collaborate or engage with any of the equity deserving groups named in Question 3 or other stakeholders/rights holders during this project/decision? If so, please describe those opportunities and the tactics you can use to ensure these are meaningful and respectful collaborations. 

The purpose of Question 5 is to identify opportunities and methods to meaningfully engage with the equity-deserving groups you identified in Question 3 to shape project decision-making and ensure desired project outcomes meet their needs.  

If you are working on an urgent decision, you may not have the time and the resources needed to undertake extensive engagement. Start with what’s already available to you. Has another FCM colleague worked with these communities (individuals with lived experience or organizations representing their interests) before and documented their input? Is there an existing on-going FCM initiative where you could bring your questions to the table?  

If you have more time and resources to advance your initiative, now is the time to slow down and think about what engagement tactics may be right for your project, and understand why you should start with relationship building and invest in equitable partnerships. Examples of common engagement tactics are: 

• Online surveys 
• Stakeholder or key informant interviews 
• Focus group discussions 
• Design jams or workshops 
• In-person and virtual community meetings or townhalls 
• Working groups 
• Advisory Committees, including Elders Circles, Youth or other Lived Experience Committees 

When planning for an engagement, it’s important to understand that the impact of your process or activity exists along a spectrum. The International Association of Public Participation, also known as IAP2, has produced a methodology that serves as the current best practice for understanding and articulating the goals of your proposed engagement activities, as well as the degree to which public input will shape an ultimate  decision or outcome.  

A step up from simply consulting or engaging with leaders and organizations is to enter into actual partnership relationships with those representing equity deserving groups.  Partnerships can be an extremely fruitful way to work collaboratively with equity deserving groups, build cultural capacity at FCM and expand our relationships with diverse communities. But partnerships take time to build, demand clarity and transparency upfront and can require a lot more resources and attention than delivering a program on your own.  

Asylum Access defines equitable partnerships as partnerships where systems, processes and daily interactions help rectify the power imbalances that enable exclusion. Further power imbalances in funding and expertise can lead to partnerships that replicate colonial practices that FCM is committed to not repeating. Sustained partnerships, however, can ensure that FCM has the relationships necessary to engage equity deserving groups on decisions, projects and initiatives across the organization.  

Below are a series of questions you may ask yourself to determine how equitable a partnership is you are looking to enter is: 

How does your project advance FCM’s AREI and Reconciliation commitment (e.g., results, outcomes, key messages, communication strategies)? 

The purpose of Question 6 is to articulate how your decision, project or initiative (advocacy, communications and services) aligns with and advances FCM’s anti-racism, equity, inclusion and reconciliation commitment. If you did not have equity-related project outcomes identified when you answered Question 1 of the Equity Lens Tool, now is the time to revisit your original intended outcomes and expand on them based on the Reconciliation and AREI considerations you explored in Questions 2 through 5. You may also use this question to identify staff Reconciliation and AREI learning objectives (e.g., learning how to work better with Indigenous communities.)  

To jog your memory, here’s FCM’s AREI commitment: 

At all levels of FCM, we commit to grounding our culture, systems, policies and practices in an intersectional, anti-racism and equity lens to challenge issues of race and correct inequities in order to reflect and improve the lives of communities across Canada

Since 2020, FCM has been on an internal and external journey committed to challenging racism, systemis, policies and practices to correct inequities and improve the lives of Canadians across the country. FCM and its Board of Directors have specifically acknowledged that racialized voices are underrepresented on elected municipal councils across the country and that this is also reflected in FCM’s nationally elected board and senior leadership. FCM is committed to engaging and resourcing and assessment of how we can best help municipalities to strengthen local capacity and eliminate racism. 

FCM’s Reconciliation and AREI Policy and Competency Framework identifies the following Reconciliation and AREI principles to help ground the organization in the work that needs to be done and how it can be accomplished. These principles are intended to guide individuals and teams to grow their Reconciliation and AREI practice and ensure an equitable and inclusive FCM culture.  

The Policy and Competency Framework also identifies desired outcomes based on the organization’s commitment to Reconciliation and AREI principles and actions. Take this moment to assess your project team and your initiative’s intended outcomes against the following metrics. You should also use this time to revise your SMART outcome statements to clearly articulate how they advance AREI objectives.  

How will impacts and performance be documented, evaluated, and reported? What methodology will you use? 

The purpose of Question 7 is to ensure that you are monitoring and evaluating the impacts of your decision, project or initiative. This includes your overall project impacts, as well as your equity-related impacts. Through monitoring and evaluation, you should be able to measure whether you have achieved your intended overall and intermediate outcomes. In this context, you may want to measure, for example: 

• Whether you were actually successful at increasing representation of and/or sharing power with equity-deserving groups in project decision-making 
• Whether and how the supports provided through your initiative increased the number of equity-deserving groups served and how, and 
• How those groups felt about their engagement in the process. 

Now that you have set out your project outcomes and understand the needs, barriers and impacts faced by equity-deserving groups based on your answers to the Equity Lens Tool, it is time to develop SMART key performance indicators – or metrics – to measure your performance. These indicators must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound (SMART):  

• Specific: The indicator(s) must focus on the particular aspect of the project that is to be measured in relation to the outcome(s) of the project or decision.  
• Measurable: Indicator(s) must be quantifiable, should have a clear unit of measurement so that progress can be easily tracked.  
• Achievable: Indicator(s) must be realistic, such that could be attained within the life cycle of the project and decision given the available resources. 

• Relevant: The changes/impact that the indicators intend to measure must be in line with the outcomes of the project or decision. The indicator should measure changes anticipated as a result of the implementation of the project.  
• Time-bound: Indicators must be measured at a particular time during the lifecycle of the project. 

Types of Indicators  

While there are many types of indicators, for the purpose of this How-to-Guide, we will focus on outcome and output indicators. Outcome indicators are metrics for measuring or evaluating the results of a project or decision. Output indicators measure the quality and quantity of the planned actions and whether the planned activities took place.⁹  

Examples of SMART outcome and output indicators can be found in the following table:  

Monitoring is a continuous process by which stakeholders and rights holders obtain regular feedback on progress made towards achieving a project’s intended outcomes or impacts (often focusing more on process, activities, inputs and outputs).¹⁰ In contrast, evaluation is a process that determines, as systematically and as objectively as possible, the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, sustainability and impact of activities in the light of a project/program performance. It focuses on analyzing the progress made towards the achievement of the objectives that an organization or social enterprise set for themselves.¹¹ 

Fundamentally, we all have a duty to manage and use data responsibility for the purposes of monitoring and evaluation, this includes incorporating equitable principles and practices throughout data life cycles. Key principles for advancing equitable data practice include: beneficence (commitment to maximize benefits and avoid harm and risk), respect for persons and their lived experiences (to uphold people’s power to make informed decisions that are in their best interests and protect those who do not have power) and justice (commitment to fair distribution of burdens and benefits ).   

While understanding equity impacts requires asking individuals to share demographic data, this is incredibly sensitive information. It is your responsibility as FCM staff to ensure proper data security and management procedures are in place for any demographic data you collect for your work. It is also critical that you are able to clearly share with individuals and organizations how the use of this data is governed and for how long the data will be held by FCM after the process.