We recently connected with Melia Dunn and have shared our conversation below.

Melia, appreciate you joining us today. Naming anything – including a business – is so hard. Right? What’s the story behind how you came up with the name of your brand?

Legally, my business name is Melia Dunn Consulting, LLC. Not very informative, eh?  And in the long run doesn’t serve me well. But it was a very deliberate decision at the time. I was taking the leap of faith to begin working for myself. I had plenty of other (self-imposed) barriers. I knew that if I were to start thinking about a creative name that represented who I am and what I do… it would simply be one more place for me to procrastinate, sit in self-doubt and delay taking steps toward the future I envisioned. So in my effort to dodge and weave from the “fear monster,” I went basic, allowing me to get my business incorporated and keep moving forward.

Today, I mostly use my tagline: “inclusion, embraced.” How did I come up with this? I didn’t! Or rather… I didn’t come up with it alone. I love the work that I do. And I’m very talented in facilitating dialogue around challenging topics. I’m a skilled trainer and curriculum developer. I believe I’m good with words! But when it comes to branding and marketing…I know enough to know that I don’t know enough. Divine timing connected me with  Brand and Marketing specialist, Jeffri-Lynn Campbell. She was offering a “brand-in-a-day” workshop. It was in my budget. I was very drawn to her energy and so I went for it.

In the course of 8 hours…she and her team led participants through crash course in branding. Through a series of activities, using word clouds, imagery, client avatars and more, I tapped creativity that had been waiting under the surface. By the end of the day, I had my tagline and logo. A week later, she delivered a full brand architecture package and we solidified the concepts, language and images that resonated most.

Inclusion, embraced represents my commitment to the client experience – both outcome and process. I support clients to embrace JEDI work and integrate the values and practices in every facet of their work. Along that journey…which can be an intimidating, unfamiliar and often times uncomfortable… I aim to hold their experience with care, with trust, with loving accountability. When things get messy, we examine difficult truths and commit to sticking with them all the way through. When the rewards and wins start coming, I celebrate and honor their efforts. At each turn, together, we’ll embrace what’s necessary for progress.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

So first, probably best to claim my industry – I’m a JEDI specialist, Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion work. There’s some good conversation in the industry about our acronyms – DEIJ, DEIB (belonging)… considering the I as Interdependence among others. I appreciate the dialogue, and for the time being, JEDI speaks to my experience. I’ve found that unpacking and eventually finding peace with my identity, my impact is similar to “the hero’s journey.”

I came to this work from a non-profit background.With experience in fundraising, project management and even some international development work, I was hired at a national civil rights organization to work for their anti-bias education department.  That experience was a GAME CHANGER.

In that role, I was tasked with activities and training resources that focused on identity, culture, interrogating bias in oneself and others. The recognition of how powerful social privilege had been in my life was sobering. And while the journey was full of ups and downs, it was absolutely a gift. I had to reckon with the truth that in spite of my good intentions, my impact was actually minimal (at best) and more likely harmful (band-aid approaches that only perpetuated systems of oppression.) Once I got a taste of social justice work…my appetite for more learning and unlearning was insatiable.

Knowing there are others like me…well-intended, but unaware of  their impact… I felt a responsibility to share the same gift I experienced.  My work supports others to unpack, identity, examine our social privilege and get very clear on where we are most useful – and more importantly, where we are not!

So I do this work by sharing my story, sharing my journey and guiding organizational leaders, decision-makers and aspiring change agents. Through the “reckoning” process of self-study around social privilege, I believe everyone can deepen their capacity to create, nurture and sustain more inclusive, more creative, more profitable, more impactful organizations.

As a white person in JEDI work, I rarely work alone. That would be antithetical to the values of diversity and inclusion. I’m fortunate to have phenomenal relationships with other practitioners, predominantly women of color – and while our work is serious, there is so much fun and joy in our collaborations. I believe our clients feel the difference. Not only are we bringing tools, learning and strategies for how to be more equitable and inclusive, but we are modeling what’s possible when we accept, bridge, honor and celebrate our differences.

I’ve just recently completed a massive labor of love, the creation of an online course and community – EMBRACE: Understanding Your Responsibility in Social Change. It was dreamt up and nurtured upon a vision to strengthen and expand the circle of social justice allies in support of issues they care about. True to my word, its not just me! SEVEN other anti-bias, anti-oppression, JEDI practitioners joined  this project. Each of them brought such passion and care – making this course far better than I could have imagined! I’m so excited for participants to experience it.

And while I’m proud that EMBRACE has launched… I treasure that we held to four Guiding Principles. When I’m asked about potential clients or a target audience, it is  any leader and/or change agents who reads these guiding principles and says, I WANT TO FEEL THAT!

1. Equity and Justice – centering equity and justice in the process of how we work together as well as the intended outcome of our effort.

2. Humility in Learning – leaning into the truth that everyone has something to share/teach and everyone has something to learn/gain.

3. Loving Accountability – honoring every person’s humanity requires a loving obligation to tell each other the truth, to help each other recognize what we aren’t yet aware of, and support the development of our highest good

4. Joyful Sustainability – prioritizing the choices that maintain the work for the long haul, create and maintain life-long relationships and support our best possible mental, social, emotional and physical health at every turn.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Oooo…the lesson has actually become my mantra: I’m not here to be liked, I’m here to be useful.

This has been a massive and necessary shift for me. For decades, I considered myself a peace-keeper. I wasn’t conflict avoidant, but did aim to find quick, simple resolutions that made everyone happy. If I could do that… people would like me, I’d stand out as a leader and opportunities would come my way. Here’s the thing… it worked and I was often rewarded with new introductions, responsibilities or promotions.

When I started exploring JEDI work, my peace-keeping behaviors were challenged – and rightfully so! Who’s peace and comfort was I prioritizing? Who was not factored into my awareness? Who – by social identity and by organizational hierarchy – was I trying to make happy? And what was peace-keeping in service to?

Another sobering revelation. Getting very honest, I recognized how idealistic I had been without much awareness of the dynamics of power and social privilege. My peace-keeping prioritized the comfort of those who were in leadership or decision-making roles. My peace-keeping centered me as a leader and more often than not dismissed or denied the real and persistent issues that were raising conflict in the first place. My peace-keeping served to protect and perpetuate the status quo – the status quo that continued to marginalize People of Color, people with disabilities, people of lower socio-economc status, members of the LGBTQIA+ community, people who practiced religions other than Christianity… I could go on.

Talk about a misalignment of intention versus impact! And I was completely unconscious of it until challenged. I believed I was doing good, that I was paving the way for more justice and equity. In truth, I was playing right into the systems. The cognitive dissonance was palpable and I felt deep guilt and shame. How could I have been so unaware?!

Luckily I had skilled and caring mentors, Beth Yohe and Dr. Kathy Obear. With their support and application of scholarly tools like Bobbie Harro’s Cycle of Socialization, I could release guilt and shame and reframe my awareness as new information, new guideposts. I was socialized from my earliest years in a culture that teaches white women (actively and passively, consciously and unconsciously) the imperatives of perfection and like-ability. With new information, with those challenges…I started  to unlearn and release the values I had placed on like-ability.  Then, I replaced it with a value of usefulness for social change.

I’ll say this…it is a long unlearning process and I’m continuously recognizing the people-pleaser, peace-keeping behaviors in myself. I have to actively interrupt and suppress that internal voice and replace it with a new truth. I don’t ACTUALLY want everyone to like me. I DO want to build a more just and inclusive society. Along the way, I know that I will ruffle some feathers – or rather evoke that same cognitive dissonance of guilt and shame that I felt. So my role is to be useful. Useful to those folks who might (at first) resist a deeper self-awareness,  useful as a caring mentor guiding them to a more beautiful and rewarding existence.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Short answer – Authenticity. But if you want more, keep reading! ;)

In my shift from like-ability to usefulness, I became much less afraid of being authentic. Getting honest and open about my past, my cringe-worthy moments (of which there are many!) and my unlearning has been the most powerful teaching. I no longer try to present as an expert with all the answers. I am a fallible life-long learner who is willing to share what has been effective and transformative for me.

For some potential clients, that can be a turn-off. They are expecting that “expert” for their investment. OK. I’m not for every client. But for those who find my honesty refreshing and for those who recognize themselves in my stories… we can build a meaningful and impactful partnership.

And not every client is for me. On a few occasions, I’ve been in a position where client expectations would pull me out of my integrity. For example, a non-profit had hired me to review a series of racial equity workshops that were currently in development. This organization had not previously done much work in this arena but the Board of Directors had charged the CEO with becoming the “leaders in racial equity education.” Upon my first review of what had been created, all kinds of red flags and warning whistles were going off for me. If this organization were to move forward in launching this series, the harm would be significant…to the BIPOC community, and the organization’s reputation. I called the CEO immediately to express my concerns. During that call, I was firm, “it’s your call, but if you move forward with this project, I can’t be part of it.”

That day, I preserved my integrity and I gained their trust. We re-imagined what their racial equity work could look like – in a way that would bring value to the community without extending beyond their place in the field – the project grew. I had the thrilling opportunity to bring two additional practitioners to the project, both People of Color who made the work exponentially better! Authenticity breeds more authenticity. Together the three of us showing up as our full and honest selves created safe(r) pathways for the organization’s staff and board members to do so as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.meliadunn.com
• Instagram: @meliadunn_inclusion_embraced
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MeliaDunnCoaching
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melia-dunn-556ba77/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@InclusionEmbraced/featured
• Other: https://meliadunn.thinkific.com/courses/Embrace

Image Credits
Karianne Munstedt, Esperanza Sanchez-Apodaca, Perla Farias