The Midland County Inclusion Alliance (originally named the Midland Inclusion Council) was founded by Amy Beasley in response to a courageous conversation. A cross-section of folks from across the Midland area, representing many different dimensions of diversity, met for dinner late in 2018 to talk about the reality of their experiences in our community. As we talked, we recognized that there was still work to do to make Midland an inclusive, equitable, just community, where diversity is welcomed and valued. We recognized that not only could we take direct action to foster the community we want – we could create more opportunities for others to join us in the work. There’s a place for everyone to learn, and serve, and lead.
So we started with the Community Council, a group of 25+ regular people from all over town, who represented the different voices and experiences in our community – and we started building connections, sharing education, and we got to work.
Then about nine months later, Amy partnered with Tony Stamas to launch the Business Council.The input we were getting from our Community Council told us that there were opportunities in our business community to drive equity and inclusion through business leader’s zones of impact – their ability to influence community culture. It’s important to have a focus on the areas where we can see the most direct impact of our actions, so we recruited an initial group of folks to represent area business leadership and we got to work.
