Our Vision
We envision a just and thriving world where no one stands alone, where our differences and our common humanity are seen, honored and celebrated, and where we all are supported to go after what we love, to dream big, and to become everything we feel called to be.
Our Mission
We are here to invite, support, and model a revolution…
a revolution that begins by giving up trying to change the world or people or organizations…
a revolution that supports and invites each of us to go inside, power-up, light up our personal mission, let no one stand alone, and become and inspire the change we want to see in the world.
Our “How”
We go after our mission in two primary ways:
1. Using our groundbreaking Power of Difference Assessment (PDA), we measure 3 primary unconscious patterns related to differences, creating a map of a person’s, or a team’s, assets & learning edges.
2. Using this map, our experiential learning workshops and coaching support this exploration within ourselves (without blame and shame and in a high feedback environment) with the goal of integrating the assets of all three patterns.
Our Proven Outcomes
As our participants learn to integrate (or “leverage”) the assets of all three patterns, they report experiencing:
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- greater effectiveness across our differences
- recognition of our own privilege and how to use it in powerfully in service
- impact for others, generally, aligned with our intention
- solidarity across differences
- pride without prejudice
- an ability to courageously refuse both silence and violence
- the courage to withdraw participation in violent aspects of systems
- the capacity to catalyze meaningful systemic change without effort
- greater internal stability: less rising and falling on external conditions
- greater personal clarity, mission, and fulfillment
- an ability to hold others accountable without blame or shame
- less burnout, hopelessness, and overwhelm related to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)
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Our Team
Executive Director/Founder
Elliott Butler-Cisneros
Board President
Lucero Castro-Frederick
Board Treasurer
Steven Petersen
Board Member
Crystal Byrd Farmer
Board Member
Tamia Spells
Outreach
Cathy Butler-Cisneros
UVA Board Fellow
Elsa Joy
Executive Director/Founder: J. Elliott Butler-Cisneros
As a half Indigenous, half Spanish “Hispano” man, Elliott’s father did cross-racial, cross-cultural work, especially with youth, long before Elliott was born! He died when Elliott was 5 and Elliott only learned this a few years ago though he has been called to this work all of his adult life! While Elliott passes for white, being raised in an Hispano extended family, he never understood the “rules” of the Anglo/white world. This created an internal “train wreck”–one that he has long worked to sort out. It’s given him both the ability to shift cultural codes while having an entry point to understanding both his power and privilege and the marginalization of his Latino and Indigenous, brown people and ancestors.
Elliott’s professional work began on the Navajo reservation, where he taught special education. He directed an award-winning community-based transition program serving students with disabilities. He worked as a school principal both at a predominantly Latino elementary school and at a progressive, experiential middle school. He and his wife at the time, raised their daughters in an co-housing community and, later, lived in a multiracial community. Still later, Elliott taught social justice classes at Naropa University and directed the Human Rights Office for the City of Fort Collins. He founded The Sum in 2006 and moved to Charlottesville, in a camper, after the death of Heather Heyer and the Unite the Right Rally in 2017 where he developed a program with Heather’s mom, Susan, called the Heyer Voices program to support are youth to develop their own social justice initiatives. He also created a faith community called the Welcome Circle–based on the sacredness of welcome of all people. He re-married and lives in the largest Habitat for Humanity trailer park redevelopment project in the country.
Board President – Lucero
Lucero Castro-Frederick, originally from Mexico City, is our Board President. She has a Master’s degree in social work and her passion is working in a therapeutic capacity with Latino immigrants, families, and young children. She was voted Woman of the Year for the city of Fort Collins in 2000 and has served her community in the Strengthening Latino Families Program, the Hispanic Latino Leadership Institute, and the Latino Action Task Force for the local school district. She loves dancing, nature and cooking. She has been a Buddhist practitioner for 20 years. Her son, Omar, is 19 years old.
Board Treasurer – Steven
Steven Peterson is our Board Treasurer. He has a degree from Colorado State University with a major emphasis on the Social Sciences, a minor in Economics, and has had a career over 30 years with Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. currently working in Consumer & Small Business Banking operations support. Steven is a member of Wells Fargo’s “Pride Connection” and “Black & African American Connection” Employee Resource Networks and has been a certified facilitator in the Wells Fargo Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion employee training course. A native to the Northeast Colorado plains, Steven now resides in his Colorado home along the front range of the Rocky Mountains. Through his professional career and time with the U.S. Navy Reserves he has had opportunity to work and travel in 45 of the United States and 4 countries abroad. Steven identifies as a cisgender, gay, Caucasian male and has a partner in Detroit, MI.
Board Member – Crystal
Crystal Byrd Farmer is a writer and speaker active in the intentional communities movement. She graduated from the University of South Carolina with a dual degree in Mechanical Engineering and Russian and worked as an engineer for six years, earning her Six Sigma Green Belt. In 2016 she began working as a diversity trainer and consultant as owner of Big Sister Team Building. She also co-founded Gastonia Freedom School, an Agile Learning Center for children with disabilities. She published The Token: Common Sense Ideas for Increasing Diversity in Your Community, in 2020. Crystal was previously the website editor for Black & Poly, a resource promoting healthy polyamorous relationships for Black people. Crystal identifies as autistic, Black, disabled, female, and bisexual, and she draws on her experiences to help others understand and amplify the voices of marginalized people. She has one child and lives in Gastonia, NC.
Outreach- Cathy
Cathy loves connecting with others and herself through her joyful embodiment of movement. She brings her experience as a dancer, mom, actor, player-with-kids, Feldenkrais PractitionerⓇ, Occupational Therapist, and musician to her work as the Sum’s Co-Director in charge of Outreach. She finds deep satisfaction in exploring and combining quiet listening with exuberant expressiveness in celebration of her own and others’ self-discovery in the work (and play) of The Sum…whether it is in problem solving, accountability, project oversight, or collaborative design. Her life as an able-bodied, straight, Anglo woman from a Quaker family with middle and lower class experiences also informs her work as do her early experiences living in Costa Rica.
Board Member – Tamia
Tamia Spells is an educational professional passionate about authenticity, family, liberation, equity, and justice. As a native of Washington DC, Tamia grew up with an interest in and love for policy and government. She attended the SEED School of Washington DC, the nation’s first public college-prep boarding school and went on to earn her Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science with a minor in Communication from Virginia Tech as a first-generation college student. She joined Teach for America: Miami-Dade’s fight to eliminate educational inequity in 2014 and has since served as a champion for scholars and families who are most often overlooked by our systems.
Tamia enjoys spending time with her daughter, bonding and participating in service and social action activities with her Sorors of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated, and creating Historically Black College and University (HBCU) and Divine 9 Sorority and Fraternity-inspired apparel for babies and toddlers through her business, The Baby 9.
UVA Board Fellow- Elsa Joy
Elsa is an MBA candidate at UVA Darden. She hails from Kerala, a south Indian state known for its diversity and progressive social indicators. Elsa’s professional experience as an engineer, management consultant, and entrepreneur gave her opportunities to work on a range of social and business priorities from business intelligence to sustainable livelihood for underprivileged communities. This helped her understand the space of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), and she has conducted workshops on various topics ranging from inclusive AI to accessibility in customer experience and women empowerment. Elsa is pursuing a general management career path currently and her long-term goal is to be a public policy advisor catalyzing inclusive development.
Selected Clients
- The Colorado Commissioner for Education and his cabinet
- FEMA
- The University of Colorado
- Colorado State University
- Denver University
- Adams State University
- Regis College
- Northern New Mexico College
- Western Export Services
- Staples
- The Colorado Resource Center
- The Summit School District
- Thompson School District
- Boulder Valley School District
- Colorado Association of Multicultural Educators
- National Association of Multicultural Educators
- Denver Water
- Poudre Health Services
- Larimer County
- Larimer County Women’s Center
- Larimer County Sherriff’s Department
- Fort Collin’s Police Department
- Mankind Project of Colorado
- Big Brothers Big Sisters
- City of Boulder
- PFLAG
Rather than some work of this nature that uses shame and blame to address issues of race, gender, etc., Elliott and his team’s approach honors perceptions of both self and others. Before we can dismantle unjust systems and institutions, we must understand ourselves. This work does that.
What are your answers for some of the most critical questions of our time:
“What can I do about issues of race and racism?”
“How can I live in solidarity across our differences?”
“How do I cultivate a workplace, community, or school that is safe for, and honoring of, everyone?”
“How can I ‘Be the change I want to see in the world?’”
Often, we go after change in the world instead of the most important work which is INSIDE each of us! This is where change in the world must begin.
Supporting this internal, challenging, and ultimately joyful journey, is why The Sum exists.
We do this in three main ways:
Check Out Our Blog
What does solidarity feel like? The Somatics of Solidarity
What does Solidarity Feel Like? Introduction Solidarity is a powerful force that brings people together in support of a common cause. It transcends boundaries and connects individuals from diverse backgrounds, creating a sense of unity that can lead to positive social...
Money, Sex, and Social Justice
— By J. Elliott Cisneros, Edited by Cathy Butler I grew up with a lot of unknown and unacknowledged privilege. I was a straight boy: cis-gender, able-bodied, Christian, middle-class, and white. From these “locations,” I learned lots of specific, mostly unspoken rules....
3 Examples of Unconscious Bias and How to Eliminate Them:
A closer look at the Power Difference Model (PDM) copyright by The Sum--a 501c3 in Charlottesville, VA There are three primary patterns of unconscious bias. We each tend to hold one of these concerning differences: race, gender, culture, disability, religion, class,...
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