HEALING FORWARD™

An Allyship Training Program for Organizations

What is HEALING FORWARD™?

Designed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Rika Iino from Sozo Vision, HEALING FORWARD™ is a paradigm-shifting allyship training program that engages cultural leaders to design equitable futures. The unique approach engages the entire organization, using the guiding principles of THE 4Ps: PIPELINE, PEDAGOGY, PROGRAM, PROFILE to bolster organizations in their journey towards becoming more equitable and just. Since its launch in 2021, HEALING FORWARD™ has impacted 70+ organizations of all sizes through retreats and workshops, with a current cohort of 200+ leaders in arts and media activating the methodology in their organizations.

Sozo believes we can systematically activate how art influences the collective imagination, and we have designed processes whereby highly dynamic inquiry spawns culture both internally within an organization and externally with the community.

HEALING FORWARD™ starts with the BELIEF that systemic change begins with cultural leaders asking the right catalytic questions and expanding the conversation throughout the organization.

The 4ps: Guiding principles of Healing Forward™

  • PROFILE or the people and marketing program within the organization. This is the brand, the communication, the identity and how it is expressed.

  • PROGRAM or the ways we showcase work, engage with communities or otherwise deliver our mission to our stakeholders. This is not just about the artistic works but extends into how we express audience engagement in our communities, how we educate, how we involve.

  • PEDAGOGY or the organizational culture and the social vision of the organization. This is the series of modalities and systems that speak from the theory of change an organization is employing.

  • PIPELINE or the constituents who the organization is ethically and financially accountable to across the organization. They are the stakeholders, those we are in compliance with, and those who we share risk with.

In HEALING FORWARD™, your organization’s journey to systemic allyship begins with an assessment tool we’ve developed to identify where you are in the journey. This assessment tool, called the Solidarity Matrix Assessment (SMA), is a series of questions aimed to spark conversations and deepen the understanding of what it is when we talk about “systemic change” of an organization. In addition to SMA, we’ve developed several other assessment tools to help cultural organizations move the needle forward. Consider these tools as a set of provocations for your teams across the organization to develop a shared vocabulary which ultimately leads to being able to collectively articulate your organization’s theory of change. HEALING FORWARD™ equips you and your organization with the foundational knowledge and framework of how to begin this work and further assists you and your teams in designing an action plan suitable for your organization.

We currently offer three programs below. Many of our clients have started their work with their Executive Directors, Board members and key staff members attending our HEALING FORWARD™: Journey Into Allyship retreat, and then have moved on to HEALING FORWARD™: From Challenge to Change 3-month training program to engage their entire organizations in this work. For groups ready to engage at the entire organizational level, the HEALING FORWARD™: Arc of Systemic Allyship 2-hour introductory workshop has been an effective way to get started before diving deeper through the 3-month training program.

Healing Forward™ Experiences

HEALING FORWARD™: Arc of Systemic Allyship
A 2-hour Introductory Workshop

The HEALING FORWARD™: Arc of Systemic Allyship 2-Hour Workshop is designed to introduce attendees to The 4Ps framework and to spark a conversation on how it might deeply impact their organizations.

HEALING FORWARD™: A Journey Into Allyship
A 2-Day Retreat

A 2-day virtual retreat for the CEOs, Executive Directors, Board Members, and other leaders of cultural organizations to help expand and deepen the arc of systemic allyship. This highly interactive retreat is a supportive environment for leaders from across the field, with discounts available for large teams.

HEALING FORWARD™: From Challenge to Change
A 3-Month Team Training Program

Organizational alignment, training & development grounded in the 4Ps and designed to move organizations forward into a new stage in systemic allyship. This program includes:

  • One Introductory Session

  • The 4Ps Workshop

  • One Roadmapping Session

Leading the conversations

CO-CREATOR: Marc Bamuthi Joseph, Cultural Strategist

Marc Bamuthi Joseph is a 2017 TED Global Fellow, an inaugural recipient of the Guggenheim Social Practice initiative, and an honoree of the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellowship. Bamuthi’s opera libretto, We Shall Not Be Moved, was named one of 2017’s “Best Classical Music Performances” by The New York Times. His evening-length work created in collaboration with composer Daniel Bernard Roumain, “The Just and The Blind,” was commissioned by Carnegie Hall and premiered to a sold out house at Carnegie in March 2019. His upcoming piece, “Watch Night” is inspired by the forgiveness exhibited by the congregation of Emanuel AME church in Charleston, and will premiere at The Perelman Center in New York in 2023. 

While engaging in a deeply fulfilling and successful artistic career, Bamuthi also proudly serves as Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. He is in high demand for his creative approach to organizational design, brand development, and community mediation, and has been enlisted as a strategic partner or consultant for companies ranging from Coca Cola to Carnegie Hall. His TED talk has been viewed more than 3 million times, and is a testament to his capacity to distill complex systems into accessible and poetic presentations. Bamuthi's community development philosophy, called "The Creative Ecosystem", has been implemented in dozens of cities across the United States and is the subject of several critical writings, including one of the seminal essays in "Cultural Transformations: Youth and Pedagogies of Possibility", published by Harvard Education Press.

Bamuthi is the founding Program Director of the exemplary non-profit Youth Speaks, and is a co-founder of Life is Living, a national series of one-day festivals which activate under-resourced parks and affirm peaceful urban life.  His essays have been published in Harvard Education Press; he has lectured at more than 200 colleges and has carried adjunct professorships at Stanford and Lehigh, among others. bamuthi.com.

CO-CREATOR: Rika Iino, Cultural Entrepreneur

Rika Iino (she/her), founder of the international arts agency and incubator SOZO, embodies two decades of purpose-driven work at the intersection of social impact, innovation, and the arts. As a creative producer and manager, her dedication to artists as change agents has shaped global projects. Deeply engaged in independent artist advocacy and leadership development, Rika serves as a coach, mentor, and speaker at institutions like Stanford, Yale, and UC Berkeley. Co-creator of the systemic allyship program HEALING FORWARD and co-chair of Building Ethical and Equitable Partnership, APAP's national initiative on equitable contracting, Rika made history in 2021 as the first woman of color to receive the Patrick Hayes Award for transformative leadership from the International Society for the Performing Arts. In 2023, she earned the Mentoring Award from Western Arts Alliance and the CALI Catalyst Award from the Center for Cultural Innovation, acknowledging her extraordinary efforts in realizing greater inclusion and equity in the cultural sector. Connect with Rika on LinkedIn.

Contact us.