Sweet Livity™ serves the following vulnerable communities through its work: immigrants and refugees, youth, elders, labor activists, farmers, poor and low income, people with special health care needs, communities of color, Millennials, seniors, LBGTQ across the gender spectrum, low income, and differently abled. We work with people who identify with and organizations who specifically serve these communities.
Sweet Livity™ relies on primary data from client self-assessments and client secondary data to determine whether or not the “end beneficiary groups” served will benefit one or more of the above named demographic groups, e.g., annual reports, demographic surveys, etc.
In other cases, Sweet Livity™ analyzes available census data to track the socio economic status and well-being of communities served by a client.
Context for Who We Work With and How
Sweet Livity™ provides a range of wellness services which impact four pillars of effectiveness and sustainability: Self Care, Community Care, Business Care and Transformative Change and Equity Initiatives.
Sweet Livity™ began offering wellness retreats and coaching in people’s homes and later began offered wellness retreats and coaching for organizations. Learning what supports people to manage stress and increase personal sustainability led to articulation of the Self-Care pillar.
Studying the connection between people’s stress and the culture of their workplaces, Sweet Livity™ began offering services to support leaders to gain awareness about and address the ways they unconsciously contribute to inequitable work place practices which trigger stress and trauma for workers who already experience multiple internal and external oppressions based on cultural differences of language, age, race, ethnicity, gender, ability, sexuality, citizenship status and geographic boundaries. Learning how to shift the way leaders engage workers and partners so that everyone’s authentic voice is heard, understood, affirmed and included motivated articulation of the Community Care pillar.
Yet, neither pillar adequately addressed growing economic disparities for many workers who live in households and communities with more limited resources and services. Recent work supporting nonprofits to become more entrepreneurial, encouraging cooperative business efforts for collective impact, and cultivating greater equitable economic investment into our businesses and within the vulnerable communities where we operate inspired articulation of the Business Care pillar.
After the election in 2016, Sweet Livity™ began receiving more requests to work with clients to create safer and non-judgmental spaces to advance courageous conversations around race, equity and inclusion. Clients sought support with efforts to shift practices and policies to create work spaces that are more inclusive and equitable for employees and those they serve. In addition, as part of its Inclusion Economy challenge which began last year, Sweet Livity™ partnered with B Lab to create a peer exchange process for its member companies who opted to participate. The peer exchange process supported business leaders to identify where to begin and how to the work of diversity, equity and inclusion in a healthy and sustainable way. These experiences demanded articulation of the Transformative Change and Equity Initiatives pillar.
Who Can Most Benefit from Our Services
Examples of clients (from any sector, e.g., nonprofit, business, government, academic, philanthropic) who can most benefit from Sweet Livity’s unique combination of service products include:
- Leaders seeking to feel more “alive” in work and daily life.
- Leaders and groups interested in reducing work-related stress, promote work-life balance and increased well-being.
- Leaders and groups interested in strategic and impactful approaches to their work.
- Groups and communities seeking to heal relationships and build stronger alliances.
- Businesses, nonprofits, community groups, and institutions ready to start or improve a worksite employee wellness program.
- Coalitions and Networks interested in community organizing and movement building for the long haul.
- Professionals and volunteers from various sectors (e.g., social justice, academia, government, business, education, faith-based and health) who have to make long-lasting impact from their community efforts.