Skills and understanding of issues of race, language, culture and class are essential for people working to strengthen families and revitalize communities.

Walking the Walk describes nine underlying principles designed to help people individually and collectively build community capacity to promote equity and diversity. The principles are based on a multi-year California Tomorrow process that synthesized the voices and strategies of diverse people working to improve their communities throughout the country.

The book offers a framework of what is possible, Including five inspiring stories that touch upon the importance of developing bicultural leadership, reaffirming cultural values and practices, promoting community self determination, actively addressing bias, and continually reflecting on what more can be done. A vision is offered for how the principles could guide the operations of a community initiative or organization in terms of governance and decision making, staffing, services and supports to families, financing and resource development, evaluation and capacity building. The accompanying tool, Change Starts With The Self, gives readers an opportunity to assess what they could do to carry out the principles.

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