Belonging Design Principles

A resource guide for building belonging

The distinct belonging framework developed by the Othering & Belonging Institute (OBI) includes a set of principles and practices that can root out structural inequality and exclusion of all kinds while helping us turn toward, rather than against, each other. Beyond a call for inclusion into pre-existing structures built to serve only some of us, belonging asks each of us to commit to co-creating new structures built for everyone.

Belonging is powerful because it works as an aspirational north star that helps us declare the kind of world and communities we want to live in—vibrant and interconnected healthy ones in which everyone holds the agency, responsibility, and power to co-create the structures that serve the good of the whole.

While the term belonging is used to mean many things, here at OBI we think of belonging as the antidote to othering—the denial of a person or group’s humanity based on their identity, and the process of generating structural inequality found at every level of society (read more in The Problem of Othering). We also emphasize the role that structures play in either building or prohibiting belonging. 

Learn more and download the resource guide here