Vizcaya’s Commitment to
DIVERSITY, EQUITY, ACCESSIBILITY AND INCLUSION (DEAI)
Although Vizcaya was built as the home of one very wealthy individual over a century ago, it has been owned by and open to the public for most of its history.
Miami-Dade County has, likewise, evolved in the past 100 years and today our community is defined by the exceptional diversity of its residents and visitors.
While Vizcaya’s historic, artistic and environmental resources have long been seen as its core strengths, the organization’s future depends on its open embrace of people of all backgrounds, experiences and perspectives.
To better represent and serve our visitors and our community, Vizcaya is actively working to advance Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion (DEAI) in all facets of our culture.
Vizcaya welcomes, respects and treats fairly people of diverse backgrounds and abilities. The Vizcaya family strives to support the needs of our local community, we value the opinions of others, and we embrace the cultural vitality of the world around us. Vizcaya promotes cultural and environmental harmony and we condemn violent, hateful, destructive, discriminatory or harassing speech or actions.
- Equity and Inclusion: We welcome, respect and treat fairly people of diverse backgrounds, abilities and needs.
- Social Responsibility and Relevance: We are committed to supporting the needs and interests of our local community.
- Collaboration and Innovation: We value the opinions of others, we embrace creativity and new ideas and we pursue them with rigor and purpose.
- Preservation and Resiliency: We protect, maintain and enhance Vizcaya’s cultural resources in an evolving context and climate.
- Environmental Sustainability: We prioritize environmental responsibility in our operations and programs.
- Integrity: We are transparent, responsible and reliable.
- Financial Sustainability: We ensure Vizcaya’s financial health by stewarding its finances through broad based and diversified support
Vizcaya has long embraced DEAI as a central part of its organizational identity, with its Board-approved Core Values prioritizing an inclusive, welcoming and respectful environment for visitors, volunteers and employees of diverse backgrounds since 2005. In recent years, Vizcaya has strengthened its commitment to DEAI in numerous ways:
- Vision Statement: Our vision statement defines Vizcaya as an inclusive place that inspires people to embrace the cultural vitality of the world around us—by this we mean the diverse community in which we reside.
- Core Values: Equity and inclusion are part of the museum’s core values.
- Strategic Plan: Our 2022-25 strategic plan continues Vizcaya’s ongoing commitment to embed equity and inclusion in all facets of the organization. We prioritize equity and inclusion training for staff and Board Directors and continue to refine recruitment practices with a focus on inclusive hiring.
- DEAI Council: In 2019, Vizcaya established an internal DEAI committee, now called a council, consisting of staff from across the organization. Meeting approximately once each month, this council will recommend institutional policies and practices that help to eliminate barriers to participation, ensure that our staff and volunteers reflect the diversity we value and the inclusivity to which we aspire, and forge pathways to increase the participation of historically underserved communities.
- Cordeiro Volunteer and Internship Manager: Vizcaya secured a major grant from a family foundation to establish a full-time staff position dedicated to expanding Vizcaya’s relevance, deepening and building new relationships, and developing new volunteer and internship opportunities throughout our local community.
Vizcaya facilitates an array of partnerships and public programs to attract, welcome and deepen relationships within our rich community. Vizcaya has been a public museum far longer than it was a private home, and being increasingly inclusive is core to our work.
Reducing Admission Barriers: Vizcaya is proud to offer free or significantly reduced admission through many different programs and partnerships. These include:
- Visitors with Disabilities: Free admission to visitors identifying as disabled and an accompanying caregiver.
- Museums for All: Free admission for people receiving food assistance (SNAP benefits) and up to 3 other individuals.
- Miami-Dade County Programs: Free admission to Seniors Mondays and Wednesdays (Golden Ticket); $5 admission for guests aged 13-22 and companion (Culture Shock), and free admission for groups of four (Museum Pass Program).
- Miami-Dade County Public Schools: Title I schools may apply for a visit to Vizcaya that includes free admission and free bus transportation for up to 35 students.
- Summer Camps: Vizcaya offers free admission and free bus transportation to several community-based organizations that manage summer camps, such as Citizens for a Better South Florida, Miami-Dade Police Department’s Gang Alternative, The Barnyard, Little Haiti Cultural Complex, Lotus House and Chapman Partnership.
- Veterans and Active Military: Free admission to U.S. veterans and active-duty military year-round; free admission for up to 5 family members of active-duty military from Armed Forces Day through Labor Day.
Community: Vizcaya engages in partnerships and programming with the goal of meeting community needs, deepening relationships, enhancing the relevance of our content and broadening audiences, including the following:
- Public Programming: Accessible and immersive programs are offered at a low price point to reduce barriers and increasingly demonstrate a commitment to feature artists and other content providers of diverse perspectives and backgrounds.
- Beyond Vizcaya: Gathers stories from and about our community on topics relevant to past, present and future, such as migration, labor, culture and identity.
- Coconut Grove Partnership: Since 2018, Vizcaya has co-partnered with Black legacy residents of Coconut Grove to co-create programs and to document our shared connections to Bahamian heritage through video and podcasts.
- FIU/Wolfsonian Public Humanities Lab Partnership: Vizcaya is participating with this program to research and develop a land acknowledgment statement.
- Of By For All: For several years, Vizcaya has participated in Of By For All, a global network of cultural organizations focused on becoming more inclusive of and meaningful to their communities.
Accommodations for Visitors with Disabilities: Vizcaya captions videos for its social media and website; includes its audio tour free with admission and offers a virtual tour online and on site to provide access to the second floor of the Main House; provides complimentary wheelchairs and ASL sign language interpreters; uses the International Symbol of Access for its signage—depicting individuals with disabilities as active and engaged; completes an accessibility assessment every two years and has provided staff with annual disability awareness and sensitivity training since 2017.
Vizcaya values its employees and recognizes that diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility must be embedded in our workplace culture if we are to serve our community well. Following are some of the steps Vizcaya has taken to create a fair workplace:
- Minimum Wage for Employees & Interns: In October 2017, Vizcaya established a minimum wage for all employees of $15/hour; this was increased to $18/hour in October 2022 and it applies equally to all interns that are engaged directly by Vizcaya.
- Strong Benefits: Vizcaya provides paid time off, sick leave and employer retirement contributions for all employees, and paid family leave and robust medical insurance to full-time employees to help ensure that health issues do not become a financial burden.
- Inclusive Hiring Practices: Vizcaya promotes employment opportunities broadly to attract a diverse pool of candidates, including at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and through Museum Hue; job descriptions that are used for recruitment avoid exclusionary qualifications and transparently include compensation information; interviews are performed by panels of diverse employees and with consistent questions among applicants.
- Vendor Expectations: Vizcaya requires that vendors who have a regular on-site presence commit to non-discriminatory hiring practices and, when possible, to a minimum wage of at least $15/hour for their employees.
- Inclusive Restrooms & Pronouns: Vizcaya has established gender-neutral restrooms and encouraged, but not required, its employees to include pronouns in their e-signatures.
- Personal Appearance: Vizcaya’s employees are generally welcome to express themselves through the hairstyles and hair color of their choice, visible tattoos and piercings, as well as clothing choices (including uniform style choices) that do not reflect traditional gender norms.
- Bilingual Materials: Vizcaya is increasingly offering development and training opportunities and employee benefits information in Spanish as well as English.
- Flexible Work Options: When possible, employees are allowed to work remotely part of the time and to select their hours within a flexible daily schedule.
Vizcaya uses the following definitions from the American Alliance of Museums’ “Facing Change” report from 2017:
- DIVERSITY is all the ways that people are different and the same at the individual and group levels. Even when people appear the same, they are different.
- EQUITY is the fair and just treatment of all members of a community.
- ACCESSIBILITY is giving equitable access to everyone along the continuum of human ability and experience.
- INCLUSION refers to the intentional, ongoing effort to ensure that diverse individuals fully participate in all aspects of organizational work, including decision-making processes. It also refers to the ways that diverse participants are valued as respected members of an organization and/or community. While a truly inclusive group is necessarily diverse, a diverse group may or may not be inclusive.
RELATED STORIES
