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A Disruptive, Equity Venture

DAX-DEV is a disruptive, equity venture, led by Dax-Devlon Ross.

We focus on social impact consulting to help individuals, organizations and institutions achieve their social justice missions and bridge the gap between their stated values and actual practices.

We tell deeply-reported, truth-seeking stories that advance social justice and civil rights.

Our Beliefs and Practices

Bravery

Bravery

We believe in facing each other, ourselves and that which divides and discomforts us. We strive to create and hold space so that we can be and remain brave in each other’s presence.
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Community

Community

We believe people in proximity and relationship can solve their own problems. We strive to create and maintain the common ground for genuine community building.
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HISTORY

HISTORY

We believe human constructed structures and systems have created barriers and boosts that have held some of us back and propelled others of us forward. We also believe our attitudes and ideas have been shaped by what has and has not happened to us. We strive to visibilize and validate the unseen phenomena that is in play all around us and shaping our shared experience.
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Honesty

Honesty

We believe in truth telling and seeking. We strive to center our words and actions, and those with whom we partner, in truthfulness.
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Humility

Humility

We believe that no one has all of the answers. We strive to listen more than we speak.
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Inquiry

Inquiry

We believe the only way we get answers is by asking questions. We ask a lot of questions throughout our process.
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Story

Story

We believe everyone has a story and then once we bear witness to one another’s we become bonded. We use storytelling as a tool for change making.
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Consulting

WE ARE DISCERNING.

Driving impact with like-minded partners: quality over quantity. purpose over power. courage over comfort.

WE GO DEEP.

Growing relationships with partners who are truly invested in deepening this work over the long term and building a lasting, high performing equity.

WE DISRUPT SYSTEMIC BIAS.

Always on partnership commitment to identifying and dismantling structures of power and privilege.

The Work

We work with a variety of clients including but not limited to:

Our work spans the following areas:

Social impact investment analysis, guidance and support with a particular strength in the fields of social justice, sports-based youth development, human rights, and college access/completion.

Short-term startup and turnaround leadership to organizations in crisis or at a crossroads.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion instruction rooted in racial justice for emerging and established nonprofit staff, leaders, boards, foundation professionals and corporate social responsibility executives.

Structured, neutral meeting and workshop design and leadership aimed at creating and maintaining an inclusive environment for all participants to function effectively and make high-quality decisions.

Solutions-focused, capacity-building collaboration with individuals and teams that is rooted in the adaptive leadership framework.

Review and Codification of organization roles and responsibilities, practices policies and procedures and development of curricula/content.

Writing + Reporting

My pen is drawn to places where folks are either working to create systemic change or standing in the way of progress.

As a journalist and author, I tell stories that aren’t told. My reporting and writing projects are always concerned with lifting up the injustices and indignities suffered by people who don’t have a platform to share their experiences and perspectives with a wider audience. My legal training as well as my experiences as a black man living in the United States have shaped my passion for justice reform and social, political and economic liberation.

The Work

Bio

Dax-Devlon Ross, J.D.

Photography By Doug Segars

Dax-Devlon Ross has led a career as an educator, non-profit executive, equity consultant and journalist with a focus on social justice. After receiving his Juris Doctorate from George Washington University, he joined New York City Teaching Fellows where he taught in middle and high schools in Brooklyn and Manhattan. He later helped lead the national training and replication team at the Posse Foundation, one of the country’s foremost college access organizations. During his tenure at Bank Street College of Education, he managed the school’s partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service. As the founding Executive Director of After-School All-Stars New York and New Jersey, Dax built, from scratch, a team of 60 full and part-time program, development and operations staff serving more than 1,500 students across two states. Thereafter he served the organization as its inaugural northeast regional executive director, managing five chapter executive directors, while overseeing regional growth strategy, partnership development and management, donor stewardship, board governance and chapter operations.

For over a decade, Dax’s social justice consulting practice has focused on developing disruptive strategies to generate equity in workplaces and education spaces alike. Dax’s clients have included: The Anti-Defamation League, The New World Foundation, The Posse Foundation, Fund II Foundation, Bard College, Kean University and more.

Dax is the author of five books and his journalism has been featured in Time, The New York Times, The Virginia Quarterly Review and other national publications. He was the winner of the National Association of Black Journalists’ Investigative Reporting Award for his coverage of jury exclusion in North Carolina courts. He is currently a investigative reporting fellow at Type Media Center, an alumnus of Coro Leadership New York and a member of NationSwell Council.

Photography By Doug Segars

Letters To My White Male Friends

By Dax-Devlon Ross

On Sale June 15 2021

Letters To My White Male Friends