The Arts Inspire You.
You Inspire Us.
We strengthen organizations by strengthening the people within them.
Our Values
Anti-Racism & Anti-Oppression. Belonging. Collaboration. Courageous Conversations. Growth Mindset. Honesty. Humility. Justice. Kindness. Respect. Support.
Our Philosophy
We believe that the arts have a transformative effect on individuals and communities in both the short and long term, and that meaningful impact isn’t possible without healthy and equitable systems in place. Those systems require the right strategy, resources, and people. We focus on all three—to help realize an arts industry that gives organizations the support to grow and engage diverse audiences.
We strive to create a true sense of belonging among audiences, artists, and arts administrators, with the goal of maximizing the tremendous potential of the arts as a force for good.
Our DEIA and Anti-Racism Commitments
We at Tom O’Connor Consulting Group, as individuals and as an organization, are committed to working toward permanently uprooting systems of injustice. Through our work with our clients and our own internal practice, we are making a long-term commitment to continually self-assess and learn how to be an actively anti-racist organization. We make the following commitments:
We will orient our justice work as an act of love—for the arts and culture workforce seeking a career with dignity, for arts audiences seeking a sense of belonging, for our society at large, and for all individuals we encounter in our work.
We will act as thought partners and allies to our clients, strengthening their abilities as well as their confidence. We believe in “calling in” over “calling out.”
We will orient our consulting and executive search offerings toward practices that emphasize and reinforce belonging, dignity, and justice—not simply revenue.
We will focus our executive search efforts beyond diversity of candidate pools and interrogate processes that perpetuate the lack of diversity in our field as a whole—building on-ramps to our industry while also systematically dismantling guardrails.
We will have honest conversations with our clients when the profile of a desired candidate contains exclusionary ideas.
We will not conduct searches for clients who do not agree to disclose a salary range or approximated salary in their publicly-listed profile for the role. Read more about our salary transparency policy.
We will continue to interrogate our own implicit biases present in our candidate vetting process, and the definition of “viable candidates.”
We believe that viable candidates of diverse backgrounds exist for every role and we will not put forward candidates we don’t fully believe in for the sake of “checking the diversity box.”
We will work alongside our clients—challenging them when necessary—to address systems and processes that favor candidates with outsized privilege. This includes the design of the interview and offer process.
We will not make recommendations to our clients that we do not already embrace within our company. We recognize that stating these commitments on our website as one act is not enough and we are committed to embracing continuous growth in our own work.
We believe conflict can lead to courageous conversations that will bring about change, and we will not shy away from surfacing difficult truths as a means of avoiding conflict.
We commit to supporting the development of healthy organizations as part of strategic planning, including the dismantling of structures and systems that perpetuate oppression and toxicity.
TOCG Land Acknowledgement
Our team is distributed across the world—in New York, New Jersey, Georgia, DC Metro area, Minnesota, and Oregon in the United States, as well as in Sydney, Australia. We honor the fact that all of our respective workplaces are located on occupied and unceded land belonging to several indigenous groups. We have begun to share with you below about each of these histories and peoples, but it is our shared belief that land acknowledgments alone are insufficient. We hope you will join us in providing financial support to the suggested causes and funds below or to your own local causes, as well as continue to educate yourself and your loved ones about the violent history on which our modern culture is built so that we can collectively continue the work of reparation and justice.
Our New York City headquarters are located on the island of Mannahatta, our Brooklyn offices are located on the dispossessed lands of the Canarsie people, part of the greater Munsee Lenape (Delaware) peoples and our Jersey City, NJ office is on the ancestral territory of the Lenni-Lenape People. Click here for the full New York Land Acknowledgement as well as resources to support and learn more about the indigenous groups of the New York Metro area.
Our satellite office in Atlanta, Georgia is located on the unceded, ancestral land of the S’atsoyaha (Yuchi) and Tsalaguwetiyi (Eastern Band Cherokee) peoples. Click here for the full Atlanta Land Acknowledgement as well as resources to support and learn more about the indigenous groups of Atlanta.
Our office in Los Angeles, California located on land originally and still inhabited and cared for by the Tongva, Tataviam, Serrano, Kizh, and Chumash Peoples. Click here for our full Los Angeles, California Land Acknowledgement as well as resources to support and learn more about the indigenous groups of Los Angeles.
Our office in Portland, Oregon is located on the ancestral land of the federally recognized tribes of this area; the Grande Ronde, Siletz, and Cowlitz. In addition, we would like to acknowledge the Chinook Nation, which has been seeking federal recognition for many years. Click here for our full Portland, Oregon Land Acknowledgement as well as resources to support and learn more about the indigenous groups of Portland, Oregon.
Our office in Minneapolis, Minnesota is located on the ancestral and contemporary lands of the Dakota people, including the Wahpekute and Mdewakanton. Click here for our full Minneapolis, Minnesota Land Acknowledgement as well as resources to support and learn more about the indigenous groups of Minneapolis, Minnesota.
We acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora nation as the traditional custodians of this place we now call Sydney, Australia and pay respects to Elders, past, present and emerging. Click here for the full Sydney, Australia Land Acknowledgement as well as resources to support and learn more about the indigenous groups of Australia.
To encourage a shift from empty words to action we encourage you to
● Support Indigenous organizations by donating your time and/or money.
● Support Indigenous-led grassroots change movements and campaigns. Encourage others to do so.
● Commit to returning land. Local, state, and federal governments around the world are currently returning land to Indigenous people. Individuals are returning their land, too.
● To learn how you can honor native land and acknowledge traditional owners, visit the US Department of Arts and Culture, by clicking here, or the National Indigenous Australians Agency, by clicking here.
● To learn about the land you currently occupy, please visit Native Land’s interactive map, by clicking here.