A former Division 1 basketball athlete, attorney and equity and inclusion strategist, Ashland Johnson’s past experiences all combined to found The Inclusion Playbook. The Inclusion Playbook is a sports impact project led with the goal of “empowering social change agents to transform communities in and through sports.” In 2016, Ashland was named as one of the 40 best LGBTQ+ lawyers under 40 by the National LGBT Bar Association. Ashland has also worked in numerous professional sports leagues such as the NBA and the NFL to strengthen their policies and programs surrounding inclusion, race, gender, and law.

In this video, Ashland discusses what active steps can be taken to make more equitable leaders for the future. She states that the first two steps towards making a more inclusive environment for LGBTQ+ athletes and individuals at a specific organization are to 1) performing an equity audit and 2) performing trainings. She goes on to state that after these two steps are in place, then the organization can set some measurable goals to see if they are moving forward or standing still in regards to diversity, equity and inclusion.