ABOUT
Our Story
Dr. Bola Delano-Oriaran is the visionary and principal consultant of Engage To Impact, LLC. She continues to dedicate her career to advocating for racial and all forms (social, economic, political, educational) of justice for Blacks, Indigenous, and People of Color. Her mission is to authentically engage with schools, communities, organizations, and businesses to achieve critical transformation guided by eliminating manifestations of racism—individual, institutional, systemic, and structural—and intersecting forms of oppression.
As a teacher educator, she challenges educators to adopt inclusive, diverse, equitable, and liberatory approaches that are culturally responsible, relevant, and sustaining.
As a child, young Dr. Bola was marked by a spirit of kindness and a desire to bring people together to make a difference. One of her earliest projects involved raising money for a man with “dis”ability living in transition in her community. She was just 13 years old.
Wanting to make as significant an impact as possible, Dr. Delano-Oriaran enrolled at the historically Black Savannah State University in Georgia. She earned a bachelor’s and immediately went on to earn a master’s in public administration. Attending an historically Black institution in Savannah provided the foundation for understanding systemic racial inequities. As a college student, she was involved in movements advocating against Apartheid in South Africa. She was also elected college queen.
Dr. Delano-Oriaran found an opportunity working with first-generation students and families of color in Savannah. During that time, she discovered a passion for advocating for children without access to quality education. Her work compelled her to go back to school to become an educator by earning her PhD. She was accepted at Penn State University, where she earned a doctorate in comparative and international education with a specialization in women and development.
Dr. Delano now serves as a college professor and pioneering community builder for more than a quarter century. She is a widely-published expert on multicultural education and a sought-after speaker and coach on diversity and inclusion issues in schooling and society, and community-engaged-learning.
Recognized as one of the most influential African-Americans in the state of Wisconsin, Dr. Delano-Oriaran’s work has been celebrated with numerous awards and accolades.
As an engagement strategist who is intentional on impacting lives, Dr. Delano continues to intentionally create and support initiatives including founding an institute to create dialogue between Black students and white educators, sponsored by several Wisconsin school districts.
Dr. Delano-Oriaran’s mission can be illustrated by an experience she once had while working with a white contractor. The man shared a joke with her in which compared killing deer with killing “N…”
Instead of shutting down, walking away, or “defriending” the man, Dr. Delano-Oriaran chose the harder path of starting a conversation with him to understand his motivation for making such an extremely racist comment.
Dr. Delano’s background and experiences solidifies her commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion using powerful tools—Engaging individuals, people, communities, organizations to Impact the world, thus our organization’s name. Her vision and dedication continue to guide and motivate countless learners to reach their full potential. Dr. Delano-Oriaran’s mission is to continue influencing, instigating and facilitating dialogue while engaging people, communities, and organizations in critical conversations on issues of race and social injustice.
Dr. Delano-Oriaran recently developed and created The Ọmọladé Academy Charter School using a curricula approach she coined STREEAM (Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Arts, Math) or STREEAMS (Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Entrepreneurship, Arts, Math, Social Studies).
About Engage To Impact
Our organization engages stakeholders by conducting a needs analysis to determine their needs, gaps, or “opportunities – challenges” as they relate to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Dr. Delano and her village of experts, partner with your organization’s team to uncover your gaps and transform them into initiatives, programs, solutions, and opportunities that are sustainably impactful to diverse people, communities, and all stakeholders.
Our Core Values
- We are committed to eradicating systematic inequalities that permeate our global society.
- We value diversity as a strength and consider it an asset in our practices.
- Our work is grounded in culturally authentic methods and practices. We do this by using a lens that is culturally engaging, affirming, respectful, free of bias, measurable, and impactful, one which allows all stakeholders to bring themselves to engage authentically.
- We adopt the following principles to challenge and engage you: humility, openness, transparency, cultural responsiveness, authentic community engagement, collaboration, relationship building and nurturing, mutual respect, shared decision making, and civic engagement.
Book Engage to Impact
Click on the button below to find out how Engage to Impact can help you authentically engage?