Our mission

What's good? Welcome to our virtual living room, the community space, the stoop, the park, and the rec place you attended as a kid. As for me, I only sometimes had a place I felt like I belonged. I moved from Panamá to the United States when I was seven years old and only spoke Spanish. My early childhood memories were mainly of navigating spaces that weren't built for me. I attended various educational systems, including four high schools. My desire to create pockets of belonging became a part of my purpose and career path. It's serendipitous that I learned in my organizational studies Bachelor's program at the University of California Davis that retention is related to people having a sense of belonging in an institution. During that time and place, I was involved in grassroots organizations serving BIPOC folks to sustain us in the four-year university system. Later, to soften my leadership approach, deepen my understanding of human behavior, and And to uplift our community with careers and to help us create generational wealth, I pursued my master's in career coaching with a specialization in historically excluded talent. At San Francisco State University, I co-founded and led for seven years an affinity-like group, Counselors with Attitude. At the University of California Berkeley, I led community efforts at the Biology Scholar Program of 500 first-generation medical practitioners pathed students. Later, I was recruited to the Career Center to scale my love for our community to 30k students. Before departing, in partnership with 15 community-centered organizations, I developed the Career Center's first DEIB strategy–of which, in 2021, I was informed the foundation is still being used. My purpose expanded to recruiting us, retaining us, and continuing to uplift us. As a DEIB Program Manager, I supported seven employee resources groups (ERG) and leaders at Google X. I experienced hardship when I received support from those same ERG leaders. My next stop was at Hustle Hunters, a recruiting placement organization for other startups that supports caregivers returning to work. They're led by the fierce leader, mother, and friend Nikki Adamson. I excelled at Hustle Hunters as a DEIB leader, where I enjoyed moving fast in a small startup, but I brought in the importance of pausing and strategizing to make sure efforts were going where they needed to be. In combination with my learnings and early beginnings in the United States of exclusion, bullying, and racism, to similar experiences in the workplace, Diversity Community Group is here as a familiar place to be you, to learn, and give back with a DEIB community by your side. Diversity Community Group seeks to be a responsive space that runs parallel to our needs. Hi, I am Katherine Castro. I'm a mother of two children and a wife to a white and indigenous person. I'm very creative and can be a risk taker; I'm a recovering perfectionist; I'm the owner of Castro Career Consulting, the children's book author/artist/designer of Oh, Pits! and motivational speaker. And I see you. You. The DEIB practitioner who has a quick question that you can't ask within your institution for whatever reason. The DEIB practitioner who's the only new one, lonely one, burning out one, who's perhaps experiencing the same problems we're seeking to solve on the DEIB team itself. Or you. My friend. The busy senior and well-respected DEIB practitioner looking to connect and keep a pulse of what's outside their sphere of work but doesn’t have time to connect with us one on one. We are here for you too. Welcome to DCG. Your girl n cafécito lover, Katherine Castro