Emily White Hodge

Pronouns

she/her

What do you do as a consultant/coach?

HR Consulting: from Employee Relations, Coaching, Policy Updates, HR Audits and Investigations, to Process Development and Training, I can provide best-in-class HR support for your employees, supervisors, and your whole organization, no matter how challenging the situation.

What is your approach? 

I help small and medium sized nonprofits on a mission to change the world do more than just talk the talk. I ask the hard questions and really listen. Because I care deeply about people, I tell the truth, encourage truth-telling and help your organization embody your core values. The reason I went into human resources in the first place and became an HR consultant is because people matter to me. And I believe they ought to matter to you and to your organization too, if for no other reason than the fact that you can’t do what you want to do in the world without them. Mine is an unapologetically people-centered, proactively compassionate, approach to HR. It’s an approach designed to help humans thrive. And organizations thrive too.

How has your experience/background contributed to your work?

My deepest longing is to leave a more just world for my BIPOC family members & friends. My core belief is that we cannot be loving without working for justice.

In my early years I was surrounded by people . . . everywhere I went, people were always around.

Those people were almost exclusively white.

One summer in high school, I went to an event only about 15 miles away, where I discovered a whole new world. It was a world of people from another culture and a different lived experience.

It was one of those life-shifting moments. A moment in which my eyes were opened a little wider and everything I thought I knew and understood about myself, my family, my country and the world was suddenly called into question.

At that moment I decided I wanted to learn more about other people outside of my little circle – about lives not exactly like my own. And the more I learned the more my eyes were opened to the inequities that I was perpetuating.

So, I dedicated myself to undoing my old ways of thinking and being in the world, the ways I’d been taught were right and true. I committed myself to becoming a welcome home for all people.

While I started out in a career doing direct service with young people, I soon began exploring other ways of serving people—ALL people. I discovered that my deepest calling was in developing systems and processes that helped people, and simultaneously worked for justice.

As I’ve built my own HR practice, I’ve done so with a passionate commitment to making it one that’s rooted in justice—particularly racial justice. Every protocol and system I set up is developed through a lens that centers equity: for BIPOC women in particular.

I’m an HR consultant with a passion for racial justice. A Certified PHR (Professional in Human Resources) through HRCI with over 20 years of nonprofit experience across the full spectrum of HR and People Operations functions, I specialize in working with small to medium sized non-profit organizations, who want to approach human resources from a people-first perspective.

Before I started White Hodge HR, I served as the HR Director for the National Network of Abortion Funds (NNAF) and led several organization-wide efforts to support the fully remote, national staff and helped them thrive through a period of rapid growth during the uprisings in defense of Black life and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Prior to my time at NNAF, for six years I was Director of HR & Operations at New Moms in Chicago, IL. Awarded the Bamboo Hero award for Onboarding, I was asked to be an ambassador for BambooHR.

Relevant certifications or trainings

Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification; Certification in Spiritual Direction; Personally, I practice Somatics

Sample clients

Highlander Research & Education Center, New York Abortion Access Fund, Apna Ghar, The Coleman Foundation, Family Equality, Un Nuevo Despertar, Freedom to Thrive, NEXT Distro, United African Organization