Product Record
We were each present in the room. We received the framing for the workday. The Heritage IS Equity system was described. Then we turned to confront the past, present, and future conditions throughout the work of the day.
This document reflects back what the room produced, names where the work is going, and asks directly: where do you fit, and how do you stay in?
Across the working sessions, the Partnership Café, and the closing, the room said the same thing in different ways.
named and entered into the record
named and accomplished
target by October 31, 2026
The Heritage IS Equity Handbook's six-month action plan is not a projection. It is the track the April 24 declaration set in motion. By October 31, 2026, the African American corridor capture rate moves from below one-tenth of one percent to a verified and documented 0.3 percent of the $9 billion corridor economy — $27 million in measurable community economic activity, triple the starting point.
That outcome runs on four simultaneous tracks: vendor enrollment routing 45 percent of every listing fee to civic associations by ZIP code; DMO partnerships moving the network into visitor channels; CAME delivering community association services; and Soul of Virginia producing the editorial record that makes all of it visible.
| When | Action | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| May 2026 | Steward Council protected period begins · Vendor enrollment drive launches | Steward Council + AAHA! |
| June 2026 | DMO agreements executed — Richmond Region Tourism and Hampton CVB · Soul of Virginia editorial relaunch | AAHA! + DMO Partners |
| July 2026 | CAME Richmond Corridor Pilot outreach · VCEN funding applications submitted | VCEN + RouteCode Labs |
| August 2026 | Arrival 1619 World Trade event · Heritage Challenge passport expansion · First quarterly data report | AAHA! + AAHT.NETWORK |
| September 2026 | CAME Pilot launch with first two community associations · First enrollment transactions processed | VCEN + Steward Council |
| October 2026 | Six-month performance review · 2027 Symposium planning initiated · Institutional Web follow-up | AAHA! + Steward Council |
The work needs different things from different people. Not every commitment looks the same. Read the three pathways below and locate yourself.
You said something in that room. You named a partnership, a resource, a next step. That commitment, together with what you wrote on your Sovereignty Reflection card, is what the DIY 3rd Thursday is built to take up. This is where individual commitments come together, get organized, and are carried forward — where what you said you would do moves from intention to action alongside others who made the same choice to stay in.
DIY · 3rd Thursday every month · beginning May 21This is a personal decision. Not your institution's position. Not a delegation. You were in that room as yourself, and what you said about wanting to participate in governance was heard as a personal statement.
The Council of Stewards is the governing body of the AAHT.NETWORK. Fifteen seats across five CHEWS pillars. The governance shaping process — how those seats are structured, how decisions are made, how the council operates through its protected two-year term — is what the DIT 4th Thursday is built for. The community's authority is not negotiated away by your presence at that table. It is strengthened by it.
The question is not whether your institution supports this. The question is whether you do. Come to DIT and say so.
DIT · 4th Thursday every month · first session May 28
Your activation is already in motion. Fifty-four documented sites across Virginia. Fifteen badges. Every site you visit preserves the record and builds the corridor's evidence base. Every vendor who enrolls routes 45 percent of their listing fee directly to the civic association in their ZIP code — automatically, contractually, at the moment of transaction.
Tell someone. Bring them to aaht.network. The network grows by participation. Participation is proof that the value is alive.
Enroll · aaht.network · Heritage Challenge open nowThe Sovereignty Reflection card asked you what you committed to and what shifted. This is your opportunity to go further. Your comment, feedback, and additional input are not a form drop-off. They are a direct contribution — taken up in the DIT 4th Thursday discussion, shaped in that conversation, and then entered into the documented record the full Symposium Report is built from. Every response submitted shapes what the report says, what it recommends, and what the 2027 Symposium is built to address.
Your Commitment
What partnership are you ready to commit to?
What Shifted
One thing you are taking forward from the Symposium.
On the Record
What else do you want the Symposium Report to reflect?
https://www.aahava.com/sovereignty-reflection/
The DIY and DIT cadence is not a meeting series. It is the operating rhythm of the network. It is how the work that started on April 24 does not become another event that produced a report that got filed.
It happened in this one because the space was built for it — safe enough to name what is missing, structured enough to hear what that means, and grounded enough to hold it without losing it. That kind of honesty does not happen in every room. What happened on April 24 was rare. People spoke freely — about what they have seen, what they have carried, what has not worked, and what they know is possible.
Your voice was heard. What you named as absent was received as information, not complaint. What you named as possible was received as direction, not aspiration. The contrast between what has been and what could be is exactly what this work needed from you — and you gave it without being asked twice.
What changes now is not your commitment. It is the structure available to hold it. The AAHT.NETWORK is open. The Council of Stewards is seated. The DIY and DIT cadence is the rhythm. The six-month plan is the track. You do not have to work the way you have worked before. You do not have to navigate a system that was not built for you. This one was.
The next step is already named.
The structure is already built.
You are already in it.