Our Story

Ally to Accomplice is co-owned and co-operated by Donte Newman and Carrie Hutchinson. We work in partnership on every decision across all levels of our firm. This partnership allows us to stay accountable to each other while we harness our individual strengths in serving our clients.

Accountability is important to us. Please read our Accountability Statement.

After decades of study, Donte and Carrie each felt a nagging sense that they could be doing more with their academic expertise than simply teaching about racial identity and racism in college classrooms. Frustrated by institutional barriers at her own place of work, Carrie began working as a community organizer both locally and nationally with the organization Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ). Over several years, she combined her academic expertise in racialized biases with on-the-ground experience in racial justice organizing to design free antiracism training for the community. Meanwhile, Donte was publishing widely on issues of race and racism. One afternoon, Carrie opened the newspaper to find his article entitled, "Who Will Educate White People in the Movement for Racial Justice?" Carrie sent him a text. Donte called her back. In their hours-long conversation, they each lamented about the many times they had been required to participate in low-impact "diversity training" offered at exorbitant costs by trainers with far less experience and expertise than theirs. They were deeply concerned that participants in these trainings were offered few actionable takeaways, and often left feeling even worse than they did to begin with! Donte and Carrie's shared wish to offer inclusive, actionable, and high-impact training and their deep commitment to continuing their own growth created an instant bond. In that conversation Ally to Accomplice was born, and the rest is history.

Carrie studies interpersonal and intergroup communication and specializes in perceptual biases. She co-founded the Santa Barbara Chapter of the national organization Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) and authored the Change Agent Toolkit. Learn more about Carrie here.

Our Expertise

 Dr. Newman and Dr. Hutchinson each hold a Ph.D. in specialized areas of Communication Studies and bring a wealth of expertise from their discipline, including best practices for attitudinal and behavioral change.

Donte studies public and mediated communication and specializes in critical thinking, public persuasion, and messaging. He hosts a news and public affairs web series called "The America We Know," and is a regular contributor to the Santa Barbara Independent.

In the News