Equity starts at home: Rut Martínez-Alicea on systems, compensation and shaking things up

Rut Martínez-Alicea is Oregon Food Bank’s Director of Equity, People, Culture and Administration. Through innovative pay structures, equity-focused leadership and a commitment to racial justice, Rut is building a workplace where people thrive — and stay. In 2023, the Portland Business Journal honored Rut with its HR Leadership Award. This Q&A is edited from an interview conducted in March 2025.

Q: When you joined Oregon Food Bank in 2018, what was missing — and what needed to change?

A: The biggest gap was that most of the people working to solve hunger weren’t from the communities most affected by it. We were missing the perspectives of people of color, immigrants, refugees, single moms, and trans and gender-expansive folks. That was a problem.

We needed leaders who had experienced food insecurity and systemic barriers — people who understood how economic systems and policies affect access to food.

We also needed to move away from the charitable model, where communities and individuals are passive recipients of resources. We needed to move toward a social change model, led by and for those most impacted by hunger. And to do that, we needed a different kind of talent pool.

Q: What was the first step in attracting and supporting that talent?

A: My boss said, ‘OK, we hired you — now let’s diversify the workforce.’ I answered, ‘Before we can do that, we have to make sure this is a place where people who have personally experienced hunger can truly belong — not just survive.’

One of the first things we did was rewrite every job description. I looked at research on the skills that people develop while navigating racism, poverty, and migration — things like adaptability from code-switching, creative problem solving from multilingual experience and emotional intelligence from surviving hostile environments.

We added those skills to our job descriptions so that the people we needed to attract could see themselves and their strengths reflected. At the time, people from historically marginalized communities weren’t applying to work here — not until we made it clear that their lived experience was a qualification, not a side note.

It wasn’t just about hiring — it was about building a culture of equity throughout the organization.

The next big step was pay equity. While pay equality means equal pay for equal work, pay equity goes further — recognizing the value of lived experience, multilingual skills and other underappreciated strengths. We couldn’t attract the talent we needed without modeling what fair pay really looks like.

Q: What opened your eyes to the need for pay equity at OFB?

A: When I first started the job, I learned that there were several employees who, because we were paying them Oregon’s minimum wage, qualified for federal food assistance. I would not have known this except that several people asked for my help to develop a new process that would allow qualifying employees to take home the food we distributed to food pantries.

My colleagues were asking me to help solve the problem of how we might share food with our employees, instead of asking, why are our employees unable to afford food? We were actually contributing to food insecurity.

We couldn’t justify accepting the community’s trust — or their donations — if our own people were going hungry.

Q: How did you begin translating pay equity from principle into policy?

A: We started by increasing the minimum wage by two dollars an hour. That helped, but it wasn’t enough — it was not a systemic solution. So we started looking at cost of living (COLA) adjustments. We were giving everyone the same percentage increase — which is an equality approach, but not equity.

People making the least money are most affected by rising costs. So OFB reversed the usual approach: Our lowest-paid workers now receive substantially higher COLA increases, and higher earners receive a smaller percentage increase, as budgets allow.

Thanks to our equity pay policies, nearly 260 households in our community are now less vulnerable to food insecurity. But we still have more work to do. Hunger is a systemic problem and as such, it requires systemic solutions. I am sure there are still OFB employees who are having a hard time affording groceries.

Q: How did employees help shape Oregon Food Bank’s compensation structure?

A: We created an employee-led compensation committee. We asked them to bring forward proposals that may move our practice closer to our values. The committee created a new pay structure that recognizes more than just years on the job or formal education. It also values things like professional growth and the kind of life experiences that teach you about the root causes of hunger — like growing up in poverty or being part of a community that has been directly affected by unfair systems. It honors cultural knowledge, multilingualism and other contributions that reflect our values.

Q: Beyond pay, what makes people want to work — and stay — at Oregon Food Bank?

A: The best retention strategy is to create a healthy work climate — this is what keeps people here. When an organization tolerates toxic behavior, like racism or bullying, good people leave. You have to become a haven for people who are awesome!

We are committed to our employees’ wellness, psychological safety and ability to thrive.

Another great retention strategy is to encourage and fund professional development. We want our team to grow and develop according to their aspirations and roles. That’s why we focus on coaching rather than on performance evaluations. We ask supervisors to look for and foster everyone’s potential for growth. We want to encourage our employees’ hopes and dreams.

Today we coach our managers to prioritize solidarity and equity — not competition or punishment. When we only reward people who go above and beyond, we are only supporting people who don’t have to worry about childcare or other responsibilities at home. Single moms or people taking care of elderly relatives don’t stand a chance.

Q: What would you say to leaders worried that an emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) might scare off donors?

A: When I started, I was told that donors may not want to give us money if they knew we were paying more than the state minimum wage. That turned out not to be true: they could see the logic of not wanting to contribute to hunger. I was also told that DEI might make some of our partners uncomfortable — in a few rare cases, it did. But that helped clarify which partnerships weren’t aligned with our values. Meanwhile, our donor base keeps growing.