In conversation with the Nonprofit Resources team’s statement of “NPR Stands with the AAPI Community”, diversity, equity, and inclusion remains a key priority for organizations as they seek to build these values and commit to more empowering environments. Particularly amongst nonprofit organizations, cultivating diverse talent can have wide-ranging impacts on workplace culture and mission accomplishment.
Nonprofits can start to examine internal biases and foster internal dialogues to encourage a culture of reflecting and listening to each other’s experiences. One historic case study that comes to mind, is IBM’s progressive turnaround in the mid-1990s, when then-CEO Lou Gerstner concluded that the senior executive team did not reflect the talent market or the intended audience of IBM. After forming a task-force initiative that has remain active (and has expanded) to rectify this imbalance, IBM undoubtedly became one of the foremost companies in guiding this process of identifying diversity as a strategic goal.
How can you become a champion of change?
Data for Diversity – Research has shown that when employees who differ in a lot of ways from their colleagues feel that their presence in an organization is valued and respected, they flourish, and the company, in turn, benefits from their unique ideas and skills.
- Diversity can boost the quality of decision-making A diverse workplace can encourage people to be “more creative, more diligent, and harder-working.”
- Studies have also shown that a more diverse staff can foster enhanced innovation.
- Half (48 percent) of senior executives in a survey by Forbes Insights strongly agreed that a diverse and inclusive workforce is integral to driving innovation in the workplace, while 37 percent say they somewhat agree, and 14 percent disagree.
- 2 out of 3 employees consider diversity important when deciding where to work. (Glassdoor)
Resources to Start a Discussion – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion needs to be both an attainable and sustainable priority for organizations. Here are some resources:
- RespectAbility aims to fight the stigma around disabilities by offering resources to create an inclusive culture for people with disabilities, starting from the hiring process to executive elevation.
- The Race to Lead report series offers summaries of past surveys and aims to challenge how the nonprofit sector has been approaching the racial leadership gap. There are also other reports that address pertinent topics such as gender gaps, educational background, and more.
- Project Implicit – Take a quick survey by Harvard University to learn more about implicit bias and reveal unconscious attitudes and beliefs about age, disability, gender, race, sexuality, and other characteristics.
- Need a quick assessment on how your nonprofit can move forward even more? The Michigan Nonprofit Association offers an affordable Diversity, Inclusion & Equity Assessment Tool. It identifies three levels of engagement: individual, organizational, and custom assessments.
At Nonprofit Resources, our internal Diversity Task continues to have conversations and demonstrate our commitment to increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion, and promote and implement change.