A 2014 study showed that racial diversity in U.S. conservation and preservation organizations tends to be lowest on boards and highest among relatively new employees and interns. Source: Taylor, D.E. The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations. Chart by Sean Quinn. (Retrieved from here)
As part of my personal commitment to support anti-racism activities and educate myself, I started reading about racial diversity in the charity sector.
If you wondered whether the nonprofit sector - the world of professionals largely responsible for driving social services and social change - has a racial diversity problem, the answer is sadly yes.
In the US, the number of people of colour in senior executive roles has been below 20% for over a decade. (Source)
In one workshop I attended last week, the real figure was said to be as low as 8%.
For comparison, approximately 40% of the US population identify as racial and ethnic minorities. (Source and Source)
I couldn’t find comparable executive data for Canada, but did find information about board representation and general staffing.
At the board level in Ontario in 2010, 12% of board members were visible minorities, compared to 50% of the general population. (Source)
That same survey showed that roughly 1 in 3 boards are entirely white.
US charities are about the same, with 16% of board members being visible minorities and 27% of boards being entirely white. (Source)
At the staffing level, a 2008 study showed that only 6% of Canadian nonprofit employees self-identified as visible minorities. (Source)
For comparison, more than 16% of the total national population were visible minorities in 2006. (Source)
This is obviously a problem.
There are million of worthy people who would love to forge their careers and execute world-changing ideas in the nonprofit sector. Systemic racism is preventing them from flourishing. This, in turn, undermines the entire sector. How can we solve society’s thorniest problems if we ignore crucial perspectives and freeze out talent? How can we solve external social problems if we can’t even walk the walk in our own organizations? We can’t. We never will. That thought is terrifying.
While I was looking up diversity statistics, I also heard from some fascinating people about equity and inclusion. I got really excited when I heard about ways that inclusion can change some of our commonly-held assumptions about how the nonprofit sector “has” to work. It seems clear that a more inclusive sector will become a more innovative and more effective sector, as well. (See the Charity Village podcast link below, for example.) In other words, it doesn’t have to be discouraging and terrifying.
I also started thinking about some of the factors that promote a non-diverse, non-inclusive sector. As the 2008 HR Council report says, most nonprofits want to hire more newcomers and visible minorities. The sector has challenges with recruiting that also disproportionately affect people of colour.
Many of those challenges are related to the way non-profits are funded. If you’re a funder, here are a few common practices that may be inadvertently contributing to lack of diversity in the nonprofit workforce:
Offering wage subsidy programs and grants with no project ramp-up time. When new staff need to be recruited and hired on short notice, established networks and biases have more influence.
Overly-restricted funding and/or pressure to keep overhead “low”. If there is no capacity for employee development, training, job shadowing, or mentoring, it just won’t happen. That makes it hard for new people to break into a sector or grow into senior roles.
Unrealistic project deadlines. We all want social change and we all want it ASAP. But unrealistic deadlines make organizations and managers risk-averse. If there is no time for creativity and risk-taking, then organizations won’t feel secure enough to try doing anything differently.
Funding that limits spending on labour and human resources. Is a printed brochure really more powerful than a human being?
There are at least three things that funders could do that would dramatically and immediately increase a nonprofit’s attention to diversity and inclusion:
Provide multi-year project funding. This gives organizations a chance to recruit and nurture talent, and it gives candidates enough job security to take a chance on this risky sector.
Compare the salaries you’re funding against sector benchmarks. Ensure you are funding living wages for entry-level jobs and internships. Meet or beat industry-standard salary benchmarks for professional staff and show you value their work and humanity.
Ask the organizations you fund about their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. If one doesn’t have an immediate answer, give them a timeframe for getting back to you and/or earmark some of your project funds to support this work. You may be generating the motivation and capacity that they’ve been wanting so they can prioritize this work.
More reading/ listening:
The Nonprofit Racial Leadership Gap
Increasing Cultural Diversity in Canadian Nonprofits
3 Ways Nonprofit Boards can Mind the Diversity Gap
Time for Action: Boosting Diversity Within Canada’s Charities and Non-Profits
Dare to lead with Amal Elmi and Bailey Greenspon - A Charity Village podcast. See around 25:00 into the podcast for discussion directly related to this post. The rest is great, too.
Special Episode: Starting The Racism Conversation – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio