How Can Nonprofits Bridge The Gap Between Race and Leadership?
How Can Nonprofits Bridge The Gap Between Race and Leadership?
By Randi Williams- Relationship Manager
Insecure is a comedy-drama that aired on HBO for five seasons. Created by Issa Rae and Larry Wilmore, it followed the ebbs and flows of the life of a Black woman's personal and professional life. The initial seasons reflected how a Black woman (Issa) was working in a white-led/white space designed to assist underserved youth, primarily BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People Of Color).
One of the early seasons' main themes was that Issa was the sole representative of all people of color in a homogenous nonprofit. It also demonstrated the ignorance of her white counterparts at work, who did not see the organization's and its leaders' problematic nature. While the show provided many comical work situations for the character, it also provided a platform for an authentic problem within the nonprofit community–the lack of diversity and the need for systemic change within the sector.
Many of non-BIPOC individual come into nonprofits with a certain level of naivety and a doe-eyed idea of the inclusiveness and diversity of working in the nonprofit sector and the unified vision to change the world. However, the numbers reveal a deficit in diversity and inclusion in the industry, specifically regarding nonprofit boards and leadership.
In 2019, roughly 87% of nonprofit CEOs in the U.S. were white; similarly, 78% of nonprofit board members were white.
The lack of diversity in these positions highlights a significant concern within the sector, specifically regarding nonprofits whose mission involves serving underrepresented and underserved communities.
In 2019, The Building Movement Project released the Race To Lead report, which provided critical findings for nonprofit leadership and diversity. Some of these findings include the following:
People of color and whites have similar experiences, education, and years working within the nonprofit sector
Among the survey respondents, people of color often stated they wanted to become leaders in their field
Most of respondents believe recruiters don't do enough to find a diverse pool of qualified candidates for leadership positions
There is great concern regarding predominate white boards that do not support or recognize the leadership potential of BIPOC staff
More than ⅓ of BIPOC survey respondents have experienced tokenizing and microaggressions from co-workers
More than ⅓ of BIPOC survey respondents report that they have been expected, more than whites, to represent their entire community and culture
The term Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) has recently transformed from important work happening on the fringe to a trendy set of buzzwords. However, we are not seeing the reflection of these added committees and job titles reflected in the placement of leadership and board positions. How do nonprofit organizations change the narrative?
The ball is in the nonprofit leadership, management, and board’s court. Recognition and acknowledgment that there are systemic barriers for BIPOC nonprofit professionals is a critical step to moving forward as a sector–acknowledging that the "bootstrap" mentality of capitalism and the Industrial Nonprofit Complex is rooted in white privilege and supremacy.
What can leaders do? Start with self-reflection.
Look Internally - Understanding your own implicit and unconscious biases.
The first steps taken within your organization should be to actively identify the biases within your team, individually and collectively, and listen to your team's thoughts on how your organization can impprove its existing DEI stances. Where do you currently stand, and where do you want to go as an organization?
KEY:
Make sure you are giving a voice
to underrepresented groups
within your organization
and leadership is ACTIVELY listening.
Biases - unconscious and conscious - can make people feel targeted, alone, and excluded. Unconscious bias, also referred to as implicit bias, is a term that describes the assumption and/or associations that exist outside of our conscious awareness. It is the unintentional preferences or prejudices towards an individual based on specific characteristics, such as gender, sexuality, age, ethnicity, disability, body size, culture, race, political affiliation, religious identity, and even socioeconomic class. This bias means that there is an automatic perception of a person, either positive or negative, based on a specific characteristic, which can sway our judgments about someone.
Encourage your leadership and management team to partake in inventories to help identify, such as the Intercultural Development Inventory, to assist your organization in building intercultural awareness and competence. This tool assesses the ability to shift cultural perspective and appropriately adapt behavior to cultural differences and commonalities (idiinventory.com).
An alternative tool is Project Implicit. This tool measures the strength of associations between concepts (e.g., race, gender identity, etc.) and evaluations (e.g., good vs. bad) and stereotypes (e.g., intelligent, clumsy, athletic).
DEI Consultants and Analytics
Make sure your organization utilizes the expertise of trained and certified DEI consultants; while doing so, strive to find companies that are BIPOC or woman-owned and managed (i.e., don't make this decision to implore broadening your organization's scope of DEI for staff and then hire a white hetero-presenting man to be your consultant). You need someone with not just academic and best-practice knowledge, but the life and work experience who can address the hard questions and push your team to do better.
Hiring, developing, supporting, promoting, and retaining Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) leaders is a vital requirement in the push for systemic change. What are your organization's recruitment strategies? Are you actively seeking diversity among your candidates? Ensuring that you are analyzing your job descriptions to encourage and promote your organization's focus on diversity, Equity, accessibility, and inclusion is essential. For instance, establishing relationships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) or connecting with local LBGTQIA+ networking groups.
Lastly, I understand the paradox of this blog post being written by a white woman. Hence, I want to share blog resources on this topic from underrepresented communities who are far better versed than I will ever be.
Nonprofit Leadership Is Out of Step with America’s Changing Demographics, Faith Mitchell
How To Foster Stronger, More Diverse Nonprofit Leadership, Kevin Xu