How Nonprofits Can Better Address Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)

Every other week the Resilia team and community get together for Ask Us Anything - an open, informal conversation where our community members can do just that - ask us anything - about  their nonprofit needs. Last week we had another great session with our community and nonprofit experts about How Nonprofits Can Better Address Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, with guests Senior Director of Institutional Partnerships Paul Towne and People Operations Manager, Liz Christine Santos. Our nonprofit founders brought great energy and honest questions, and our team of experts shared their valuable insight and advice. 

From how to ensure your board and staff recruitment includes DEI practices to identifying and maintaining awareness of biases, we’ve got the top takeaways from Ask Us Anything: How Nonprofits Can Better Address Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

How can a nonprofit go about opening its board recruitment and staff pipeline to talented candidates from among underrepresented groups?

When we’re thinking about DEI, the first step always has to be to take a step back. To ask, where are we recruiting from and what are our goals? What does diversity mean to your board? What does your board or team currently have in terms of identity and their life and professional experiences? After taking that step back and asking, what do we have and what do we need, then create a really thoughtful plan. A plan that includes new resources that maybe you’ve never recruited from, and think of who is in your network and how you can leverage your network to expand your pipeline, said Liz.

What is your advice for organization’s new to ‘DEI’?

It’s helpful to do research. There are organizations that publicize their DEI strategies and the way they work in a really thoughtful way. You can find that from - large to small organizations. And have those conversations within leadership and the entire team about what does diversity and inclusion mean to us? Before we can say these are our five goals, ask where are we right now? How does our staff feel in terms of inclusion? From there, after doing your research, after thinking through what does this mean to you, and gathering data on where you are, then you can create a plan.

How do we prevent ourselves and staff members from being biased to others from issues we experienced in our own past?

We all have experiences and no one will ever be unbiased. You can go through a million unbiased training sessions. You can attend so many different workshops and seminars, but you are an individual with your life experiences, so you will always have some type of biases, but that doesn’t mean there’s not work to do. Having small group discussions is a really productive way to take it on. Having someone champion unbiased work at an organization is crucial. It can be hard to ask 30, 40, 50, 60 people to be champions at working in their bias, but when you have one person or a couple people who can take on research and coachings and training people on the team, then you have that ownership in place, and I’ve seen that be successful.

For a brand spanking new nonprofit, just starting out, what is the best way to infuse DEI practices from the very start?

Values. As you are creating your mission statement, infuse it in your values for your organization. That’s where it’s the umbrella element of your organization and you’re putting that out everywhere and that’s a great place to start. Before you get tactical, having some language to ground your work in. Also, who do you admire? What are organizations that you think are doing it right? Beg, borrow, and steal from them. You don’t have to recreate the wheel. If there are organizations out there that you feel are addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion in really positive ways, look at how they’re communicating. You always want to make it applicable to your own environment, but you can draw inspiration from a lot of others out there that are doing great work, even within the Resilia community. I think the folks here have a lot of really valuable insights to share.

How do you approach DEI conversations where personal identities may result in different experiences in these dialogues?

When you’re having these conversations, you’re never approaching it as a presumption. You’re always approaching it as a learning opportunity. “Being vulnerable and asking questions can be difficult and can feel uncomfortable, and at the end of the day asking questions and just trying to learn about their experience is really important,” said Paul.

One question that I was asked at a conference that really resonated with me as an introduction was “Tell me about who your people are.” Because I think that can be really inclusive. It can be about the family you’re born into. It could be about your chosen family. It could be about the community you live in now. It can tap into a lot of different things around your identity, and not make you feel forced into a box. I felt like that was a good way to get at the similarities and differences we have in a non threatening way, Paul said.

How can we facilitate learning about teams’ unconscious biases?

There are informal, authentic, personable resources available for people to be able to learn about their unconscious biases that you can tap into. And from there, have small group discussions, and have check ins with people. Don't dive into an activity and then completely never return to it. Return to see how people are doing. And check in with them and check in with people and their interactions with others. We can’t take on the DEI work without taking on our unconscious bias. If you missed this Ask Us Anything, be sure to join the Resilia Community to ensure you receive information about the next #AskUsAnything event.