Let’s Talk About Diversity: Are We Making Any Progress in the Nonprofit Sector?

I had the opportunity to speak to a group of about 20 young women in the WeLEAD Program at the Women & Politics Institute at American University over the weekend. Thanks to Sabrina for inviting me! It was a great way to spend a Saturday morning speaking on a panel called “Minority Women in Politics and Leadership.” One of the questions from the audience was, “How do you deal with the isolation that comes with being the only person of color in your organization?” And it prompted me to share a story that resonated with many of the young women about my own experience with being the only black woman in my nonprofit. So I thought I’d share it with you dear readers as well.

A few weeks after coming onto the staff of the organization, we had a staff lunch and everyone was asked to go around the table and describe where they were from and what their parents did. I was immediately uncomfortable, since I knew my background was very different than my more privileged colleagues. Knowing that the truth was too personal to share, instead of telling my new co-workers I grew up in public housing – in the projects, came from a single parent home, and none of my family members had gone to anybody’s college, I lied my ass off. I told my fellow staff about my wonderful childhood and two very educated parents. All because I knew they just wouldn’t understand my perspective as a black person from a different socioeconomic place.

So I think it’s a good time as any to keep the discussion about the lack of racial diversity in nonprofits going on this blog. Last year, you dear readers may remember that I wrote a piece for the Stanford Social Innovation Blog called: Philanthropy Doesn’t Care About Black People. The blog sparked some rich discussion through over 50 comments at SSIR and was the most-read post of 2007. Obviously, many people in the sector are tired of living the lie we keep telling ourselves: that we are committed to diversity in our organizations and strive to reflect the communities we serve. Like the TV character Senator Clay Davis on The Wire would say so often: “Shiiiiiiit.” From where I sit in Washington, DC, our nonprofits are about as diverse as apple pie and baseball.

So the lack of racial diversity in nonprofit work is getting to be a huge topic. The philanthropic community in California has been all up in arms about AB 624, which would require them to report:

• the ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation of foundation board and staff members;
• the number of grants and grant dollars awarded to organizations reporting that 50% or more of their board or staff members are ethnic minorities;
• “the number of grants and grant dollars awarded to “organizations specifically serving African-American, Asian-American, Pacific Islander, Caucasian, Latino, Native American, and Alaskan Native communities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities and other underrepresented communities”
• “the number of grants and grant dollars awarded to predominantly low-income communities”; etc.

Well-meaning maybe, but many folks question the effectiveness of such legislation. The key point here is that people are starting to look at why nonprofits aren’t walking the talk of having diverse staff and boards. It’s just not happening, no matter how we want to spin it, as Jeanne Bell asserts in a recent Nonprofit Quarterly article quoting this blogger:

While the nonprofit sector regularly discusses and addresses programmatically issues of race and class, recent studies reveal a sharp disconnect between our values and our leadership’s demographics. Organizations that originate in, serve, and are led from within ethnic communities do an excellent job of developing constituency-reflective boards and staffs. The problem is with the rest of the sector.

The truth is that our lack of attention to—and expertise in—human resources management relative to other sectors means we have not gone about systematically attracting and retaining people of color as Fortune 500 companies have done for years.

So there it is folks. Nonprofits need to do a better job of recruiting people of color for leadership positions in the sector and we had better get a move on before legislators get all up in our business to do it for us.

I was also honored to be on the same program last Saturday as the incredible René Redwood, CEO of Redwood Enterprise, LLC and one of the nations’ foremost experts and advocates on diversity, “glass ceilings,” and affirmative action. René talked to the group about the state of diversity in organizations, saying that essentially we’ve moved beyond simple representation, it’s really about cultural proficiency and getting people of color into positions of leadership and influence. It’s simply not enough to have lots of Blacks and Latinos and Asians working in lower-level positions, there needs to be a way for our leadership skills to be recognized in terms of being the CEOs and VPs of the organizations.

What do YOU think? Are we moving the needle at all on progress in nonprofit leadership for people of color? Or do you think there is a glass ceiling in the sector?

I invite everyone to join me this Sunday for “More Diversity, Please,” a live podcast discussion about diversity in nonprofits this Sunday, April 27 6-7PM EST with special guests Eric Giles from the Nonprofit Roundtable, Rebecca Muse from the African American Nonprofit Network, and Keven Cotton from the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED).