Opinion Blog : Entries Tagged With 'diversity'
| June 30, 2008 06:00 AM |
Compromise Might Greatly Diversify Leadership of California Foundations and NonprofitsIn a compromise announced last Monday, California foundations and legislators agreed to scuttle AB 624, a controversial California bill aimed at disclosing the ethnicity and gender of foundation board members. The compromise preserves the possibility that funders and advocates may cooperate to find better ways philanthropy can serve communities of color, and may also spur similar accords in other states. Under the compromise, a coalition of 10 leading foundations pledged to:
The 10 foundation coalition members, seven of which are headquartered in Southern California, include: The Ahmanson Foundation, The California Wellness Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The Annenberg Foundation, UniHealth Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Ralph M. Parsons Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The California Endowment, and the Weingart Foundation. All involved – the Greenlining Institute, whose series of studies led to the bill’s introduction, Senator Coto, the bill’s sponsor, and the foundation coalition – deserve praise for this result. With Governor Schwarzenegger likely to veto the bill, each of the parties could have held firm and claimed victory later for standing on principle. Rather than let the perfect be the enemy of the good, they chose to try something workable that, if implemented well, can go a long way toward broadening and deepening diverse leadership in foundations and nonprofits. If the ultimate goal of the bill was to increase benefits from philanthropy flowing to either communities of color or low- income communities, then there is still much work to be done. Even if the capacity building called for in the compromise flawlessly succeeds, there will continue to be a need for better data on the reach of philanthropy in communities of color. (A key weakness in the bill is that it did not require the collection of information that would establish who actually is served by grant dollars, as I argued here.) Such data would help funders assess and improve their grant making, as well as enable advocates and public officials to be better informed and targeted in their critiques. With a modest investment of time and resources, we can determine which census tracts are served by which organizations, and map the amount of grant dollars relative to the numbers of people living in an area or, more specifically, the particular characteristics of people actually served. This is not a technological pipedream; HealthCity.org, a partnership of nonprofits in Los Angeles sponsored by the Advancement Project, already has built tools and methods for making the flow of grant dollars visible, for several public agencies and private funders, to help them assess their grants in Los Angeles County and throughout California.* Ironically, grants promoting systems change to benefit low- income communities, an increasing trend among many of the foundations involved in the compromise, will be harder to map, but this difficulty can be solved. A good starting data universe is the grants of the compromise sponsors, perhaps with a few more of the state’s largest funders added. It makes sense to stick with grantees from this pilot set of funders for a couple years or more to evaluate both the usefulness and costs of this approach (the number of new grantee service areas that would need to be geo coded would drop, and the higher initial costs of the system could be smoothed over the period). To get beyond the initial set of grants from a small group of leading foundations, we’d need to make the grants data already disclosed by foundations more accessible to advocates, and supplement that with data about the geographic and demographic reach of those grant funds. This likely would mean bringing the grants databases out from behind the firewalls of services like the Foundation Center or Foundation Search, or paying the costs of providing free public access to that data (as I argued in this space previously). My thoughts are just informed speculation, and there may be better ways to get a handle on which communities actually are served by the grants made by, and leadership developed by, foundations like the compromise sponsors. However, it should be clear that a well-designed system couldn’t very well be mandated in advance through legislation. With this compromise under their belt, advocates for more responsive grant making, like Greenlining and others, and leaders of foundations in California (and elsewhere), have preserved the time and space to explore these possibilities.
Posted by Kelsey Walker
0 Comment(s) -
 View/Post Comments
|
|---|---|
| September 18, 2008 08:30 AM |
Letter to John D. Mcllguham, Publisher of The NonProfit Times and the 2008 Power & Influence Top 50Heather Carpenter’s list of next generation leaders inspired me last week. But when I saw the official NonProfit Times Power & Influence Top 50, I got so riled up that I wrote a letter to the publisher. There were barely any people of color on that list, and I feel that it is really time for us to start pointing that out when we see it, instead of just saying “well, that’s the way it is.” Below is the letter I emailed to John McIlquham, the publisher of The NonProfit Times. Hopefully he will write me back. In the meantime, please help me add to my list in the comments, so we can all learn from each other about the depth of multicultural leadership in our sector. How do we pay this forward so that we can begin to build a culture of honoring contributions from people of color in the nonprofit field? Dear John, Like my colleagues in the nonprofit field, I am an avid reader of The NonProfit Times, as the “premier business publication written for nonprofit executives.” As your Web site notes, The NonProfit Times reaches 38,000 executive decision makers, and we all appreciate the timely information that is presented in each issue. That is why it shocked me to see that http://fromthepipeline.blogspot.com/
Posted by Kelsey Walker
2 Comment(s) -
View/Post Comments
|
| October 2, 2008 11:00 AM |
Diversity Is Everyone’s BusinessI had the opportunity to speak at the National Human Services Assembly Summit last week on the topic, “Responding to the Diversity Gap” along with Carolyn Creager, director of the Multicultural Executive Development Program of the National YMCA. The theme underlying our discussion was that society is changing all around us, yet the nonprofit sector isn’t keeping pace with the cultural shift in America, nor making enough of an effort to recruit, retain, and promote people of color to top executive positions in our field. The reality is that the current racial makeup of this country is changing, and as nonprofits we have to think about who we will be serving, and who will be leading. I know you saw this in The New York Times: “Ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the nation’s population in a little more than a generation, according to new Census Bureau projections, a transformation that is occurring faster than anticipated just a few years ago. The census calculates that by 2042, Americans who identify themselves as Hispanic, Black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander will together outnumber non-Hispanic whites. Four years ago, officials had projected the shift would come in 2050.” I also shared some up-to-date stats about the current racial makeup of nonprofit leadership, as well as my disappointment with the lack of people of color who are being recognized for their contributions. I think everyone agreed that we need to promote sweeping changes in nonprofit culture regarding diversity issues. My aim was to remind the audience that all of us in that room were agents of nonprofit culture, and there were many things we could each do individually and collectively to raise the issue of multicultural leadership at every opportunity we get. In that room were CEOs, VPs, directors of mostly national organizations, and I know they each sit on some committee, board of directors, or taskforce where their voice is influential to others in our sector. If in fact we are concerned about increasing the racial diversity of nonprofit leadership, we need to put our money where our mouths are and start taking some risks, personally and institutionally, to make that happen. What role can we each play as an agent of nonprofit culture to change the game? A few ideas we discussed:
We ARE nonprofit culture, and it is up to us to be the change we wish to see. AFP’s magazine, Advancing Philanthropy, has a great article in the current issue about the importance of having lunch with someone of another culture to get to know people outside your usual networks. I think that’s a great idea. But I also think we each can use our voices to motivate others in our organizations and across the field. You CAN take action today: Write a short email to the Nonprofit Times editor to express your support for an open nominations process in their selection of the annual Power and Influence Top 50 list of nonprofit leaders. Tell them you want to see their publication reflect the racial diversity of leadership within our sector! Send an email to Paul Clolery at: ednchief@nptimes.com or call him at: (973) 401-0202 Ext 211. Together we can change our culture, one step at a time. I share my presentation with you here so that it might spark some thoughts of your own. What are your ideas about individual and collective action we all can take to make diversity everyone’s business?
Posted by Kelsey Walker
1 Comment(s) -
View/Post Comments
|
| February 12, 2009 01:00 PM |
Why I Wish Nonprofits Would Stop Using the Word ‘Minorities’We’ve got to stop using the word “minorities” to describe the communities we serve. It doesn’t have any value. It never has. I’ve been thinking a lot about language lately. How it can inspire or enrage, clarify or condemn. The English major in me wants to take a red pen to all the useless jargon we promote in our organizations, starting with how we talk about the people we serve. Because part of the role of nonprofits, I believe, is not only to drive social change, but to also reframe the way America looks at social problems. For years, we’ve made a pity party out of the fact that “XX percent of the people we serve are minorities” as if this were in itself a reason to support our cause. One of my first jobs was as a grantwriter for a small community development agency. Way back when I literally knew nothing about nonprofits or philanthropy, it baffled me as to why our grant language was littered with terminology about “serving minorities” and helping “at-risk youth.” A minority compared to whom? At-risk of what, exactly? A better term to use that is highly regarded by academics is “people of color” which encompasses all people who are non-white. It’s a term that I prefer, and one you’ll notice me using a lot here on this blog. The term “people of color” has a more positive connotation than “minorities.” “People of color” have cultural significance, while “minorities” conjure up images of people that are worth less than the majority, marginalized, minor. As an African American, I’ve never wanted to be known by a term that makes me feel like I don’t matter. That reminds me I’m not majorly important just because of my race. Many nonprofits use the word “minorities” as a blanket term to indicate that they provide services for underrepresented groups including African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and so on. Why don’t we just be specific and name the communities we serve rather than being lazy with it? In Washington, DC, many nonprofits serve 100 percent African Americans. Much better to say that than to call your youth or homeless clients “ethnic minorities.” It means nothing except to connote a group of people that get stuck on the bottom of society’s shoe. Anyway, as we know in this country the minority is becoming the majority. As the New York Times has reported: Ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the nation’s population in a little more than a generation, according to new Census Bureau projections, a transformation that is occurring faster than anticipated just a few years ago. The census calculates that by 2042, Americans who identify themselves as Hispanic, black, Asian, American Indian, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander will together outnumber non-Hispanic whites. Four years ago, officials had projected the shift would come in 2050. As the times change, we might as well get rid of the antiquated language that remains a huge barrier to our cultural competence.
Posted by Kelsey Walker
2 Comment(s) -
View/Post Comments
|
| February 27, 2009 11:00 AM |
Creating the Safe Space to Talk About Race in the Nonprofit SectorHere in America, we’ve had several opportunities to discuss race since the election of our nation’s first African American President:
I don’t need to tell you how disappointed I’ve been after reading the commentary these events have prompted. Or maybe I do. For the most part, this nationwide conversation about race that we’ve been having very reluctantly has also been approached in some of the most demeaning ways, namely this editorial by one Heather Mac Donald. The idea that we are moving “past race” in any way because we have a Black President has only served to bring to light the reality of just how marginalized people of color are in this country, and even in our very own nonprofit sector. I’ll be interested to see how many nonprofit conferences this year take diversity off the agenda, now that California foundations have agreed to invest more in “minorities.” I’m not saying we should drop everything and run around hooping & hollering about race and diversity. We all have competing priorities in the work we do on a daily basis. But as agents of change and the keepers of our nonprofit culture, we do need to make it a point to consider race & diversity in every decision we make, or don’t make, in our work. I know it is hard to talk about race. It will not get easier. It is hard and it will not get easier no matter how much we want to believe whomever is telling us that we are “post-race.” I’m under no illusion that when you see me walk into the room, you no doubt see my skin color. That inconvenient truth is what drives these statistics on leadership in the nonprofit sector: 82 percent of nonprofit CEOs are White, 94 percent of foundation presidents are White, and 86 percent of board members are White. In order to change that, we need to be able to talk about it. Without being dismissive or demeaning. This is our opportunity to show that we as a nonprofit sector can do better than mainstream America on this issue. I’m always disappointed when discussions about diversity at nonprofit conferences are so sparsely attended. People don’t come for many different reasons, but mainly because they are afraid. So we need to do a better job of creating the kind of safe space to have conversations about race in a productive way. If you attend a conference, meeting, training, or dialogue about race, diversity, or inclusion, please know that you are the right person in the room at the right time. It’s important to remember that talking about race is difficult, but that to learn anything, you must move past the discomfort to fully participate. I believe that deep down, what we all want is to find a place where we can engage together and make meaning out of this thing called history. We’re all searching for that sweet poetry that lies beneath the work that we are called to do. We want to overcome our own personal issues with race and be reminded of the common values that brought us to nonprofit work in the first place. We need to know that we are kept in a safe place where we’re free to put our hopes and dreams out on the table and co-create something new and real once it’s all said and done. Talking about race and how to increase the diversity of our sector is still an important conversation to have. We also need to define in a real way what can and cannot come into the room when we talk about race. If the room were a poem, it might look like this: Excuses cannot come into the room New ideas can enter the room What are your ideas for creating a safe place to talk about race in the nonprofit sector?
Posted by Kelsey Walker
0 Comment(s) -
View/Post Comments
|
| August 20, 2007 07:00 PM |
Notes on Robert Putnam’s “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century”
2. It’s an excellent article; a thought provoking read. Apart from a dicey section on the multivariate analysis of data to control for the effect of certain variables, the study is completely accessible to non-experts. Don’t make the same mistake as 98 percent of the people who are currently dismissing Putnam’s results: read the article for yourself. 3. An aside: More interesting than Putnam’s article, in my view, has been the sociology of its reception. There’s a palpable hesitancy, in polite liberal circles, to bring up the subject. First, it’s never his article, but rather somebody’s gloss on it that my colleagues suggest I read. Second, no person of conscience broaches the subject of Putnam’s article unless, in the same breath, he also recommends a book or article that purports to advance a countervailing thesis. Putnam’s work is clearly radioactive. 4. Never fear the truth, whatever it might be. 5. Putnam’s article might ultimately rival Christine Letts’s “Virtuous Capital” for the volume of eyebrow-raising commentary it will generate—much of it, I predict, involving a great deal of hand-wringing. 6. Liberals are in some ways hoist on their own petard: Putnam uses variation in ethnic/racial category as a proxy for “diversity.” This is what I sometimes refer to as the Whitman’s Sampler Model of diversity, an impoverished notion that enables well-meaning liberals to declare victory when they have “one of these, one of these, and one of those” on their staff or on their board. 7. Putnam’s results will play handily to those conservatives who believe that self-segregation works with, rather than against, “the grain of human nature.” We hear this kind of argument in apologetics for “a conservatism comfortable with materialist self-interest.” These same conservatives will likely pass over in silence those sections of the article that review the many benefits of increased immigration and diversity, among them: greater creativity; better, faster problem-solving; and more rapid economic growth, among others. Putnam never argues that diversity is, on balance, a bad thing. 8. Putnam’s results discredit the idea that greater diversity is correlated with increased inter-ethnic hostility. He stresses that “[d]iversity seems to trigger not in-group/out-group division, but anomie or social isolation.” To put it another way, “In more diverse settings, Americans distrust not merely people who do not look like them, but even people who do.” 9. Putnam points out that:
What would these further studies likely reveal? 10. Finally, and most importantly in my opinion, Putnam doesn’t argue that we can’t learn to respond to ethnic and racial diversity better than we currently do. We’re not fated forever to wallow in our ignorance and respond irrationally to fear of the “other,” however much recent history has inclined us to this view.
Posted by Albert Ruesga
5 Comment(s) -
View/Post Comments
|
| October 22, 2007 12:01 PM |
Philanthropy Doesn’t Care About Black People
Pablo Eisenberg says that leadership and challenge go hand in hand. So, if our current leaders never had to face the kind of challenges that go along with being a person of color in a community of great poverty, but are then tasked with paving the way for change in these same communities, who’s zooming who? If we are, in fact, buying into the idea that a White leadership pool is more desirable than one that is racially diverse, are we really getting anywhere with our goals of solving the kinds of problems that could benefit from leaders with first-hand knowledge of the issues? The nonprofit sector needs to recognize that people of color are often still seen as takers of handouts and charity instead of as empowered and valuable citizens, and having White leaders of philanthropic organizations only reinforces this notion and does more harm than good. There are many other reasons to promote diversity within nonprofit leadership that we could name here, but the point is that it’s clear we need to start openly talking about these reasons more so that we can begin to truly open up our boardrooms and executive positions to different kinds of leaders. Right now I definitely think there’s space and opportunity for some real inquiry within the nonprofit sector. We need to ask ourselves some hard questions: (Photo courtesy blackpeopleloveus.com.)
Posted by Katie Harrington
59 Comment(s) -
View/Post Comments
|
Peter Manzo is the director of strategic initiatives for the 
Rosetta Thurman is an emerging nonprofit leader of color working and living in the Washington, DC area. She holds a Master’s degree in Nonprofit Management and blogs about nonprofit leadership and management issues at 
1. In case you haven’t heard all the hoopla, sociologist Robert Putnam, most famous for his book 
Albert Ruesga blogs about nonprofits, foundations, and civil society at 
The October 18 issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy confirmed what we in the nonprofit sector already knew: the nonprofit and philanthropic sector doesn’t do a very good job at this thing called diversity. Though the foundation world would have us believe that much progress is being made with the emergence of giving circles and donor communities of color, the reality is that it’s high time for the nonprofit sector to put race on the table. In fact, I titled this post as such because the expanded, cop-out definitions of diversity that include gender, religion, disability, and sexual orientation allow organizations to avoid the topic of race and pay lip service to the issue instead of making real cultural changes. Some food for thought: