Belts Tightened by Recession, Diversity Officers Stretch Resources

Hoping to build on its momentum after publishing a well-received report last year on race and poverty, Catholic Charities, in Alexandria, Va., set about reviving long-dormant “diversity councils” at its 174 member organizations. The employee councils would focus on ways to spread an emphasis on diversity throughout the charity’s work.

And then came last fall’s “economic surprise,” says the Rev. Clarence Williams, senior director of racial equality and diversity initiatives at the national group. He asked members, shaken by plummeting donations and spiraling demand for services, whether they could commit to sending employees for training sessions to start their diversity councils. Across the board, the answers came back: no.

Facing this sobering new reality, he says, demanded resourcefulness. “If people can’t come to us, let’s produce something to go to them,” Father Williams says.

He is currently assembling a “Web Academy” that will use materials prepared for previous training sessions on diversity issues. The academy, which will start offering monthly programs in October, he says, will also use online social networks to spread ideas.

Economy Forces Tradeoffs

In the past year and a half, some of America’s biggest charities have hired their first chief diversity officers and one of the very biggest, the American National Red Cross, has hired a new one. Those new officers, along with their veteran peers at other large nonprofit organizations (like Father Williams), are churning away on plans to make their charities more inclusive, more reflective of the people they serve, and better able to carry out their missions.

But the economy is changing the way these diversity managers work. Travel budgets have been slashed, forcing the managers to turn more often to the phone and the Web for consultations with and training of their organizations’ far-flung employees and constituents. And widespread layoffs and hiring freezes have shifted the focus of recruiting efforts from finding potential staff members to luring eager volunteers.

However, some diversity officers feel that this method may plant seeds that will bloom after the economy recovers.

“Talent is just one of those things you don’t want to take your eye off of, and we’re continuing to try to find ways to make sure we’ll be ready for the rebound,” says Deborah W. Foster, executive vice president of strategic alliances and inclusion at the United Way of America, in Alexandria, Va.

Technology’s Role

Trading in-person for online contact has both advantages and disadvantages, say diversity officers.

For example, at Catholic Charities, Father Williams says he worries about the impact of abandoning face-to-face meetings as he seeks to nurture the far-flung diversity councils. But, he adds, “as a one-person office, I can only do so much of that” anyway.

With the Web Academy, he says, quality and consistency of training can be more easily assured, and the sessions can be more easily shared among colleagues both within an organization and around the Catholic Charities system.

At the United Way of America, Ms. Foster says that exploiting technology has helped her department to broaden its reach. For example, this year the charity canceled its annual Inclusion Roundtable gathering, a multiday event that generally draws 200 to 300 people. Instead, she says, United Way started a Webinar series in July that will distribute the same content over the next six months.

“I have no doubt that we’re going to reach more people than the 300 we would have otherwise,” says Ms. Foster.

For national organizations, says Father Williams, putting diversity programs online can aid cash-strapped affiliates that might otherwise go without training at all. “It takes the stress off the local unit, because professional training is one of the first things to go, because it’s an advancement and they’re just trying to survive,” he says.

Two big charities — the American Red Cross and the American Cancer Society — have seen some major changes recently in their longstanding diversity efforts. (For more on the Cancer Society’s approach, got to http://philanthropy.com/extras.)

Floyd W. Pitts joined the American Red Cross as its senior vice president and chief diversity officer in November, during the heart of the worldwide economic crisis. With about a quarter-century of experience focusing on diversity issues in the for-profit world, he observes that his job and the Red Cross’s chief executive slot have both undergone significant turnover in recent years. (Last year, the national headquarters laid off roughly a third of its 3,000 workers, and the organization overall scrambled to close a $50-million budget gap.) Therefore, he says, his main focus is not only working efficiently but also building diversity programs that will last.

The key to achieving that sustainability, he says, is “buy-in.” He is currently seeking ideas from chapters and blood-donation facilities around the country and throughout the national organization’s headquarters in Washington.

“I do not intend to continue that tradition of high turnover; I plan to be here for a while,” says Mr. Pitts. But if he does leave his post for whatever reason, he says, he wants to make sure the programs he’s working on now continue.

He is also helping the Red Cross take a closer look at its allies. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, he says, establishing closer ties with minority communities became a central goal. The charity is examining its partnerships with local organizations, focusing on those that can truly help it carry out its mission most effectively. “We’re not interested in symbolic partnerships,” he says, but rather those that “can efficiently yield the intended result, both for the partner and for the American Red Cross.”

A Silver Lining

Building a pipeline of potential candidates for future job openings is central to the diversity efforts of two organizations — the Nature Conservancy and Teach for America — that have only recently started their diversity divisions.

“We are probably digging in and moving forward with more types of initiatives than in the past, despite the economy,” says Angela Cobb, who has served as Teach for America’s first chief diversity officer for about a year.

Though, like other organizations, hers is being choosier about underwriting travel, such restrictions have merely forced her department to think harder about how to accomplish its goals inexpensively. It has fired up efforts to spread its message in Spanish-language news media and at historically black colleges and those that serve many Hispanic students. The charity is also overseeing a pilot effort to start affinity groups, based on shared characteristics including race and ethnicity, among its 1,200 employees. It has created its first-ever steering committee composed of its managers who are minorities, seeking their counsel on a variety of issues, including mentoring employees and shaping the organization’s strategic plans.

The down economy — and the Obama administration’s call to service — present an opportunity for charities that seek ever-greater diversity in their ranks, says Ms. Cobb, who works from Chicago for the New York organization. This year, she notes, Teach for America got 35,000 applications to fill 4,000 teaching slots.

“People are stepping back, given all that’s gone on in the economy, and they’re actually considering career opportunities that they may never have considered in the past,” she says. “And so this is a window of opportunity for us to attract more of the best and brightest from diverse backgrounds to our work.”

Seizing Opportunities

In one case, a diversity department at a big nonprofit group is itself expanding.

At the Nature Conservancy, in Arlington, Va., VonGretchen C. Nelson — the group’s first diversity manager, and currently a department of one — is hoping to hire three additional staff members in the next six months.

Since she started work there more than a year ago, Ms. Nelson has created a diversity internship program, comprising 22 paid 10-week positions this summer, and an accompanying “buddy” program in which the charity’s employees volunteer to serve as mentors to the interns. She has also started a diversity recruitment and retention program, which gives her department input into hiring efforts.

Last winter, the charity began conducting informational sessions at some academic institutions whose student bodies are largely minorities. “We’re finding a lot of communities of color don’t know who [the Nature Conservancy] is,” she says. The organization’s chief executive, Ms. Nelson says, will be joining her at some of those sessions this fall.

Though the organization has had layoffs in recent months, Ms. Nelson says that there are still chances for recruiting — hiring replacements for workers who leave by attrition, finding workers for new programs that result from new grants, and diversifying the charity’s board.

A recession is no time to neglect diversity efforts, Ms. Nelson says. Hard times, she notes, “allow an organization to slow down to see what recruiting methods were in effect, what worked, what didn’t work. You have the opportunity to conduct surveys. You have the opportunity to focus on the people of color on your staff, making sure they are assigned mentors, they’re receiving all the training they need.”

In times like these, she says, “I do not think that diversity should be placed on the back burner.”