May 25, 2017 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Title: “Beyond Diversity”
Organization: Green 2.0
Summary: Environmental groups care about diversity in their organizations but tend to take a haphazard approach, according to a new report published Thursday. Green 2.0 is a coalition of nonprofit, foundation, and academic leaders that hopes greater data transparency will help.
The study, “Beyond Diversity,” used interviews and surveys to measure attitudes and practices regarding staff, management, and boards at dozens of environmental nonprofits and foundations and the search firms they use for hiring services.
Accompanying the study is a scorecard of data about racial and gender diversity among staff, management, and trustees at the 40 environmental nonprofits that receive the most grants. The information was based on organizations’ voluntary submissions to GuideStar as of April 1. Some organizations, such as the Pew Charitable Trusts and Oceana, declined to provide data, while several others, including Population Action International and Alaska Wilderness League, don’t track the requested information.
Race and Gender
The percentages of people of color at the 40 groups included in the scorecard varied widely. It was highest at Green for All, a nonprofit that aims to serve that demographic. There, people of color made up 70 percent of full-time employees, 67 percent of senior staff members, and 67 percent of board members.
A handful of organizations reported all-white senior management teams.
Women made up the majority of employees at more than half of the organizations but only reached parity with men on a few boards.
Some other findings over all:
- Among full-time employees, 27 percent were people of color and 27 percent were women.
- Among senior staff members, 14 percent were people of color and 24 percent were women.
- Among board members, 23 percent were people of color and 14 percent were women.
Increasing Diversity
The majority of nonprofits, foundations, and search firms surveyed said they believed increasing diversity would lead to better relations between employees and managers and could also attract members of marginalized communities to environmental advocacy efforts.
According to previous research cited in the report, the most effective way to increase the number of people of color in positions of leadership is to create a diversity committee assigned to monitor progress. The next most effective way is to hire a diversity manager, followed by creating a diversity plan.
Among study participants:
- 53 percent of nonprofits and 44 percent of foundations had diversity committees.
- 26 percent of nonprofits and 13 percent of foundations had diversity managers. Most of those positions had been created within the last three years. Few of them focused on increasing diversity among senior staff positions.
- 39 percent of nonprofits and foundations had diversity plans.
- 11 percent of nonprofits and 19 percent of foundations had formal mentoring programs.
