May 6, 1999 | Read Time: 1 minute
The Challenge of Achieving Pluralism: A Two-Pronged Approach for Values-Driven Organizations, by Judith Y. Weisinger and Paul F. Salipante, is a working paper from Yale University’s Program on Non-Profit Organizations that examines the problems that non-profit groups face when bringing together people of differing backgrounds. The authors studied this “pursuit of pluralism” at the Girl Scouts of the USA, interviewing staff members and volunteers at the national headquarters and analyzing statistics on volunteerism by ethnic minority-group members at a Girl Scout council in metropolitan Cleveland. Ms. Weisinger, assistant professor of human resources at Northeastern University, in Boston, and Mr. Salipante, professor of labor and human-resource policy at Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, write that traditional methods of inclusion, in which minority-group members are often introduced into groups where they become token representatives, are insufficient. The authors suggest a two-step solution. They first encourage organizations to be more aggressive in recruiting minority volunteers, to the point that they form racially homogenous groups. Second, the authors say that those groups should then unite to work in projects that can benefit the entire organization — or what the authors deem working under the “superordinate organizational identity.” In this manner, the authors write, racial awareness becomes secondary to the effort to achieve a common goal. Publisher: PONPO, Yale University, 409 Prospect Street, New Haven, Conn. 06511; (203) 432-6297; fax (203) 432-6591; e-mail ponpo@yale.edu; World-Wide Web http://www.yale.edu/divinity/ponpo; 41 pages; $4.50; ask for Working Paper No. 256.
