Image vs. Reality

The nonprofit world’s ideal of inclusion is still a dream for many organizations

Charities dedicated to the notion of making the world a better place —

and foundations devoted to supporting those efforts — would seem to be obvious places to put the principles of diversity and inclusion into practice. But all too often, they are not.

“Nonprofits have an ‘I gave at the office’ attitude toward diversity,” says Paul Schmitz, president of Public Allies, in Milwaukee, which trains young people for careers in social change. “Because they serve diverse communities and have relationships with diverse communities, they think they’re diverse. But that’s not diversity.”

Some recent evidence that the nonprofit world is still grappling to put its ideals into action include:

• Eighty-two percent of chief executives in a survey of 2,000 nonprofit leaders around the country are white, according to a study last year by CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, in San Francisco, and the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, in Washington. The study also found the same percentage of leaders younger than 45 were white. By contrast, 67 percent of the nation is white, according to current U.S. Census figures.
• Foundations are even more likely to be headed by someone who is not a member of a minority group — 94.2 percent of chief executives at grant-making organizations are white, according to 2006 statistics from the Council on Foundations. Fifty-five percent of those leaders are female, and women make up three-quarters of full-time, paid foundation employees, the council reports. Nearly 77 percent of foundation workers are white.
• At the nation’s charities, 86 percent of board members are white, according to a study released by the Urban Institute in June.
• The larger an organization is, the less likely it is to be headed by a woman. Female executives led half of all nonprofit groups with budgets of $1-million or less, but only 34 percent of organizations with budgets bigger than $1-million, according to a study of 2005 data conducted by GuideStar, a group in Williamsburg, Va., that collects financial information about charities and foundations. Only a quarter of groups with budgets of more than $50-million are led by women, reports GuideStar.

And yet, achieving diversity is about more than simply “counting and compliance,” says Deborah W. Foster, executive vice president for strategic alliances and inclusion at the United Way of America, in Alexandria, Va.

“Diversity is basically the differences,” she says. “It exists no matter what. In any room, people have different opinions, they have different backgrounds.”

Battling Myths

The trick, says Mr. Schmitz and other nonprofit leaders, is to include that human variety in the work of organizations in real and lasting ways, rather than settling for token gestures.

“If your answer is, ‘I need a person of color,’ then your whole system is the problem,” says Mr. Schmitz, who chairs the committee on diversity and inclusion for the Nonprofit Sector Workforce Coalition, an umbrella that includes more than 60 groups, such as America’s Second Harvest and the Humane Society of the United States.

His group, Public Allies, runs an apprenticeship program that prepares participants for nonprofit leadership roles. About 70 percent of the apprentices, he says, are members of minority groups. And about 80 percent of the program’s alumni are now employed at charitable organizations.

Mr. Schmitz balks at the excuses he hears from other employers about why they can’t recruit a more heterogenous work force — such as, he says, the notion that qualified, nonwhite job applicants are scarce and so aggressively courted that budget-conscious nonprofit groups don’t have a chance to woo them. “Like the pool is finite,” he says.

Starting a Dialogue

However a nonprofit organization seeks to make itself more inclusive of the people it serves, its efforts must be firmly tied to its mission, says Ms. Foster. “If this is just about being able to fill out a form and say, ‘We’ve got this many and that many,’ don’t do it,” she says. “You’ve got to believe this is going to make your work more successful and have a better result.”

Dialogue is one way to start making nonprofit organizations more reflective of — and thus responsive to — their communities. Events like Hurricane Katrina and the Jena Six case have revealed an urgent need for conversations about social and racial inequities, says Tangie Newborn, executive director of the Alliance for Nonprofit Management, in Washington.

In 2003, the group started a Cultural Competency Initiative, which includes an institute, now in its second year, that runs training sessions to help its members, the consultants who help charities grow and thrive, to better understand people of different cultural backgrounds. Four grant makers — the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Citigroup Foundation, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and the UPS Foundation — are giving a total of $100,000 in the current year to support the effort, says Ms. Newborn.

“We need to move quickly in having more conversations,” she says. “And it’s going to take more leadership, on all levels.”

But some people say nonprofit groups need to do more listening as well as talking. For instance, grant makers should seek suggestions from minority-led charities, religious leaders, and others on their diversity programs, says Lori Villarosa, director of the Philanthropic Institute for Racial Equity, in Washington. “There are some that are really focused more on foundations talking to other foundations,” she says.

The good news, says Ms. Foster, is that charities and grant makers may already have many of the tools in place to forge a more inclusive future: “There are a lot of things that nonprofits are doing that they can build upon.”

Ian Wilhelm contributed to this article.

HOW NONPROFIT CEO’S COMPARE WITH AMERICA’S POPULATION Nonprofit chief executives Population of the United States, 2005 Female 66% 51% Male 34% 49% White 82% 67% Black 7% 13% Hispanic 4% 14% Asian/Pacific Islander 4% 5% Other 3% 3% NOTE: Because of rounding, figures may not add up to 100 percent. SOURCE: CompassPoint Nonprofit Services and U.S. Census GRANT MAKERS AND DIVERSITY: HOW FOUNDATION LEADERSHIP HAS CHANGED All Full-Time Chief Executive Officers 1982 2006 Female 26% 55% Male 74% 45% White 98% 94% Minority 2% 6% All Full-Time Program Officers 1985 2006 Female 61% 74% Male 39% 26% White 85% 65% Minority 15% 35% All Board Members 1982 2004 Female 23% 36% Male 77% 64% White 96% 88% Minority 4% 12% SOURCE: Council on Foundations