Sex Abuse Is Draining Nonprofits of Dedicated Workers. Here’s a Solution.

Thirty-eight years ago, my father held me in his arms as the earth rumbled. From hundreds of miles away, he could see the billowing clouds of Mount St. Helens. Ash rained down over the state; lava reshaped the landscape. I couldn’t help but think of this as I stumbled on a quote from Ursula Le Guin that uncannily described my experience as a nonprofit founder coming forward with my #MeToo story.

In a speech at Bryn Mawr’s commencement, she wrote:

“When women speak truly, they speak subversively — they can’t help it: If you’re underneath, if you’re kept down, you break out, you subvert. We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains. That’s what I want — to hear you erupting. You young Mount St. Helenses who don’t know the power in you — I want to hear you.”

In my desire to change how the nonprofit world works, I told my own experiences to the Huffington Post, noting that a prominent man in my specialty area — open-government technology — had attempted to rape me and then characterized the episode as nothing more than an unprofessional sexual relationship of mutual consent when our career paths crossed again. He has since been accused by other women of sexual harassment.

Just as difficult to bear as the attack itself was the fact that it appears people who played an influential role in my career industry believed my attacker’s false and sexualizing accusations about my character.

What precipitated his verbal attacks on me was that I privately asked not to be seated near him during a two-day meeting of nonprofit and foundation executives in my field. Even though I had previously reported my experience to people who worked in my field, the only result of my actions was that I felt sidelined instead of supported.

It was a headwind that a young nonprofit founder shouldn’t have to contend with, nor should anyone else. Yet my attacker found jobs at other nonprofits.

Outside of this immediate network, my work received funding and support. Meanwhile, I’ve spoken with over 100 people in my field since the Huffington Post published my story. The majority of the professionals I spoke with told me their careers and workplaces had been affected by similar behavior by colleagues.

Unwitting Accomplices

Now that more of us are speaking up about what went wrong, the real question is this: Will foundation and nonprofit leaders take the steps necessary to ensure that nonprofits are more equitable, accessible, and inclusive — or will they simply dig up and displace the new ground, leaving the old terrain exactly as it was?

If you want the nonprofit world to be shaped by smart, talented, visionary people, new practices need to be put in place by those who hold influence. In my experience, too many in philanthropy — both women and men — have been unwitting accomplices to the pressures placed on women like me.

Change won’t happen simply by holding more training sessions on how to prevent sexual harassment or adopting more polices. Instead it takes foundations recognizing that they are losing out on their investments when they give money to organizations that tolerate bad management, sexual abuse, racism, and bullies who run talented people out of nonprofits. There are some simple ways grant makers can avoid amplifying biases:

• Organizations that distribute money must collect demographic data on applicants and grantees. This should include educational background, gender, ethnicity, and age of founders and key staff members and the regions where they live. These groups should introduce a yearly review process to reflect on demographic trends and produce recommendations. Look to the Kapor Center for inspiration in the research and approach it has taken to tracking bias in the technology world. The Management Center also offers excellent tools for nonprofits trying to understand bias in their hiring process.
• Philanthropists and foundations should have an internal process for reviewing who is influencing their work. What are patterns or notable events in which those influencers were negative toward individuals or organizations in the field? Are there patterns in their recommendations that need to be reviewed?
• Train staff members how to engage sensitively with grantees and others if they approach your organization for a “buffer” between them and an alleged harasser or assaulter who might work at your organization — or who is coming to your event or conference. The majority of assaults are not reported to police, so that means perpetrators are often in places we don’t expect them to be. Your organization is not a judge or jury, but you can create practices that protect victims from uncomfortable situations when they have to be in professional spaces with those who have harmed them.
• Shuffle the deck of those who influence your giving and grant-making priorities. Create biannual programs in which you consider who is influencing you and why. Are there new voices who could be brought into the mix? Are you seeing patterns of who is recommended to you by your current influencers? Are the conferences you attend insular? Have you picked up a new journal or blog for your industry in the past year? To mitigate unconscious biases, diversify the voices you listen to.
• Review who has left your field. Every two to three years, pull the staff lists of those you fund and map their current job-topic areas to get a sense if those you fund are running certain demographic groups out of their fields. Watch for patterns. This is an inexpensive and relatively quick process, thanks to LinkedIn and Google. People leave fields for perfectly fine reasons, but patterns of departures should spark concerns about the management skills of nonprofits you support. When they leave, they take your investment in a cause with them. By reviewing who leaves, you can retain investments in the mission you care about.

We “Mount St. Helenses,” as Le Guin called us, have gone through tremendous pressure to come forward. We have exposed deeply uncomfortable realities. Now it is time for nonprofit leaders to work with us to build an ecosystem where people aren’t thwarted as they seek to work in organizations advancing the common good.

Sarah Schacht is a consultant on open government and civic technology strategy, specializing in building revenue models for clients who work with governments.