The number of nonprofits undertaking DEI efforts grew from 2019 to 2022, according to a new report from the Building Movement Project released today. It also finds that the more DEI strategies organizations employed, the more likely employees were to stay at a group and feel that they had a voice in the organization.
“Blocking the Backlash: the Positive Impact of DEI in Nonprofit Organizations” was based on a survey of 3,000 nonprofit employees conducted at the end of 2022. Nearly three-quarters of respondents — 73 percent — said their groups had DEI initiatives in 2019. That rose to 83 percent in 2022.
A lot has changed when it comes to DEI in the year and half since the survey, but that makes many of these findings more important, says Frances Kunreuther, co-executive director of the Building Movement Project.
“There’s a backlash against DEI. Because of the Supreme Court decision, people are afraid of talking about anything related to affirmative action, diversity, equity, inclusion,” she says. “The data says DEI is an important stepping stone for racial equity and that we’re much more likely to become more racially equitable as organizations, and also as a society, because we’re starting to address systemic barriers.”
The report looked at a broad range of DEI strategies that nonprofits employ, including training, increasing the diversity of the board of directors, tracking organizational diversity, pursuing pay equity, and recruiting senior staff with diverse backgrounds.
Not all groups are employing DEI strategies at the same rates. The smallest nonprofits, those with budgets under $1 million, were less likely than larger organizations to have DEI initiatives in both 2019 and 2022. Survey respondents who worked in groups led by white people were more likely to report that their groups engaged in five or more DEI strategies — 56 percent — than those who worked in organizations led by people of color — 48 percent.
‘Never Just About Race’
White employees at organizations with no DEI initiatives were more likely to say they planned to stay at their jobs for another three years than employees of color working at such groups. But that changed when groups employed more DEI initiatives. In groups with one to four DEI initiatives, white people were less likely to say they would stay at their jobs whereas people of color were slightly more likely to stay at those jobs. But as groups employed more strategies, from five to more than eight, white employees and employees of color reported that they were increasingly likely to stay at their jobs.
Research shows that if an organization does a single DEI training, white employees feel alienated, Kunreuther says. But if groups do more in-depth interventions, satisfaction rises for all employees. “It’s never just about race. It’s about how people function and how they’re treated in organizations,” she says. “I think that benefits everybody.”
Employee experience improved across several metrics in a similar pattern to their willingness to remain at the job. When a small number of DEI strategies were in place, white employees were slightly less likely to say that they have a voice in their organization and that they were consulted before leaders made decisions that impacted their work, while people of color were slightly more likely to agree with those statements. But as groups employed more DEI strategies, both white employees and employees of color were more likely to say that they agree with those statements.
“Equity work, at the end of the day, is about giving all of your staff what they need to thrive,” says Kerrien Suarez, CEO of Equity in the Center, who reviewed the report. “There are benefits for retention, because when the work is done well, you’re making everyone feel included.”
The perception that DEI has a positive impact in the nonprofit world also increased with the number of DEI strategies organizations employed. The biggest jumps were between respondents whose nonprofits employed between one and four strategies and those that implemented between five and seven strategies. But, regardless of the number of initiatives groups employed, white people were more likely to say that DEI efforts are having a positive effect on the nonprofit world than employees of color.
“I think people of color, for probably good reason, are more skeptical that the sector is really embracing DEI,” Kunreuther says. “They may be happy about what’s happening in their organization, but they do not think that in the nonprofit sector as a whole DEI has really had a positive impact.”
There were other differences based on race in the report. About half of the people of color surveyed said that their race had negatively affected their careers — a number that held steady regardless of the number of strategies their nonprofits employed. More white people said that race had positively impacted their careers when they worked at organizations that had implemented more DEI strategies. It jumped from 45 percent at groups with no DEI initiatives to 77 percent at groups employing more than eight strategies.
That may be because DEI initiatives include conversations about implicit bias in the hiring and promotion process, says Angelique Grant, principal at the Inclusion Firm. White employees may have been learning about the societal benefits of their race, whereas people of color were aware of those racial dynamics and the training only reinforced what they already knew.
Having data that shows the value and efficacy of DEI efforts and the experience of employees in organizations that employ these strategies is important, Suarez says, particularly at a time when these initiatives are becoming flashpoints in the culture war and restricted in some states. “Having it all calculated and illustrated and laid out in this way, particularly for people of color or disabled folks, for folks who are not in the majority, this is critically important to keep the work going.”
