How 2 Nonprofit Leaders Diversified Hiring

America’s Promise Alliance

Making workplaces more diverse and inclusive is everyone’s responsibility, experts say. Especially people in leadership positions, who are, let’s face it, often white men.

Thinking and talking about race, gender, and other components of our identities can be uncomfortable in a professional setting, especially for people whose traits allow them to navigate the world with relative ease.

“There’s always something complicated about the white leader trying to bring diversity and inclusion,” says John Gomperts, chief executive of America’s Promise, which works to improve graduation rates and other educational and economic outcomes for young people.

The Chronicle interviewed Mr. Gomperts and Gary Lindner, head of PeopleFund, a loan-making nonprofit that primarily serves women and minorities. The white, male nonprofit leaders talked about how, with lots of help from their colleagues of color, they are working to build staffs that better reflect those they serve.

Both say their efforts are ongoing and imperfect — a few steps forward can be followed by some steps back. Still, they say, such changes are imperative for any organization that wants to thrive in an increasingly diverse, global environment.

Remaking PeopleFund

When Gary Lindner took the reins at this Texas nonprofit in 2010, he made it a priority to reshape the organization to reflect its clientele. Its portfolio shows the type of people Mr. Lindner has sought to hire: Last year, more than 90 percent of PeopleFund loans went to women, racial minorities, and veterans.

Thanks to his 29-year Air Force career, Mr. Lindner was accustomed to working with people from many different backgrounds. His last military assignment was as chief of staff to an African-American four-star general, in which role he was responsible for identifying officers of color who had high potential for advancement.

In the military, “diversity felt like a natural state of affairs,” he says. Upon leaving the Air Force, he realized that “was not the case.”

The first steps on the road to change at PeopleFund involved creating leadership opportunities and forging new connections. Mr. Lindner set out to make the mostly white board more diverse, instituting term limits for members to open up vacancies for new people.

Next, he joined the boards of other nonprofits that serve people of color, demonstrating his interest in their missions and building relationships with their members. For example, PeopleFund’s record of supporting black business owners led the chair of the Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce to invite Mr. Lindner to join its board. Eventually, Mr. Lindner recruited people he met there, and on other boards, to help govern PeopleFund.

PeopleFund’s current board of 16 members includes seven women and 12 people of color. Compared to their predecessors on the board, current directors are more involved in the “nuts and bolts” of the organization, says Amber Cooney, director of advancement and education.

PeopleFund

“They’re from the communities we’re trying to serve; they’re passionate about the mission and more engaged,” she says. “A Hispanic woman understands it can be hard to walk into a bank full of white people and ask for money.”

International Staff

Change at the top was followed by work to attract a more diverse array of job candidates. Mr. Lindner has taken advantage of staff turnover — only one employee remains from the group he inherited seven years ago — to build a more diverse workplace.

PeopleFund broadened its internship program, seeking recent college graduates from varied backgrounds, including young people from other countries who were in the United States on student visas. That’s helped to create an international staff, with employees who hail from Mexico, Central America, and Colombia.

“If they’re really good, we just nab them on the spot” for jobs, Mr. Lindner says.

Of the 34 people on staff today, two are veterans. A little more than half are people of color, and more than 80 percent are women.

“All of my directors are ladies who have extraordinary talent,” Mr. Lindner says. “Some took pay cuts to work at our organization” because they believe it is more effective than the for-profit sector in helping small-business owners attain their goals.

Given the large Hispanic population PeopleFund serves, Mr. Lindner made a point of hiring employees with strong Spanish-language skills. The organization now has Spanish-speaking employees in all its branches.

More Partners, More Money

The work to make PeopleFund represent its clients is ongoing, Ms. Cooney says. The nonprofit reviews its clientele quarterly to assess whether the board and staff adequately reflect the backgrounds of those they serve. In addition to gender, race, and veteran status, PeopleFund takes age into consideration while hiring because nearly 20 percent of its loans go to business owners over the age of 55.

Older adults have “been ignored, and we’re trying to make it more inclusive to them as well,” Mr. Lindner says.

These efforts have resulted in significant financial gains. PeopleFund raises much of its revenue from grants given by banks that want to reach underserved populations. In 2016, the organization’s goal was to work with five new banks and raise $3 million for lending; it ended up working with 11 new banks and raised $5 million.

One bank expressed interest in working with PeopleFund to open a women’s business center, but its representatives wanted to visit the nonprofit’s office first. When they arrived, they met with some of the nonprofit’s Hispanic and black women staff members.

“When our entire senior leadership team is women,” Ms. Cooney says, “I can walk into a room and say, ‘We are the organization to serve women.’ " After the meeting, the bank committed to giving even more money than PeopleFund had requested for the women’s center.

Living Up to America’s Promise

When John Gomperts joined the America’s Promise Alliance as chief executive officer five years ago, the nonprofit had a “good deal of diversity” on its staff and board. Colin Powell was the founding chairman of the 20-year-old, Washington, D.C.-based organization, which focuses on youth achievement, and his spouse, Alma Powell, is the current chair.

But there were diversity gaps, too. “As you got higher up, there was less,” Mr. Gomperts says.

And while Latino students are a key and fast-growing group with which the nonprofit works to improve high school graduation rates, America’s Promise had no Latino staff members.

Mr. Gomperts decided that had to change if the nonprofit was to improve its work on childhood health, safety, academic success, and civic engagement. So he made it an organizational priority.

He and his colleagues took what he calls an opportunistic approach — when positions opened up, they worked hard to ensure candidate pools included people of color. For Mr. Gomperts, that meant reaching out to former colleagues and other professional contacts of color and asking for references and recommendations. It was a means to tap into professional circles that he himself was not a part of.

“Everybody gets jobs through their networks,” Mr. Gomperts says. “If you’re an organization that doesn’t have access to that network it is really hard to get started.”

One important hire came in 2014. Looking to bring on a senior member of the communications staff, the CEO reached out to professional acquaintance — a woman of color — whom he thought might be ready for a job change.

“She said, ‘No, but I have this friend who is in New York and wants to move to D.C., and you should definitely to talk to her.’ " The candidate, Daria Hall, became vice president of communications and external relations, responsible for building her own team and doing her own hiring. In her talent searches, she has used resources such as ColorComm, a network of women of color in the communications industry.

“If the people who are hiring managers are people of color tapping their networks and being the lead interviewers, likely you’re going to end up with a different pool of qualified candidates,” Mr. Gomperts says.

Today, the America’s Promise staff of 30 is roughly half individuals of color and half white people, including several Latinos.

Inclusive Talk

Mr. Gomperts also invested in encouraging constructive conversations about diversity issues in the workplace. He hired Michelle Molitor, a consultant who specializes in leading discussions on race, equity, and inclusion, to moderate in-office sessions during which staff members shared personal experiences with prejudice. The first took place days after the 2016 presidential election, and emotions were running high, Mr. Gomperts says.

The sessions spurred conversation about things large and small. One example: the extra care and consideration a young female staffer of color might have to take when traveling to another region of the country for work. Is the area safe? How will she be treated? Such concerns might never occur to a white, male staff member, Mr. Gomperts says.

He describes what is happening at America’s Promise a work in progress.

“We probably go forward, then we go backward a little, then we go sideways a little, and then we go forward a little,” Mr. Gomperts says. “But it continues to be a very significant priority for the organization.”

He calls it a “forever project,” like maintaining a healthy weight or a happy marriage.

“I think it is a more interesting way to have a workplace, to live in the world. Diversity strengthens us in many, many dimensions.”