Providing job opportunities to all kinds of people is the right thing to do, but it’s also a strategy nonprofits should use to improve their performance, says Erin Okuno, executive director at the Southeast Seattle Education Coalition and contributor to the racial equity blog Fakequity.
The goal “isn’t diversity for diversity’s sake; it’s diversity to achieve the mission,” she says.
Many nonprofits tackle big problems with limited resources. That makes them especially reliant on creative problem-solving, which often requires access to a variety of ideas. And lots of charities serve disadvantaged communities, and the goals and opinions of those in the community should shape the work of those charities, Ms. Okuno says.
For these reasons and more, it’s important for charities to hire people with varied world views, say nonprofit leaders and experts in workplace diversity.
Barriers to Better Hiring
But there are obstacles that prevent many nonprofits from ramping up their efforts to recruit diverse talent.
The first is that it can take a lot of time to develop a thoughtful plan, and few nonprofits have that resource in abundance, says Heidi Schillinger, founder and principal of Equity Matters, a consulting firm that specializes in workplace diversity. She also writes for Fakequity.
Another hurdle, she adds, is nonprofit leaders’ fear of asking the communities they serve how to improve their work. Leaders often think “we’re asking for funding, [and that] we don’t want to stop and ask people what’s wrong with us,” Ms. Schillinger says.
And a third is an unwillingness on the part of charity leaders to accept that their organization — whose purpose is to do social good — has fallen short in the realm of workplace diversity.
“Seeing themselves as doing good work in the world sometimes makes it difficult to admit that they’re not doing good work in this part of the world,” says Martin Davidson, a University of Virginia professor of business administration who researches how diversity improves organizational performance. “The organization can get defensive.”
An Intentional Attitude
If you suspect your nonprofit and the people it serves could benefit from having a more diverse staff, the first step is to determine which backgrounds, perspectives, and skills it needs to better fulfill its mission.
“Looking at what you’re trying to do and designing for the population you’re trying to support and then [working] backwards is a great way to find the diversity you need,” Ms. Okuno says.
That thoughtful attitude is essential to the success of any effort to increase workplace diversity, says Martin Davidson, a University of Virginia professor of business administration who researches how diversity improves organizational performance. Without it, even well-intentioned efforts can backfire.
“Having more diversity can make things much better or much, much worse,” Mr. Davidson says.
One myth he wants to dispel is that the only diversity that matters involves “race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation,” he says. “In fact, diversity is those kinds of differences, and also personality style and thinking style and class background and creative ability and work ethic. These are all dimensions of difference that may be very important when it comes to doing work.”
That means remembering that not all women or all African Americans or all gay people have the same perspectives, Ms. Okuno says: “My experience as an Asian American is different from an Asian American who came as a refugee. The Latino experience in New York is different from growing up in Texas.”
The bottom line, Mr. Davidson says, is that “it’s a mistake to mindlessly recruit people.” When there’s no clear understanding of why an organization is hiring people who represent different demographics, it can make old employees feel insecure and resentful and new employees feel like disempowered tokens.
How to Find, Attract, and Hire Diverse Talent
If your charity’s staff doesn’t possess all of the traits necessary for the organization’s success, it’s time to start the sometimes-uncomfortable process of discerning why it hasn’t previously hired people with those qualifications, Ms. Schillinger says. That requires a “real, honest discussion” about race, gender, or other identities.
Only after your nonprofit has done the hard work of acknowledging its shortcomings is it ready to find, attract, and hire diverse talent, Ms. Schillinger says.
Here’s how to start:
1. Rethink your job descriptions. To attract people different from those your nonprofit historically has hired, you need to create different job requirements, Ms. Schillinger says. Simply adding a line that encourages applications from people of color, or women, or people with disabilities, or any other underrepresented group isn’t enough if you’re looking to hire employees with different backgrounds, perspectives, and skills.
That might mean explicitly asking for fluency in another language or experience working with disadvantaged communities. Or it may mean accepting work or life experience instead of a college degree.
2. Make your job postings accessible to people with disabilities. Ensuring that people with disabilities can find and process job ads is important, as is providing reasonable accommodations to help people apply, says Kathy Bernhardt, director of business resourcing at Tangram, a nonprofit that supports people with disabilities.
Find guidelines from the World Wide Web Consortium for making your website accessible here.
3. Advertise jobs outside of your nonprofit’s typical networks — and be creative.
People have a natural tendency to socialize with others who are like themselves, Ms. Schillinger says. That means organizational leaders who want to hire different kinds of people often must search beyond their own networks and comfort zones. There are professional associations and online job boards for people of all demographics, which can be useful places to start.
But be creative in your search, Mr. Davidson advises. For example, he says, don’t assume that the best black candidates attend historically black colleges and universities; plenty of qualified black students attend historically white institutions, too.
4. Rethink your interview process. The traditional interview process may accidentally screen out qualified candidates who don’t fit your nonprofit’s existing mold.
Interviewers should be aware of potential differences in how candidates present themselves. For example, women tend to emphasize their collaboration skills while men emphasize their individual accomplishments, a difference that can hurt women during the interview process, according to Veda Banerjee, Johanna Bates, Michelle Chaplin, and Tracy Kronzak, who led a “women in nonprofit technology” session at the 2015 Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Conference.
And weighing the interpersonal exchanges in an interview too heavily in hiring decisions can put people who have disabilities at a disadvantage, says Ms. Bernhardt. They may be fully capable of performing job duties but uncomfortable in an interview setting.
5. Be open about your efforts to improve. As discussed above, nonprofit leaders can be especially reluctant to acknowledge organizational shortcomings related to race, gender, and other demographic traits. But during job interviews, they should be transparent about their goals to make the staff more diverse and the work environment more inclusive, Mr. Davidson says.
“The person looking for a job often is relatively sophisticated about diversity,” he says. “They can walk into the office and see there’s not much diversity here. The capacity of the hiring entity to be upfront about why diversity is important and what they’re doing to try to create diversity is usually a very strong selling point.”
Ms. Schillinger agrees that an open conversation conveys authenticity. Because it’s also important to make sure candidates don’t feel that you’re considering them just because of their ethnicity or gender, she recommends this kind of phrasing:
“We’re hiring for skill, and also we recognize that you would be one of a handful of people of color working in this environment. Here’s what we’re trying to do to support people of color in our organization.”
6. Hire cohorts, not individuals. It can be tough to be a pioneer in an organization, so Mr. Davidson recommends hiring people in cohorts rather than singly. The practice allows employees who are different from their co-workers to create a community of support, and it also balances the office demographics.
“If I want to increase gender diversity, I don’t want to just hire one woman, I want to hire two or three at the same time,” he says.