Fighting sexual harassment isn’t just about reminding employees how to report incidents of abuse or about legal penalties for wrongdoing. Instead, it’s about fixing all elements of a nonprofit’s culture so everyone — regardless of gender, race, or sexual orientation — feels comfortable and valued, experts say.
“If you really want to see incidents of harassment go down, you have to work on your culture,” says Linda Seabrook, general counsel of Futures Without Violence, a nonprofit that works to prevent harm against women. “You have to work on the culture that facilitates the inequity, the lack of respect, and sometimes facilitate harassment.”
Here’s what Seabrook and other experts suggest as nonprofit executives seek to prevent harassment.
Show everyone respect.
As the #MeToo movement reverberates through workplaces across America, nonprofit leaders say it is also triggering a reckoning, and creating an opportunity, in charitable fundraising.
Organizations must regularly encourage staff conversations and hold training sessions about harassment and other types of discrimination, with the ultimate goal of building a “fully respectful culture,” says Christopher Kilmartin, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Mary Washington.
Top executives must take the lead, says Kilmartin, who works with colleges, state associations, and military units on their efforts to prevent harassment — including a three-year effort building an anti-harassment and assault curriculum with the United States Naval Academy. “There’s good evidence that when leaders make strong statements — saying ‘we will not tolerate sexual harassment’ — and they model respect for their subordinates, that really helps the climate of the organization.”
Organizations should seek to create as equitable an office culture as possible — one where all employees are clearly valued, no matter their gender or rank, says Cynthia Calvert, a lawyer who has advised nonprofits and companies on their sexual-misconduct policies. Big power imbalances often create conditions that foster sexual harassment, she says. “If you are showing that everyone in the organization has power, has respect, then it makes it less likely that people will harass” or accept harassment, Calvert says.
Small gestures matter.
Executives can do simple things to help others see what good behavior looks like, such as socializing with lower-level employees at their desks or in break rooms. Saying hello to custodians and office assistants — and learning their names — also shows respect for everyone regardless of rank, Kilmartin says.
Leaders’ behavior can also demonstrate that women are valued and treated equally. If women keep getting cut off in meetings, leaders should intervene to ensure that female workers have a chance to speak up, says Calvert. They should also be sure to credit women for their work on projects and find opportunities to promote women.
Social dynamics in the office matter, too. Managers should avoid joining anything that looks like a “good ol’ boys club,” Calvert says. “If they want a respectful and inclusive atmosphere, they need to make sure that they are paying attention to people who aren’t part of the ol’ boys network, like people of color, women, and people with disabilities.”
Hire more women and promote them.
Leaders must treat all employees — regardless of their gender, race, or sexual orientation — equally when offering professional development opportunities and assignments, says Calvert. That sends a signal that all employees have the same opportunities.
Research shows that hiring more women and promoting them to leadership roles leads to fewer harassment complaints. That’s probably in part because employees see that women have power in the organization and are not outsiders. “The more we [get] women involved in those leadership roles, we may be able to decrease the likelihood of harassment occurring,” says Phyllis Hartman, a human-resources consultant who conducts training sessions for nonprofits and businesses on sexual harassment.
Get rid of people causing problems.
Employees who constantly violate an organization’s code of conduct on harassment or respectful behavior must change their ways or leave — even if they are otherwise doing a good job, says Seabrook of Futures Without Violence. Leaders should build performance measures that account for good and bad behavior at work, she says, and not just traditional criteria, like the total value of donations raised.
Know the scope of the problem.
To get a handle on whether sexual harassment is prevalent, Seabrook recommends that nonprofits conduct a survey of workers on harassment and other forms of discrimination. The results will help shed light on who has been harassed and perhaps when it happens and where (in the office or outside of it). “Management might have a much different idea of what’s going on in the workplace than what the employees will report,” Seabrook says.
You don’t necessarily need to hire an independent survey firm to get strong results, she says. Futures Without Violence released in March an online guide that offers advice for conducting the surveys. Among the tips: Ensure that employees know participation is voluntary and responses are anonymous. The survey should also ask about specific kinds of harassment, like unwanted sexual attention or coercion, the guide says, and it should provide information on how to make a formal complaint.
The data gleaned from the poll should guide the nonprofit’s actions on sexual harassment, Seabrook adds.
Know what jobs are at risk.
Even without doing a survey, supervisors should be aware of what jobs could be at risk for harassment, says Meg Bond, director of the Center for Women and Work at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.
Fundraisers, for instance, are often in positions of high risk — given that they often are trying to court powerful donors alone, including in intimate settings such as homes or social atmospheres like bars and restaurants.
“Understanding that doesn’t lead to a direct solution, but it should heighten your sensitivity and awareness of the problem,” says Bond, who served on an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission task force that studied harassment in the workplace.
Allow people to report issues big and small.
Leaders should provide a way for people to report small problems — like uncomfortable comments from a donor about a female fundraiser’s looks — as well as large ones.
A reporting channel can include having a support group or an ombudsman who can talk about any issues, Bond says. “Sometimes you can feel crazy when these things happen,” she explains. “You don’t really know, ‘Was that inappropriate? Am I being oversensitive?’ It’s critical that they have places they can go to do that kind of reality testing.”
Build a code of conduct.
After measuring and assessing the problem, nonprofits should draft a code spelling out how employees are expected to behave as well as accountability measures for offenses — including what types of behavior are grounds for termination or a lesser punishment.
The code of conduct should explain what the organization defines as harassment, Seabrook says, and spell out expectations for respectful behavior.
The organization should also offer guidance to employees who witness or hear about abuse. Whom should they speak to about misconduct they see? How should they step in to stop problems while they’re occurring, including actions that show bias — like assuming a female worker can’t participate on a project that requires evening work and travel because she has children.
Charities should ask staff members, executives, and board members to collaborate on drafting the code of conduct. Seabrook recommends ensuring that lower-ranking employees are involved, because they are often the most vulnerable to abuse. Local groups that deal with people who have suffered sexual harassment, like rape-crisis centers, are often able to help with advice in this area, Seabrook notes.
The most important thing to keep in mind, she argues, in stopping harassment at work is not to think of it as a legal process that emphasizes rules and guidelines. Although rules are important, changing the internal culture to one that is more respectful will do far more good. She adds: “If we keep looking at it from a legalistic framework, we’re never going to get to the root causes of why this happens.”
