You make the observation in your book that diversity training in a corporate context isn’t effective despite major investments of time and money. In what ways do you see this same behavior occurring in philanthropic institutions?

The go-to strategy for combating the lack of diversity is diversity training. It may make those institutional leaders feel like they’re doing something, but it’s not an intervention. The research on diversity training pretty conclusively shows that not only doesn’t it help increase diversity, but it oftentimes triggers a backlash. There was one study out of Harvard that showed that five years after mandatory training, the percentage of African-Americans and Asians in management went down. If the goal is to increase diversity, these institutions need to look at other strategies.

If you really want to effectuate change, you do it by exposing people to more diverse peers. I encourage institutions to move away from efforts to change hearts and minds through canned exercises and instead make interventions. Hire people from diverse backgrounds. People will learn through exposure to different people that we’re more the same than different. And I think that people believe the stereotypes of other people more than the reality because they haven’t had experience with diverse populations.

And as you look at the philanthropic community, do you see ways in which these institutions act that ultimately do more harm than good?

Their failure to diversify has a tremendous impact on their work. How do you serve a diverse population effectively when you yourself are not diverse? When you don’t even understand these different populations and the way they operate? And I mean, you need diversity just to be part of your brain trust, just so you have more information that you can adapt depending on the communities that you intend to serve. In not having diversity, you’re not as smart because it is the dynamic interplay of different ways of thinking that makes an organization brilliant. Study after study shows that with greater diversity it not only affects your bottom line, but it helps you see blind spots that you just wouldn’t otherwise see.

Read the full interview with Pamela Newkirk about diversity at PEAK Grantmaking.