Giving Compass' Take:

• Equity in the Center, an initiative by ProInspire, published a report that encourages nonprofits to shift from traditional diversity hiring practices to foster a culture of inclusion that promotes racial equity. 

• What is the difference between diversity and equity/inclusion? Why is this distinction important?

• Read Philanthropy News Digest's advice on closing the diversity gap in the nonprofit sector. 

The issues that many philanthropic groups are fighting are results of systemic, institutionalized racism, from unfair housing practices to inequitable education.

Which begs the question: What are philanthropic groups doing to make sure they’ve eliminated similar (albeit perhaps unintentional) inequalities and bias within their own organizations?

While people of color make up 40% of nonprofit employees, they account for only 10% of CEOs and board chairs, and just 16% of all board members. Those numbers have stayed steady in recent years, despite that fact that people of color typically express more interest than their white counterparts in achieving executive level roles in the sector.

Equity in the Center, an initiative from the nonprofit social sector talent development group ProInspire, finally said: enough.

Rather than focus on achieving just more diversity, the group has focused on how to create organizational racial equity. The result is an entirely new manual for change that’s called “Awake to Woke to Work: Building A Race Equity Culture.”

Diverse hiring practices are a good start, but don’t automatically change a predominantly white workplace culture. “The progression is actually from diversity to inclusion to equity and we reframe that in terms of awake to woke to work,” says Suarez.

Awake: “Organizations are focused on representation by increasing the number of racially diverse people.”

Woke: “Organizations are evolving their culture to value all people’s contributions.”

Work: “Organizations are accountable to addressing systemic racism and root causes of inequity internally and externally.”

Read the full article about racial equity in nonprofits by Ben Paynter at Fast Company