Committing to board diversity has been at the center of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo’s ability to contribute to a vibrant and inclusive Greater Buffalo region with opportunity for all. By fielding a team of leaders who reflect a broad cross-section of diverse perspectives and lived experiences, we benefit from robust and generative discussions, which lead to more innovative solutions to address the complex problems facing our community.

We learn from each other and with each other on a regular basis. By doing this work internally, we are also better positioned to work through cross-sector partnerships and help our community find common ground for moving forward together.

In fact, we felt it was important to co-author this blog post so you could hear from both the president and CEO of our organization and a key leader on our board about the importance of board diversity in advancing our organization’s mission:

Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker, president, and CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo: 

BoardSource’s report, Leading with Intent: 2017 National Index of Nonprofit Board Practices, highlights how, when it comes to the issue of board diversity, nonprofit chief executives and board chairs possess moderate levels of dissatisfaction across all areas of demographic diversity, but they “are most dissatisfied with their racial and ethnic diversity.”

This is a starting point for action.

Alice Jacobs, 2017 governance committee chair: As a board member, understanding why we need diversity is a crucial part of the equation to committing to diversity with intentionality. In today’s world, it is likely that many board governance committees profess a commitment to a diversified candidate pool. But, as evidenced by the BoardSource report, scant progress has been made by the majority of boards despite this commitment.

Read the full article about diversity and inclusion by Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker and Alice Jacobs at BoardSource.