2018 Nonprofit Management Institute: Toward Real Change: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

About

While issues of diversity, inclusion, and equity have existed for decades (if not centuries), they have taken on a new urgency today in the worlds of business, politics, and—yes—even the nonprofit sector. Nonprofits, foundations, and social enterprises are hardly immune from challenges that include the lack of representation of people of color among boards and leadership teams, gender-biased wage gaps, hostility towards religious or sexual minorities, or sexual harassment, to name only a few.

The social sector faces problems with how our organizations are run, as well as how we work with the communities we serve. If we want to fully realize our goals as agents of social innovation, we need to address these issues head-on. And while we realize this change will not happen overnight, long-term solutions need to begin now if they are ever to be realized.

With this commitment in mind (and recognizing that we are just as guilty of not doing enough to address these issues in our own organization), Stanford Social Innovation Review announces the theme of the 2018 Nonprofit Management Institute: “Toward Real Change: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.”

Over the course of three days—September 12, 13, and 14, 2018—SSIR will bring together respected scholars exploring the latest research and thinking on the root causes and most promising solutions to issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion; notable leaders of organizations working to make progress against these issues, and prominent voices elevating the dialog on these topics. But we aren’t satisfied to merely raise awareness of these issues. Our goal is to probe the complex layers of these challenges, to create a greater understanding of the mechanisms that cause them, and to outline steps we can all take to address them.