Diversity in the nonprofit sector

# Diversity in the nonprofit sector

**March 29, 2022**

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# Plan for today

.box-1.medium.sp-after[Institutions and individual action]

.box-5.medium.sp-after[Nonprofits and institutions]

.box-8.medium[Diversity in nonprofits]

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# Institutions and individual action

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# What are institutions?

.box-inv-1.medium[Rules and structures that govern social interactions]

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# Assets vs. income

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# Assets vs. income

.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/21/bathtub.png" alt="The bathtub model of assets and income" title="The bathtub model of assets and income" width="45%">
</figure>
]

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.box-1.large[Why are assets important for wealth?]

???

- Money begets more money
- Money provides a safety net

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.less-medium[
> “It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.”
> 
> —Martin Luther King, Jr. May 8, 1967 NBC interview
]

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.pull-left-wide[
<figure>
 <img src="img/21/Freedman_bureau_harpers_cartoon.jpg" alt="Freedman's Bureau" title="Freedman's Bureau" width="100%">
</figure>
]

???

- William Tecumsah Sherman, Special Field Order 15
- Strip of land along the coast of Georgia and SC, government provisions for 18,000 former slaves
- Freedman’s Bureau
- Cancelled by Andrew Johnson later that year

This policy was designed to bestow assets on the newly freed slaves

What happened after the abolition of slavery?

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Freedman_bureau_harpers_cartoon.jpg

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.pull-left-3[
.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/21/04240392.gif" alt="The Homesteading Act" title="The Homesteading Act" width="100%">
</figure>
]
]

.box-inv-1.small[160 acres in the west]

.box-inv-1.small[Distributed 80 million acres by 1900, mostly to white settlers]

.box-inv-1.small[(Promoted assets)]
]

.pull-right-3[
.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/21/little-house.jpg" alt="Little House on the Prairie" title="Little House on the Prairie" width="100%">
</figure>
]
]

???

https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/homestead.html

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.pull-left-wide[
.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/21/fha.jpg" alt="The FHA" title="The FHA" width="100%">
</figure>
]
]

???

Great Depression → need to build up middle class. Government intervention!

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.box-inv-1.small[andhs.co/atl-redlining]

.box-inv-1.small[andhs.co/atl-airport]
]

.pull-right-wide[
.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/21/redlining.jpg" alt="Redlining in Atlanta" title="Redlining in Atlanta" width="88%">
</figure>
]
]

???

Not only was access to programs unequal (harder for black veterans to get GI bill benefits in the first place), the implementation of programs was unequal – red lining – FHA loans couldn’t be used in certain neighborhoods, since they were too risky

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.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/21/modern-redlining.jpg" alt="Reveal's 'Kept Out'" title="Reveal's 'Kept Out'" width="70%">
</figure>
]

???

Fair Housing Act of 1968

<https://www.revealnews.org/article/for-people-of-color-banks-are-shutting-the-door-to-homeownership/>

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.less-medium[
> “It is the unearned birthright of inheritance or other family transfers that has the greatest effect on wealth accumulation, and likewise is the largest factor erecting barriers to wealth accumulation for people of color.”
> 
> Darity, et al., 3
]

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.less-medium[
> “There’s no amount of lattes and avocado toast that you can forego that will take the place of an FHA mortgage to your grandfather.”
>
> Mehrsa Baradaran
]

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# Neoliberalism

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background-image: url("img/21/black-capitalism-2.jpg")
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background-size: contain

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background-image: url("img/21/black-capitalism-3.jpg")
background-position: center
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background-image: url("img/21/black-capitalism-4.jpg")
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# Neoliberalism

.box-inv-1.small[Free market capitalism]

.box-inv-1.small[Charter schools, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top]
]

]

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# Neoliberalism

.box-inv-1.small[Free market capitalism]

.box-inv-1.small[Charter schools, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top]
]

.box-inv-1.small[Carbon offsets & permits]
]

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# Neoliberalism

.box-inv-1.small[Free market capitalism]

.box-inv-1.small[Charter schools, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top]
]

.box-inv-1.small[Carbon offsets & permits]

.box-inv-1.small[US COVID response, demand that USPS be profitable]
]

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# Consequences of neoliberalism

.box-inv-1.medium[Individual actions and personal responsibility are preferred over institutional and structural change]

.center.grey.small[(Income over assets)]

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name: nonprofits-institutions
class: center middle section-title section-title-5 animated fadeIn

# Nonprofits and institutions

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# Quick historical review

.box-inv-5.SMALL[**1600s–1700s** Church-based charities]

.box-inv-5.SMALL[**1787+** Formal constitutional right of association]

.box-inv-5.SMALL[**1900–1960** Tax exemption and more formal institutional structures]

.box-inv-5.SMALL[**1960s–today** Corporatization and professionalization]

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# 1960s–today

.box-5.smaller[Increased federal funding]
]

.box-5.smaller[Corporatization & professionalization]
]

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# Non-Profit Industrial Complex .smaller[(NPIC)]

.box-5.small[Every organization has to fill out the same forms]

.box-5.small[Most nonprofits have the same organizational structure]

.box-5.small[Staff get the same kinds of degrees]

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# Non-Profit Industrial Complex .smaller[(NPIC)]

.box-inv-5.less-medium[Organizations all look the same]

.box-inv-5.less-medium[Foundations require similarity]

.box-inv-5.less-medium[Individual donors want consistency]

.box-5.small[GuideStar and Charity Navigator]

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# Non-Profit Industrial Complex .smaller[(NPIC)]

> "The NPIC is a system of relationships between the State, the owning classes, foundations, and nonprofit and social justice organizations that results in the surveillance, control, derailment, and everyday management of political movements."
>
> —[Neesha Powell](https://everydayfeminism.com/2018/05/decolonizing-nonprofits/)

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# Non-Profit Industrial Complex .smaller[(NPIC)]

.box-5.medium[Nonprofit organizational standardization fundamentally limits nonprofits' ability to undertake institutional change]

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.SMALL[
> Nearly 30 years later, I look around and see many shelters and services for survivors of domestic violence, but no large-scale movement to end male violence. I see many batterer intervention programs, but few men involved in challenging sexism. The loss of vision that narrowed the focus of men's work reflects a change that occurred in other parts of the movement to end violence, as activists who set out to change the institutions perpetrating violence settled into service jobs helping people cope.
>
> Paul Kivel, "Social Service or Social Change?", *The Revolution Will Not Be Funded*, p. 129
]

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# Social services vs. social change

.center.smaller.grey[(Analogous to income)]

.box-inv-5.small[Helping individuals suffering from systems of exploitation and violence]

.center.smaller.grey[(Analogous to assets)]

.box-inv-5.small[Challenging the root institutional causes of systemic exploitation and violence]

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# Institutional limits

.box-inv-5.small[501(c)(3)s can't engage in substantial lobbying]
]

.box-inv-5.small[Funders like "standard" nonprofits]

.box-inv-5.small[Pressure to tame programming in order to get easily measurable results to make funders happier]
]

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# Diversity in nonprofits

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# Foundational institutional issue

.box-inv-8.less-medium[Existing nonprofit regulatory environment was largely designed for white- and male-led organizations providing paternalistic social services, often as a replacement of the government]

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# Diversity in the nonprofit sector

.box-8.smaller[90% of nonprofit board chairs are white]

.box-8.smaller[90% of nonprofit executive directors are white]

.box-8.smaller[≈20% of nonprofit staff are people of color]

.box-8.smaller[73% of nonprofit staff are women]

.box-8.smaller[45% of nonprofit executive directors are women]

.box-8.smaller[Women executive directors make 66% of men's salaries]

.box-8.smaller[Underrepresentation of LGBTQ populations]

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# How to fix this?

.box-inv-8.medium[Deeper institutional restructuring… somehow…]

.box-inv-8.medium[Organization- and sector-level increase in diversity]

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# Diversity

.box-inv-8.less-medium[Diversity is a characteristic of groups, not of individuals]

.box-inv-8.less-medium[You can talk about a *member* of a diverse community but not about a diverse individual]

???

<https://serc.carleton.edu/advancegeo/resources/what_diversity.html>

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# Primary dimensions

.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/21/primary-dimensions.png" alt="Primary dimensions of diversity" title="Primary dimensions of diversity" width="45%">
</figure>
]

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# Secondary dimensions

.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/21/secondary-dimensions.png" alt="Secondary dimensions of diversity" title="Secondary dimensions of diversity" width="45%">
</figure>
]

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# Intersectionality

.center[
<figure>
 <img src="img/21/intersectionality.png" alt="Intersectionality" title="Intersectionality" width="45%">
</figure>
]

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# Business benefits of diversity

.box-inv-8.less-medium[Better, more creative decision-making]

.box-inv-8.less-medium[Better performance]

.box-inv-8.less-medium[Better community engagement and involvement]

.box-inv-8.less-medium[More money from donors and foundations]

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# Representative bureaucracy

.box-inv-8.medium[A nonprofit should represent the community which it serves]

.box-8.small[(This is a general idea, not a one-to-one checklist)]

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# Lip service vs. real diversity

.box-inv-8.less-medium[You can’t just hire a bunch of different people]

.box-inv-8.less-medium[You must actually take in the perspectives of different people]

.box-8.medium[This requires structural changes within the organization!]

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# Institutionalizing diversity

.box-inv-8[Set up organizational structures that actually allow for and encourage multiple perspectives]

.box-8.small[Staff hiring practices]

.box-8.small[Volunteer management]
]

.box-8.small[Client advisory boards]

.box-8.small[Clear channels of communication]
]