How do I convince my non-profit that it needs to improve its cultural competency?

Once a month, I answer a reader-submitted question about navigating the intricacies of race in the workplace. If you have a question for me, email team@newdemographic.com and write “Ask Carmen” in the subject line. I can’t guarantee that I’ll answer your question, but you always have a better shot by making your question relevant to other readers, and making sure it’s one I haven’t answered in the past.

By Carmen Van Kerckhove

Q: I work in an organization that does great stuff to help those facing mental illness and their families: deal, learn and advocate.

That being said, I am one of only two employees who identify as people of color. We also happen to identify as queer. There are 21 people who work here. The organization has grown from a 2-person outfit to its present size in just 5 years.

We have funding to work in communities of color, but communities of color are reluctant to work with us. I have tried explaining that communities of color often don’t trust perceived white organizations, especially if the organizations haven’t done any cultural competency work.

It is an integrity issue to me: if you take money to work in communities of color you should know something about that group…but that is a whole other can of worms.

Do you have any ideas on how I can get my wonderful organization to see that by not doing work on race, they are contributing to the institutional structure of racism?

–RA in Minnesota

A. I wish this weren’t true, but the bottom line is this: Making diversity or cultural competence work strictly a moral issue won’t get you anywhere. Proclaiming to your wonderful organization that it has a moral responsibility to examine its own racial biases is not an effective strategy. And if you talk to your colleagues about “the institutional structure of racism,” I’m guessing that their eyes will just glaze over.

If you really want your organization to work on race equity, you need to gain the support of the organization’s senior leadership. That’s just how organizations work. Change never happens unless the senior management is on board.

To get them on board, you must learn to talk their language and frame things in terms of their priorities, not yours. They have big fish to fry. Find out what kind of fish these are, join in, and you’ll have a much better chance of making effective diversity changes.

Here are four steps you can take to convince your senior leaders that they need to become more culturally competent.

1. Figure out what the organization’s biggest strategic objectives are for 2009.

Why? Because senior leaders are concerned about the legacy they’ll be leaving when their tenure ends.

Get curious and ask questions. What are the big projects or goals that the senior leaders keep harping on? What’s that all about? Why are these things so important to them? What’s in the annual report? What themes do senior leaders emphasize in their speeches, press releases, and newsletters?

2. Find out what criteria are used to evaluate the organization’s performance by the people who fund it.

These criteria are the “target” your senior leader is most concerned about hitting. Accomplishing them in a timely manner will be a reflection on his or her performance.

I’m assuming that your organization, like most non-profits, is funded through a combination of government grants and private contributions. These days, there are almost always strings attached to funding because there is such concern about holding non-profits accountable for delivering results.

Your job is to find out what those strings are. What expectations do the grantors and contributors have? On what criteria do they judge the performance of your non-profit? What specific metrics are used to judge? For example, is it the number of people reached by educational initiatives? Or the number of people enrolled in certain programs?

3. Tie your diversity objectives to the organization’s strategic objectives and key performance criteria.

By doing this, you can demonstrate how diversity can help achieve your leader’s personal goals (strategic objectives) and help the non-profit reach its organizational goals based on the criteria given by the grantors and contributors.

Example: If a strategic objective is to increase the number of people your non-profit serves by a certain percentage or number, demonstrate why your organization is going to miss its target of reaching out to communities of color if it is perceived to be ignorant of the issues that resonate within the targeted community.

Another example: If one of the key criteria that grantors use to evaluate your organization’s performance is the number of media mentions you receive, demonstrate how reaching out to ethnic press can help improve those numbers. Explain that the ethnic press isn’t taking the organization seriously right now because it isn’t informing itself on the basic issues that matter to people of color.

4. Start positioning yourself as an in-house expert on race and mental illness.

When your organization sees you as an authority on this topic, you’ll feel more confident; you’ll gain the respect of senior leaders; their respect will give you influence among those who have power; and all this will make it that much easier for you to help the non-profit implement real changes!

Here are some ideas on getting started:

• Set up Google alerts for yourself with the right keywords and, on a weekly basis, email your colleagues a round-up of links to that week’s news stories which relate to race and mental illness.
• Write a monthly or bi-monthly article on the key trends the organization should know as it relates to race and mental illness and publish it in your organization’s internal blog or newsletter.
• Lead a series of lunch ‘n learn sessions in which you pick a topic related to race and mental illness and do a presentation on it. You can also invite local or regional guest experts on these topics (psychologists, psychiatrists, other activists, academics, etc.).

When your desire to see change becomes a win-win situation for all concerned, great things can happen.

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Carmen Van Kerckhove, president of the diversity education firm New Demographic, specializes in working with corporations to facilitate relaxed, authentic, and productive conversations about race. She has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and has visited as a guest lecturer at Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia, among many other colleges and universities across the country. If you want to learn how to boost your career by mastering the changing dynamics of race in today’s workplace, get your FREE TIPS now at www.NewDemographic.com