Diverse pools are a means to an end. Building diverse teams, while involving more intention than building diverse pools, is also only a means to an end. It takes diverse teams, working in an inclusive culture, and making the diversity of the team count, to engage more stakeholders and raise more money. Diversity is not only a moral imperative—the “right thing to do”—it is a business imperative for everyone involved in nonprofit leadership and philanthropy: boards, volunteers, CEOs, C-suite leaders, and engagement and fundraising professionals. Until everyone involved in the recruitment process understands and can articulate diversity as essential to stakeholder engagement and fundraising outcomes, recruitment efforts will fall short.
New Book – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Advancement: A Guide to Strengthening Engagement and Fundraising Through Inclusion
byProgress on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the field of philanthropy is long overdue. To help move the needle, Angelique Grant and Ron Schiller have authored the first comprehensive book on DEI specifically for nonprofits and advancement teams. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: A Guide to Strengthening Engagement and Fundraising Through Inclusion is now live in the CASE Bookstore. The book offers a guide for building inclusive cultures and teams. It explores how to implement a culture of DEI, recruit, onboard, and retain diverse staff, and integrate DEI into fundraising campaigns. ALG looks forward to sharing this new resource with our partners to create sustained behavioral change in the field of advancement.
More fundraising leaders are embracing inclusion and want to train their teams on diversity, equity and inclusion. But are we adapting our actions by applying a DE&I lens to our advancement practices? Williams College and William & Mary demonstrated success when they adopted inclusive fundraising strategies. Now the philanthropy sector must develop new skills and change behaviors to achieve similar long-term results.
The movement to grow women’s philanthropy is not meant to focus only on one profile of women who give. Women’s philanthropy includes ALL those who identify as women. It is intended to be inclusive. Yet current language and actions by those who identify as white cisgender women leaders in this movement – including myself – may not be making inclusivity clear. We unconsciously may be perpetuating a system of racism and gender inequity.
Aspen Leadership Group has been selected by Forbes as one of America’s Best Recruiting Firms for 2020. This is the second consecutive year that ALG has been recognized as one of the top 200 executive search firms specialized in filling senior leadership roles, having made the list in 2019.
White nonprofit professionals who aspire to be allies must stay engaged in anti-racist work. Checking out is a privilege and ALG’s Colleen Flynn offers resources for supporting colleagues of color and staying accountable.
If you are a leader in an organization committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, now is not the time to remain silent. Now is the time to show your colleagues of color that you value them and support them, and that you are committed to playing a leadership role in your organization’s anti-racist work.
After rapidly and successfully adjusting to remote operations, talent managers are now looking ahead to what the advancement team of the future looks like. The following offers insights from talent managers at a variety of organizations for how they are weathering the storm. It offers key considerations for planning, recommendations for best practices, and innovative examples from colleges and universities that respond to our teams’ physical, mental, and emotional needs as we transition to new models. The inspiration of this article was the result of a national advancement talent management leaders convening that was co-facilitated by Yvette Marsh, Executive Director of Talent Management, Louisiana State University Foundation and Angelique Grant, Senior Consultant and Vice President at Aspen Leadership Group.
CASE recognized several ALG staff members, advisors, and associates as outstanding faculty and speakers at conferences in 2019 and 2020. Recognition is awarded to faculty who earn average combined scores of 4.5 and above on a 5-point scale on their evaluations for a conference session. We are in great company alongside dozens of our clients and partners – congrats to all!
If you were working remotely before Covid-19, your transition to remote work was probably much easier than your colleagues who had been working at your organization’s home base. Responsibility for communication pre-Covid-19 generally fell to the remote worker. Now that burden has shifted to managers. If you are managing staff then there are new guidelines for managing up, down, and laterally. Your ability to be successful will revolve around how well you communicate, set clear goals and expectations, advocate for and provide the necessary tools for successfully meeting those goals and expectations, and maintain your organization’s culture and your team’s alignment to its mission.