By Patty Hurley, ESC Consultant, DEIB Committee Member
For the past five years, ESC has been on a journey to formally define for itself what a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) should look like. The work is necessarily ongoing, but the recent adoption by the Board of Directors of a formal DEIB Vision Statement provides an opportunity to review what ESC has done to further this work in the hope that other organizations might find it useful.
Early in her tenure as President of ESC, Julie Crockford identified the unique opportunity for ESC to address DEIB issues, given its reach in the nonprofit world. As a result of her advocacy, ESC created an ad hoc committee made up of a dedicated group of ESC’s own volunteer consultants who undertook the hard work of educating themselves, developing programs and beginning to integrate DEIB principles into all aspects of ESC’s work. Eventually, the ESC board recognized the ongoing importance of this work and created a standing DEIB committee of the board with a mandate to “promote the awareness, acceptance, action, and skills necessary to achieve Diversity, Equity and Inclusion across our volunteers, our clients, our staff, and our board.” Most of the original members continue to serve on that committee, along with several board members.
The DEIB Committee sponsors formal DEIB training for all consultants, with a special focus on incorporating DEIB principles into all ESC consulting projects. They also sponsor monthly “Courageous Conversations” with all staff (paid and volunteer) that provide opportunities to explore examples of monoculture, inequity, and exclusion and to practice dealing with those issues in productive ways.
Today, the work of the DEIB committee is focused on three overarching goals:
- Training and Enrichment: Bringing DEIB practices and measurement into the standard engagement offering at ESC. This includes both training to be proficient and actually bringing the new proficiency into client engagements.
- Diversifying the Consultant Pool: Diversifying ESC’s consultant pool to be broadly inclusive of identities that are under-represented in the current group of consultants, specifically by increasing representation from BIPOC and LGBTQI communities from <5% to >15 by 2025.
- ESC-Wide Alignment on DEIB: Creating organization-wide alignment on ESC’s commitment to DEIB by ensuring that ESC’s board, staff, consultants, and fellows operate from a shared set of DEIB principles.
This is a journey for ESC in the same way that it is a journey for every organization ESC serves. ESC is humble about the work yet to be done, but we are also proud of our commitment, as set forth in our DEIB Vision Statement:
Empower Success Corps Vision Statement on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging
ESC is committed to the ongoing work of promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) both within our organization and in our external relationships with clients, partners, and supporters.
Internally, ESC works to embed practices that support this commitment in hiring staff, in recruiting and training consultants and fellows, and in all aspects of its governance, including recruiting and onboarding members of the Board of Directors. ESC strives to attract and retain staff, consultants, fellows, and Board members from a wide range of backgrounds, expertise, and perspectives and to foster a culture of belonging, grounded in cultural humility, in which all feel valued and respected.
Externally, ESC is committed to helping our nonprofit clients better serve people and communities that have historically been marginalized by integrating practices that support DEIB principles into every client engagement. ESC staff and volunteers aspire to approach all interactions with individuals outside the organization, including current and potential clients, community partners, and supporters, from a perspective of cultural humility.
ESC condemns racism, sexism, bigotry, ageism, and all other forms of discrimination.
