Measuring for meaningful change: Helping volunteer boards meet ED&I goals
Equity, diversity and inclusion (ED&I) values are inextricably bound to the missions of most charity and nonprofit organisations. In serving their constituents and communities and fulfilling their missions, mission-driven organisations help improve the lives of people from different backgrounds, including those who historically have been underrepresented or excluded in society.
Fortunately, many volunteer boards understand the importance of governing with their mission in the forefront – the importance of walking the walk. They’ve crafted and implemented ED&I policies for their board and for their organisations. The goals of those policies are to produce a more diverse and inclusive environment at the organisation and for the communities they serve, as well as for their donors, vendors and partners.
Boards and organisational leaders who are serious about meeting ED&I goals also establish metrics and measurement processes to ensure that successes and challenges are tracked and reported. In this article we explore why measuring your ED&I efforts is important and how to go about it.
What you’ll learn
- Why measuring your ED&I efforts is important
- How to define ED&I goals and select metrics
- Establishing transparency and accountability for your ED&I goals
Benefits of measuring DEI initiatives
As management guru and bestselling author Peter Drucker famously said: “What gets measured, gets managed.” In other words, ED&I policies and practices must include metrics to gauge the success of those goals. Without practices in place to collect and measure outcome data, policies can flounder or hit dead ends. Metrics help the board stay focused on what they’re trying to accomplish with ED&I initiatives.
Measuring the effectiveness of ED&I goals demonstrates the board and organisation’s commitment to helping create a fair and equitable society for everyone. Reporting how well the organisation does on ED&I metrics also helps build trust with the community, including potential business partners, donors and volunteers.
Collecting and sharing metrics is just a starting point, however. It’s important that boards take action on the data they collect, analysing and understanding those results to make adjustments and changes, or even move in a different direction. Key performance indicators (KPIs) can show where growth is occurring or where improvements need to be made. They can highlight potential expansion areas. Performance data helps boards make decisions about updating goals or setting new ones.
“What gets measured, gets managed.” – Peter Drucker, management guru and bestselling author
Defining ED&I goals and selecting metrics
ED&I goals and metrics go hand in hand and ideally are developed at the same time. Knowing what you want to accomplish and how you will measure success helps make goals concrete. For example, you may have a goal of diversifying your organisation’s leadership positions. To meet this goal, you first must define what diversity means to your organisation.
Does it mean promoting and supporting more women to take leadership positions? Maybe it means hiring more people of color or those from other marginalised groups. Will you create new leadership positions in the organisation? Or commit to hiring when positions open through retirement or attrition?
Another goal might be to hire more minority-owned or women-owned businesses to contract with your organisation. Would success include recruitment and outreach efforts to these businesses? Or would you count actual contracts?
You might set a goal of making it easier for differently abled people to participate in volunteer activities. That would involve talking with your regular volunteers to understand what barriers exist for people with disabilities. The information collected from those discussions could inform a plan to remove those barriers, with increased numbers of volunteers being the measure of success.
Creating a more welcoming workplace could start with establishing affinity groups for employees, then surveying them on their experiences and using the feedback to strengthen the initiatives. Satisfaction ratings on surveys and through interviews could measure if and how the affinity groups are helping to attract and retain employees from diverse backgrounds.
The more concrete and specific the goals, the easier it will be to establish ways to measure success.
Our ED&I white paper examines who still doesn’t have a seat at the table on charity boards despite global change, and why it isn’t enough to tick a box. Download the white paper now and get the tools you need to enact meaningful ED&I measures at your charity.
———————————————————————————————–
Collecting and analysing data
Some organisations might see ED&I data collection as an additional or burdensome task. It might not be seen as essential as financial forecasting or analysing constituent demographic trends. However, ED&I initiatives increasingly are an essential piece of the future success of charities and not-for-profit organisations. The more detailed, well-planned and thorough your data collection and analysis is, the stronger your organisation will be.
“Treat DEI metrics and DEI data with the same rigor and accountability you would treat any serious data-driven initiative, and rely on it to add the same degree of rigor and accountability to your organisation’s DEI initiatives,” writes Lily Zheng in the Harvard Business Review.
“Treat DEI metrics and DEI data with the same rigor and accountability you would treat any serious data-driven initiative, and rely on it to add the same degree of rigor and accountability to your organization’s DEI initiatives” – Lily Zheng, diversity, equity, and inclusion strategist, consultant, author and speaker
Establishing accountability and transparency
Increasingly, people want to know that mission-driven organisations use ethical business practices, consider environmental impacts of their work and espouse ED&I values . Donors, partners and other stakeholders want this information as well.
Establishing ED&I policies and practicing transparency by reporting on your progress increases the trust between organisations and their stakeholders. It also holds organisational leaders accountable for meeting goals.
Sustained change is only possible through establishing realistic and concrete goals and then collecting data to see how those goals are being met. The board’s focus on KPIs will send a message to those inside and outside the organisation about how it prioritises ED&I initiatives.
Leveraging board management software for ED&I
Charities often run with small staffs that need support when collecting and analysing data. While boards and nonprofits are committed to their ED&I goals, they may be reluctant to add another layer of reporting and data collection to their staff’s already full schedules.
Technology like board management software can make it easier for staff to collect and store data and for leadership and board members to monitor and analyse information. Staff and committees can use the software to prepare reports on recent information and data trends. It provides a central and secure place for board members and staff to view the organisation’s progress toward building diversity, equity and inclusion.
BoardEffect offers a centralised place for setting goals, tracking and reporting on key ED&I metrics, and ensuring transparency and accountability.
Through features like customisable surveys and polls, organisations can also collect pertinent data from board members, such as demographics, skillsets and other key data to help inform inclusion and equity practices.
Contact us for a demonstration of BoardEffect to see how it can support your board and organisation in measuring and reaching your ED&I goals.
