Good Culture Fit: Exploring the Structures of Diversity Work in the Non-profit World

• In Event: 1184 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 16. Non-Profit

Abstract

For an organization to define itself as “anti-racist”, there are a multitude of commitments, perspectives, and actions that need to happen and be in place that include funding relationships, the members and volunteers involved, and programming, to name a few. Although it is the aspiration of many non-profits, it is very difficult for an organization to truly be anti-racist, especially given the current state of the non-profit industrial complex. This paper aims to examine how staff at a non-profit in New York City experience and feel the culture shifts and “systematization of diversity” of a non-profit organization trying to become “anti-racist”. Using the interviews from 17 different employees, the three hypothetical situations posed to respondents allowed for more candid responses and deeper explorations of the nuances and complexities of navigating issues and experiences around this organizations quest to develop their “anti-racist” stance. This includes how staff experience and define diversity and diversity work, inclusion/exclusion, and racism in the workplace. This study seeks to contribute to the racism and organizational research by investigating how institutions, like non-profits, reproduce inequality and racial hierarchies, as well as the complex and shifting discourse around diversity, equity, anti-racism and social justice. Findings from interviews indicate that staff feel a nebulous work culture that reproduces and upholds whiteness and elements of corporate culture. There is also common theme of reliance on and necessity of structures and systems to hold leaders accountable to eliminating bias and becoming truly “anti-racist”. However, it is these very same systems that create “red-tape” and limit the fundamental organizational change that many employees crave.

Author

• Leah Glass, City University of New York-The Graduate Center