Diversity In Nonprofit Organizations

The common theme perpetuated today is encouraging diversity in every facet of our social interactions, our workplaces should be more diverse, our nonprofit boards should be more diverse and so on and so forth. But is diversity all it is hyped up to be? I would contend that it is not and could be detrimental to an organization that focuses on diversity rather than ability. I would recommend that organizations are representative of the area that they are located but have the people with the best ability be prioritized as first hires. Individuals that are in more homogenous areas are more likely to give more time and money because of the perception people have about helping people that are similar to themselves. Focusing on diversity is putting

We can look to a study done by Robert Putnam that shows that greater diversity leads to “distrust [of] their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith that they can actually make a difference” (Boston). Therefore, after ability the most important thing about a nonprofit organization is being reflective of their market and recipients. Having a diverse nonprofit in a homogenous population could adversely affect the nonprofit and lead to poor results and having an organization that doesn’t understand the population’s problems. Ability should be first when it comes to hiring for nonprofits for the maximum number of people being helped. Social care, marketing, fundraising ability are just a few of the integral abilities that need to be assessed when coming to hiring. That does not mean that you should actively avoid diversity. For instance, in a nonprofit start up that I participated in we had a very diverse group of people consisting of two white men, one white women, one Latina women and a black man. We came together for similar interests and created one of the greatest nonprofit startups in the state of Oregon. The comradery that we had was bar none, and we still have a strong connection to this