How Does Diversity Support Organizational Objectives?

How Does Diversity Support Organizational Objectives?

by Dawn Cooper

With a grant from the Mellon Foundation, InterAction and its member organizations are looking to move diversity higher on their action agendas. The two-year grant focuses on advancing racial and ethnic diversity within the development and humanitarian sector. A question that usually accompanies the advent of a new initiative is �How does diversity support organizational objectives in OUR sector?’ More NGOs will be looking to initiate or expand their diversity efforts, thus it’s important to revisit the impact that diversity can have on an organization’s mission and objectives.

Most people in corporate America can tick off on their fingers why they think diversity is important: increases in productivity; develops a more effective work environment; improves relations between diverse employees; improves work/life balance issues; increases the number of women and minorities within the workforce; and ensures maximum outreach to the communities who buy our products or use our services are some reasons. This belief in the efficacy of diversity has led corporations to spend significant dollars to develop diversity initiatives. More corporations have dedicated staff to develop diversity plans for the corporation, and corporations vie for placement on such lists as Fortune’s 50 Best Companies for Women and Minorities and DiversityInc’s Top 50 Companies for Diversity.

Where do NGOs fit into this picture? As transparency and the development and compliance to standards become central to the operations of NGOs, questions arise on their ability to provide effective development and implementation of programs and services to the national and international community. Do these organizations reflect the communities they operate in and the communities to whom they are providing support? How does the makeup of the Boards of these NGOs impact effective operations? How do the differences in Western U.S.-based values vs. those of host countries impact effective development? How does the nature and strength of the collaboration that exists between U.S.-based NGOs and the host countries impact successful, sustainable development?

Diversity