A quick glance at C-Suite personnel across industries, be it tech, financial services, or the automobile industry, reveals that diversity is hard to come the closer you go to where the buck stops in the private sector. From such reports and numbers, it is easy to come away with the impression of a terminal stalemate where a limited group of elites call the shots.

One might assume that the social sector, premised on serving the needs of the marginalized, might be doing better. But that is not the case.

Women comprise 53% of the employees in the social sector. Still, men lead 81% of social purpose organizations (SPOs), and only 34% of organizations have women in managerial positions, according to a 2015 survey of 328 organizations by the Indian Leaders for Social Sector. While this survey only focuses on gender as a binary, it’s an important data point not just because of its importance on its own, but also because it shows that identities around gender as a spectrum, caste, and religion aren’t even significant topics of discussion. The little that has been empirically studied even in other contexts doesn’t paint a particularly rosy picture.

Anecdotally, the stasis in which the social sector finds itself has been popular enough to be a meme. While there are reasons to be cynical and many hills to climb, winds of change are hurtling towards some of the behemoths, with public discourse, collective action, and other factors gathering steam over the last decade. We argue that the senior leadership of the social sector has a uniquely transformative capacity not only to change its own composition, which is biased towards the familiar, but to take along a diverse set of stakeholders towards a more equitable future. In this blog, we try to identify broad ways in which leadership in the social sector can start making those strides.

Inclusive and comprehensive policymaking

Leadership should push for comprehensive policies such as a Code of Conduct that explicitly state the organization’s commitment to preventing discrimination and how discrimination of any form is tackled in case of any violation.  Such policies should be framed in collaboration with experts and employees, and not be set in stone but open to change on an ongoing basis. In addition to this, and other measures such as the issuance of an equal employer opportunity statement, leaders should create the infrastructure needed for open communication and active listening. We have written about diverse hiring practices, but safe spaces for employees to both air their grievances and celebrate their diversity, in everyday interactions, are equally critical to healthy organizations. Moreover, the onus also falls on leadership to ultimately change its own composition.  This one is tricky, because in-group dynamics can be sticky! If the organization finds themselves ill-equipped to do this, they should tie up with other organizations or CSOs in an advisory capacity.

Influencing external stakeholders through dialogue

The social sector cannot be viewed in isolation from the ecosystem in which it operates. This includes communities it serves, the significant funding ecosystem that keeps the lights running, the private sector, and policymakers both at the local and international stage, among others. Through community engagements across stakeholders and presenting diversity practices not just as a feel-good measure but as a strategic move, leaders have the capacity to move the needle on a lot of these issues through an active push toward these topics in the spaces they occupy. This is the critical factor that ensures transformative change has the mileage to aspire to permanence.

Ensuring equitable opportunities for professional growth

All over the world, elites of various hues take both simple and high-reaching privileges for granted. It might be the intonation one uses at meetings, the clothes that one wears, the ability to draft an email in a certain way, all the way up to the very exclusive doors that one’s social networks can tap into. Organizations must actively seek to democratize such ‘hacks’ to level the playing field, and provide budgets, training and other opportunities for employees to upskill and grow. This also includes implementing inclusive practices in performance evaluations, which can take the form of unconscious bias training for managers and collecting 360 feedback to offset these biases.

These are some suggestions, based on our internal work and discussions, and we know there is a lot more to be discussed here. The not-for-profit space is diverse in its own right, and organizations ultimately have to seek their own, tailormade solutions.

At the same time, it is important to also think about measuring progress and creating space for active reflection and pivots. Initiatives can be rendered meaningless without active measuring and monitoring. The bottom line is that DEI deserves to be taken as seriously as other work areas, be it funding, marketing, or measuring the organization’s external impact. Aside from the moral good that it achieves, it can actually make our work outputs better. As the economist and psychologist Robin J. Ely and David A. Thomas point out, the financial returns on diversity are a bit fuzzy in the private sector but what can be proven are “higher-quality work, better decision-making, greater team satisfaction, and more equality—under certain circumstances.”

Lastly, while the blog focuses on senior leadership and managers, we want to emphasize that leadership is not merely a function of one’s title. Each employee can be a leader in their own stride, and ask questions or share ideas that can push those in formal leadership roles to do better.

This blog is co-written by Lavanya Garg and Satyavrat KK with contributions from several employees at Good Business Lab.

If you would like to share any thoughts or have any questions, reach out to us at info@goodbusinesslab.org.