While various efforts are underway, many field leaders believe it is time to intensify attention to these issues. In Deed believed it would be useful to know how groups outside the service-learning community have pursued diversity work. This report presents approaches and activities described in interviews with 18 practitioners, researchers, activists, and consultants reflecting on promising diversity work undertaken by groups and organizations in the nonprofit, corporate, and public sectors. Many diversity efforts focused on race and ethnicity at their start but then gradually expanded to address other dimensions of diversity, such as gender. As the diversity agenda has broadened, groups have increasingly emphasized inclusiveness and equity as important priorities.
Organizations employ a common set of approaches for pursuing diversity.
Change within individual groups and organizations can leverage more widespread change within a field of practice. Common factors foster or inhibit diversity progress. The approaches and activities shared by those interviewed for this report serve as models for how the service-learning community might build a stronger and more inclusive field of practice. While these lessons cannot provide a blueprint for change, they point to important subjects for discussion. Drawing from respondents' experiences, the report concludes by raising a series of questions to catalyze further conversation about diversity change within the service-learning field.