How White People Conquered the Non-Profit Industry
By: Anastasia Reesa Tomkin
Tags: Philanthropy, Race, Diversity, Culture, Nonprofit

Any white leader worth their weight in diversity grants can likely, albeit gingerly, provide that answer. They will tell you about their equity working group, or their beautifully worded mission statement, or the rainbow that is their “rockstar” staff. They may even be gracious enough to say that the problem exists in their workplace. However, they will never go further than that — words, quotes, statistics, empty pledges of allegiance to the cause. They will never actually fight the problem in radical, effective ways, for instance by removing themselves from the equation, as that would apparently mean career suicide.

To illustrate this point, take the response of certain non profits to the NYC Mayor’s call for more diversity within the sector. In an article published in Non Profit Quarterly, Steve Dubb begins with this quote: “While about two-thirds of New Yorkers are people of color, two-thirds of the people who run its cultural institutions are white”. He then paints a dismal picture of how that is indeed true, but follows it up with an optimism-tinged summary of the ways some institutions plan to tackle this problem.

Are we truly paying attention to the kind of scraps being touted as revolutionary progress? The Public Theater set an official goal (whatever that means) to become 7% less white in the span of 5 years, thus ensuring that their entire staff remains a whopping 50% white in 2023.

Lincoln Center has made a vague commitment to analyzing, but not necessarily rectifying, salary equity within the organization. Who will be measuring the extent of this so-called commitment, how long is it expected to take, and what will be implemented based on the findings? Often, these fundamental questions are left up to the very same white leaders of the entity, who eagerly take credit for what is only a PR statement and not real change.

Finally, the American Museum of Natural History basically went from 1 in 10 POC board members in 2014, to 2 in 10 POC board members in 2019. Aleluya. Notice the language the writer uses; they have “already” increased their percentages, as though adding one more brown face in 5 years is speedy progress.

Now, the excuse that change takes time is bogus, and we can look to white organizations’ responses to the pandemic to prove this. A wave of flexibility, creativity and innovation happened overnight as people started to work from home. Protocol and procedures that dragged before were suddenly expedited. Decisions were made on the fly. Funds and budgets that were deemed complicated before, became accessible in crisis. Ideas that staff of color had been expressing for centuries were magically back on the table for consideration.

This shows that when there is a sense of urgency or pressure, non profits can move mountains to keep themselves afloat…sorry…to serve their darling less fortunate clients. Clearly, racism and white supremacy as our most constant pandemic is simply not a priority, not in pre-Corona America, and definitely not now. White leaders, all 83% of them as the statistic goes, are still refusing to defer to the leadership of people of color, even when their clients are predominantly people of color. Some might compare white non profit CEOs to slave masters who considered themselves “good”, only looking after the best interests of the plantation by overseeing labor and resources.

It may be a mind-blowing concept, so let’s break it down.