Home Truths: Undoing racism and delivering real diversity in the charity sector

Recommendations

Progress in the charity sector requires strategies for diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

The recommendations below attempt, in different ways, to instigate cultural change in how charities engage with BAME people – from addressing racism to changing everyday practice. The emphasis is not only on diversifying the workforce, i.e. on who does the work. Transformation in this area will be reflected in everything charities do: from how they work to what they do in wider society to target and enhance outcomes for BAME people.

Recommendations for the sector collectively (including charities, infrastructure bodies, funders and regulators)

1. Redefine racism as ordinary, systemic and institutional
2. Conduct an annual sector-wide ‘BAME Barometer’ survey to capture BAME experience in charities
3. Develop independent or third-party mechanisms for reporting and addressing racism in charities
4. Develop a plan on the use of regulation to accelerate DEI progress

Recommendations for organisational policy

1. Integrate explicit race equity goals into charitable work
2. Report publicly on internal DEI targets
3. Publish ethnicity pay gap data
4. Change recruitment criteria, e.g. value attributes differently, including lived experience and alignment with institutional vision
5. Invest in supporting and safeguarding BAME charity people, including proper complaints procedures
6. Work with and pay BAME DEI specialists to improve practice

Recommendations for CEOs and senior leaders

1. Learn more about racism and current anti-racist thinking
2. Take responsibility for learning how racism can manifest in your organisation
3. CEOs (with board chairs) should lead on and be held responsible and accountable for progress on DEI targets

Recommendations for funders

1. Invest in a DEI Transformation Fund geared to BAME-led initiatives
2. Become more interventionist in supporting charity sector DEI culture and practice, including making changes to application criteria to prioritise racial justice work

Conclusion

This report marks out a pathway to transform the charity sector. However, to date, DEI rhetoric is ahead of action to such an extent that it can lead to frustration and even despair about the prospects for progress. And yet, there appears to be an appetite for real change, among BAME charity people and among a growing, possibly critical, mass of influential white charity people and institutions. This is the time to act, for the charity sector to centre BAME people and for DEI to be reflected in who is in the sector and what the sector is trying to achieve.

ACEVO and Voice4Change are committed to doing more to deliver DEI through our work together and as individual organisations. We also want to work openly and constructively with others – particularly infrastructure bodies – who are seeking to advance DEI practice. ACEVO and Voice4Change also recognise that we do not have all the answers and that we too must be open to scrutiny in our DEI interventions.

We look forward to the work ahead.