Board Summit: Centering Racial Equity

The current global pandemic and reckoning around racial injustice has led many individuals and organizations to state their commitment to racial equity. The time is ripe for transforming intention into action.

We invite board members, executive directors, and CEOs to join us for an opportunity to learn, engage, and gain a pathway to build a more racially equitable and inclusive governing body.

Based on a 2017 national survey on Boards of Directors conducted by BoardSource, 90% of nonprofit Board Chairs and 84% of Board members were white. According to the report this has always been the case. The report also indicates that 65% of CEOs and 41% of Board members were dissatisfied with the lack of diversity on their Boards.

Why does this matter? According to the report,

"At the most fundamental level, who serves on a board impacts how it functions and the decisions it makes. While board composition is not one-size-fits all, a board that is homogeneous in any way risks having blind spots that negatively impact its ability to make the best decisions and plans for the organization. The blind spots created by a lack of racial and ethnic diversity are particularly concerning, as they may result in strategies and plans that ineffectively address societal challenges and inequities, or even reinforce them.”