Envision consultants reflect much of the vibrant diversity of our communities in terms of ethnicities, languages spoken, sexual orientation, religion, socio-economic background, ages, professional experience, and geographic origin. Our consultants identify as Latinx, Caucasian, Christian, and Jewish. We incorporate cultural competence and diversity through many facets of our work, including organization assessments, strategic planning, leadership development, board development, executive search, coaching, and public trainings/presentations. For example, we hosted a leadership summit focused on diversity, equity and inclusion in building sustainable organizations. We also conduct trainings on addressing diversity, equity and inclusion in nonprofits that have been well received by nonprofit clients and partner organizations, including the Social Enterprise Alliance. We always seek to understand the communities served by our clients through listening, research and reflection. This year, we worked in partnership with the Center for Nonprofit Management to produce the Equitable Nonprofit Workplace Report serving nonprofits in Southern California and beyond by highlighting equity challenges at the workplace, gender and racial pay gaps, the presence and need for DEI policies at nonprofits, as well as presenting our recommendations on how nonprofits can take action toward becoming a more equitable workplace. Being serious about erasing systemic inequities is a marathon, not a sprint, and we’re committed to doing our part one engagement, one position, one decision at a time. We work internally and externally, across all our engagements and interactions, to make real, meaningful and tangible change. Ending systemic racism is our shared responsibility and it’s just getting started. We show our commitment by: Volunteering in our communities: We deliver more than 1,000 hours of volunteer work each year in our local communities through Board service, pro-bono engagements, and local initiatives. In addition, our CauseCupid, pro-bono service to nonprofits, places board members on hundreds on nonprofit boards, each year, building capacity and leadership from within. Mentoring and coaching our placements, organizations and boards: Requiring “plug and play” candidates is not only unrealistic, it’s highly inequitable to require that all candidates present the same leadership experience and hard skills. That’s why we mentor and coach all of our placements for a full year after placement, offering the support and guidance needed to ensure a successful placement. We build inclusive decision-making with transparent goals to gauge achievement. Committing to increase Black and Brown leadership in the nonprofit sector: In order to increase Black and Brown leaders in our sector, we need to engage with both established leaders and those-in-progress to promote and expand cross-training and mentorship within the nonprofit sector. We also challenge the inequitable hiring requirements and leadership and decision-making structures that disproportionately impact marginalized communities. Challenging the soft-bigotry in the sector: The things “donors” won’t like is the strawman argument for dismissing every single bold move we make as a sector towards anti-racism. While there are certainly professional norms for institutional and major donor cultivation, we owe it to ourselves to call out those practices that are unnecessary and inequitable. We are developing anti-bias training for all our engagements. Building DEI within the sector and within each nonprofit we serve: We help organizations take measurable actions now and in the future through our intentional service offerings that create holistic, inclusive, participatory decision-making, and equitable strategies. Our sector-wide work builds capacity for organizations through services such as: Supported search, Board development training and education, CauseCupid and Mergers and Acquisition exploration. Through our services and thoughtful practices, we’re building the pipeline for nonprofit leaders. Building DEI into your executive search: Our unparalleled process ensures equity and inclusion through inclusive surveys and stakeholder interviews, focus groups, structured hiring processes, recommendations on un-biased job descriptions and a focus on anti-biased decision making, taking into consideration where your organization is and where it is headed. We recruit from beyond the regular sources, ensuring more than 90% of our finalist panels include candidates from underrepresented communities.
