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The HR Council for the Nonprofit sector conducted research to explore issues that prevent nonprofit sector employers from accessing the skills and expertise of immigrants and visible minorities.

What is this research about?

The report, Recruitment and retention of New Immigrants  and Members of Visible Minorities in the  nonprofit sector’s workforce (PDF), describes the demographic challenges that affect the nonprofit labour force, reasons organizations need to take action, and provides five areas of focus for employers (note: the report refers to “ethnic diversity,” encompassing visible minority and under-represented immigrant communities).

Why is this research needed?

In Canada, the nonprofit sector employs 7.2% of the workforce, or 1.2 million paid employees.

While visible minorities and immigrants make up 16% and 20% of the population, respectively, previous studies show that only 6% of nonprofit employees are visible minorities, and 11% are immigrants. Moreover, 93% of executive directors identify themselves as white.

The business imperatives for hiring from non-traditional labour pools are clear: filling skill shortages, better service provision, and the increase in innovation and diversity of thought. It’s up to nonprofits to enhance their hiring and employment practices to put values of diversity and inclusion into practice.

What did the researchers do?

The researchers reviewed previous studies and literature. They surveyed 350 nonprofit employers, and conducted eight focus groups with a total of 89 nonprofit employers and 26 individual interviews with immigrants and visible minorities who work or have worked in the nonprofit sector.

What did the researchers find?

Compared to other sectors, the employee make-up of Canada’s nonprofit sector lags in its immigrant and ethnic diversity. However, the majority of employers surveyed believe that hiring immigrants and visible minorities is important, and expect to see an increase in the number of immigrant and visible minority employees.

Both employers and employees indicated that discriminatory practices and biased approaches remain a reality for immigrants and visible minorities. Indeed, participants reported that the business case for an ethnically diverse workforce is not well understood at higher levels of their organization.

As well, turnover rates for immigrants and visible minorities in the first year of employment are higher than for other groups. This suggests that nonprofit employers must also invest in integrating and retaining these staff. While the report focuses on immigrants and visible minorities, many of the issues reflect those facing all employee groups. In particular, the report suggests that nonprofits pay specific attention to orienting new employees to the values and norms of the organization, and how they shape workplace behaviour.

Recommendations

The report contains a number of practical and specific recommendations for attracting, hiring, retaining, and promoting immigrants and visible minorities.

Five core recommendations aim at supporting ethnic diversity in organizations and in the sector:

1. Promote your organizations and the nonprofit sector as viable and vibrant career destinations.
2. Learn about barriers and best practices for hiring and integrating immigrants and visible minorities.
3. Articulate the benefits and strategies for ethnic diversity, specific to your organization’s context, sphere of activity, and objectives.
4. Increase diversity on your board, specifically with board directors from visible minority and under-represented immigrant communities.
5. Create an ethnically diverse pool of volunteers as a potential source of new employees.

How can you use this research?

Each section of the report contains specific recommendations or practices that might be useful to your organization.

In addition, the report explains the business case for ethnic diversity, which might be useful to share with the leadership in your organization.

Related:

More from the HR Council for the Nonprofit Sector:

• Opportunity Knocks! How Nonprofit Employers Build a Workforce that Includes New Canadians
• Diversity at Work Toolkit

More information and resources:

• DiverseCity Counts: Leadership Diversity in the Nonprofit Sector: Baby Steps, Big Strides, and Bold Stances
• hireimmigrants.ca – Nonprofit Sector
• Charity Village – Human Resources

What are the key issues facing the vitality of the voluntary sector in Canada?

If asked you would undoubtedly have strong opinions. If you asked others, you’d get a diversity of opinions, insights and ideas. If you were looking for evidence-based research to help your answer, you could probably rhyme off a few think-tanks, academics and websites where you know you could find some of that information. But you’d likely find as much diversity there as you did when you asked your peers. Could you find the definitive source? Or are we missing something?

Enter the Mowat Centre’s Not-for-profit Research Hub. This hub was recently established to provide evidence-based research and analysis on structural, foundational, and systemic issues facing the voluntary sector in Canada. Working with strategic partners like the Ontario Nonprofit Network, it will be looking for solutions to the issues and challenges that impact our sector

I spoke with Elizabeth McIsaac, Executive Researcher at Mowat, to find out more about the project, what its goals are, and how we can participate.

According to Elizabeth: “We’re going to be looking at the critical issues that are impacting the not-for-profit sector and crafting a research agenda to look at evidence-based research to support a stronger, more vital sector. In plain language, this means we’re going to look at questions like: how can we better understand the sector’s economic and social impact? What are the financial tools and strategies that will make the sector stronger? How can the sector become a stronger voice in shaping policy? What are the new approaches, and innovations to solving common challenges facing the sector? And how can we document and understand these ideas and trends and get that information back out into the sector?”

Mowat has been talking to a variety of voluntary sector representatives. As a first step, it is conducting an environmental scan of current nonprofit sector research, including academic and community-based research. This will become a baseline and a place for it to understand where its research can add value. Mowat is looking at our sector in its broadest definition, “the voluntary sector writ large:” from nonprofits to charities, service-based human service organizations to cause-based advocacy groups; from the formally funded to the grassroots, volunteer-driven start-ups run out of someone’s basement; from organizations that have provided decades of service to the new cadre of social entrepreneurs.

As the hub crafts its research agenda, it will be “convening partners and stakeholders to ensure that the ideas we put forward are relevant, resonate with the sector and can be adapted to inform strong public policy going forward.”

The Research Hub is funded in part by the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration. Elizabeth believes that this support “is part of a larger investment in the capacity of the sector… a signal from the province of their commitment to strengthen the sector itself, and to strengthen the partnership that exists between the public and the not-for-profit sector. Our challenge and ambition is to advance ideas and recommendations for policy solutions that will contribute to a strengthened relationship and to a stronger sector.”

You might be wondering, why Mowat? Mowat is considered a thought-leader in public policy in Ontario. In 2011, it released the study Strengthening the Third Pillar of the Canadian Union: An Intergovernmental Agenda for Canada’s Charities and Non-Profits which took a high-level view of the regulatory and legislative issues impacting the sector.  Partnering with the ONN, the Mowat Research Hub is also supported by the Metcalf Foundation, The Atkinson Charitable Foundation, United Way of Toronto and Maytree.

Will Mowat succeed in moving the sector forward in a cohesive direction to address the myriad of issues facing us? Will we ultimately create the strong sector voice needed at the policy level? Clearly, it’s too soon to tell. But the idea is a good one. The approach (talking with, convening the sector) is the right one.

One project alone can’t revitalize the voluntary sector or even create a consensus on what needs to be done. A public policy approach can ensure that informed change might come from our funders.  However, that’s only one part of the puzzle. Mowat’s discussion and consulting/convening approach may just get us talking more actively to each other. Will Mowat succeed in starting and facilitating a discussion not just with sector leaders, funders and academics, but also with practitioners, and, ultimately, among all these groups? If so, perhaps we’ll see the sector’s valuable tacit and practical knowledge more actively define the kind of sector we all know we can have.

A call has already gone out to the sector through the ONN asking for input (PDF). They’re interested in getting your knowledge and expertise into their project, into their thinking. There is a wealth of insight, information, experience and passion in the nonprofit sector. Make sure your voice is heard.

Related links:

• Five things business can learn from non-profits - we asked what businesses can learn from non-profits and received advice from acrossCanada.
• Five Good Ideas - a lunch-and-learn program where industry or issue experts discuss powerful yet practical ideas on key management issues facing non-profit organizations. The sessions are most useful for management staff and board members at small and mid-sized non-profits.
• Maytree Leadership Conference – we believe in the power of leadership to create social change by investing in those who work and volunteer in the non-profit sector. We also place emphasis on building relationships among our program participants.

The results of our Five Good Ideas contest are in!

We asked what businesses can learn from non-profits and received advice from acrossCanada.

Here are the top five entries.

1. Hire globally by sourcing locally
(Charles Achampong, Manager, Corporate & Stakeholder Relations, TRIEC)

If your staff and board do not reflect the community you serve, chances are you are not going to understand their needs. With today’s demographic trends, in urban centres like Vancouver and Toronto, this means hiring skilled immigrants and visible minorities. It’s not just about equality; it’s about the expanded capacity to link to new markets, enhanced innovation, stronger social capital and, ultimately, the bottom line.

2. Understand your employees
(Elaine Magil, Manager, WoodGreen Community Services)
We know that non-profit work doesn’t usually pay well, so why do smart people do it? Because people choose their vocations for reasons beyond salary. People want to work where they feel valued and respected. They want to know that what they’re doing has impact. They want to go home at night and not question whether they’re making the world better off. On these metrics non-profits easily beat the private sector, where it’s accepted wisdom that if you want the best people you have to pay the most. I’d like to tell my corporate colleagues that it’s not that simple. If you build a corporate culture that nurtures people’s passions and helps them feel committed to the outcomes they’re working towards, salary will no longer be your primary recruitment tool. It’s harder to do, but lasts longer.

3. Long-term value creation
(Errol Mendes, Professor of Law, University of Ottawa)

Non-profits seek to be sustainable in the long term. Sadly, business is often blinded by short-term profits and interests especially if it is a publicly traded company. This has resulted in accounting irregularities and other unethical behaviour that have doomed so many companies.

If business learns from the best non-profits who focus on the long-term interests of their communities and their clients, then there could be a meeting ground for learning from each other. Non-profits can learn to be more efficient while business learn that long-term value creation can be profitable.

4. The right people (not the right product or program) make for a great organization
(Chris Pullenayagem, Director, Christian Reformed Church)

Many private (for profit) organizations rely on products or processes or programs to be successful in their business. For those that do, this seems to be an inverted way of pursuing excellence. People bring vision, passion and creativity to their work as evidenced in non-profit organizations. If the right people are hired, every organization will move towards excellence in achieving its vision and what it was mandated to do. Any organization can show results, but only this type of organization will thrive with excellence.

5. Improv-ise!
(Susan Ryan, Children’s Peace Theatre)

All non-profits have to improvise. Improvisation workshops are a powerful tool, and not just for training actors. According to Stony Brook University’s Centre for Communicating Science, improv frees anyone “to talk about their work more spontaneously and directly, to pay dynamic attention to their listeners and to connect personally with their audience. Improv can teach people to communicate more effectively with customers, co-workers, and the media.” Children’s Peace Theatre in Toronto takes improv workshops to the next level with a unique combination of collaborative theatre and conflict transformation.

Thanks to all who submitted an entry and congratulations to the winners, each of whom will receive a copy of the book Five Good Ideas: Practical Strategies for Non-Profit Success (Coach House 2011), co-edited by Alan Broadbent and Ratna Omidvar.

When was the last time you told a story?

This morning at a staff meeting? Last night to your daughter? While giving someone a job reference?

Whoever they were, did your audience hear you? More importantly, did they listen? I mean, really listen.

Here I must credit my colleague with a young daughter who explained to me that just because she is being heard by her six-year-old, doesn’t mean that she is being listened to. Listening is a choice.

How do you tell your story so people will listen? Particularly within the relentless narrative buzz that is part of our daily reality.

Let me tell you a story we’re excited about.

Maytree just published the book: Five Good Ideas: Practical Strategies for Non Profit Success. It has been eight years in the making.

Here’s an inside look at our listening strategy…

Tell it to a reader.

In his introduction to the book, Alan Broadbent, Maytree’s Chairman talks about how a conversation he had with Maytree’s president, Ratna Omidvar in 2003 turned into a successful formula, then turned into a book idea that Coach House books had the vision to recognize as valuable for the sector.

Tell it to your best friend.

“I just finished this amazing book that you and your Board of directors would find useful. Maybe you should buy them all copies.”

Tell it to a journalist.

Who, what, where, when, why. In the book, Toronto Star columnist Carol Goar tells us “Before you make a phone call or send an e-mail to a member of the media, ask yourself: Why does my message matter to the public? If you don’t know, it probably isn’t news.”

Oh, and thank you Metro Morning for knowing your audience is filled with practitioners in the non-profit, private and public sector and that this book is for them.

Tell it in the lunch room at the office.

“The launch was great! Amazing crowd. I’ll send you the link to the photos.”

Tell it unexpectedly.

Here’s the story in a haiku:

Five Good Ideas
Resource for non-profit orgs
Buy the book and learn

A modern spin on this ancient form of Japanese poetry is of course, the tweet.

Tell it to a stranger on transit.

Tell it to people who will help you tell it.

At yesterday’s Five Good Ideas session Helen Hayward presented Diversifying Your Board: Why It’s Good and How to Do It.

To diversify a board, you should look beyond traditional skills and knowledge for a competency-based board. You should deliberate not only what your board’s current gaps are, but what the future needs will be.

A well articulated strategic plan with broad stakeholder engagement sets the direction for the organization and the priorities you want to focus on over the next number of years. This will inform you of the necessary mix of sector/industry knowledge/skills to move the organization forward. The governance structure and membership is a dynamic process that requires foresight and insight before you can exercise oversight.

Helen’s Five Good Ideas:

1. A well articulated strategic plan with broad stakeholder engagement sets the direction for the organization and the priorities they want to focus on over the next number of years.
2. Develop a board matrix – an objective analysis of current make-up, future needs/gaps in governance competency, expected turn-over, board structure and membership.
3. Determine scope of search and outreach based on projected needs. Do use networks of board members and stakeholders.
4. Develop a transparent recruitment process. Allow for a number of months for sourcing and interviewing. Active recruitment for fit is everyone’s job, particularly the Executive of the Board.
5. Organize Board interviews with questions that include what value an individual brings to the organization, why the individual is interested to serve, understanding of board and member role and duties.

We’ll be producing and posting the full video soon, but here is one tip Helen would leave with participants.

After the session we asked a few participants to let us know what they thought of the session, and the value of Five Good Ideas.

Darren Cooney (Accessibility Directorate of Ontario), Susan Burns (SMB Enterprises)

Derek Luis (MangoMedia Entertainment)

Related links:

• Five Good Ideas
• DiverseCity onBoard

At the 2011 ALLIES Mentoring Conference in Calgary, Alan Broadbent and Tim Brodhead, two of Canada’s leading philanthropists, shared their insights on the benefits of scaling up programs to have greater impact, and pointed out the possible perils we should avoid in building successful collaborations.

Alan initially spoke about how Maytree came to be involved in initiatives focused on immigrant success. Maytree is interested in collapsing the “natural” time frames for settlement, especially in terms of access to the labour market. The Toronto Region Immigration Employment Council (TRIEC) was created in this vision.

Tim spoke about how the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation is focused on helping Canada become a more resilient society. A critical element in this work is ensuring that our society is inclusive. The foundation looks for promising initiatives that can be scaled up more broadly. Collaborating with Maytree to create ALLIES (Assisting Local Leaders with Immigrant Employment Strategies) was a natural fit, as it took the TRIEC idea national.

Working successfully with the private sector

Alan explained that for good ideas such as TRIEC and ALLIES to become successful, you need to be able to articulate them well, show their impact and possibilities for success, create a credible plan and have the right people to deliver them. It’s easier to attract others to the table, especially from the private sector, if you have all of these elements clearly in place.

A multisectoral approach

Government is still an important player in initiatives of this sort and magnitude. But many other actors have a role to play. Government sets the policy and controls immigration inflow, employers hire, community groups support newcomers in their settlement. These are not issues that can be addressed by just one or a few groups, they’re complex and require multi-sectoral approaches.

How best to build capacity in communities to do this work effectively

Taking ideas that work in one place/community and implementing them elsewhere requires adapting them to ensure that they can work locally. This takes time, effort and resources.

We need to allow for the time it takes to develop capacity to build community and effective collaboration. In good collaborations, it’s important to have clarity of roles, so everyone knows what’s expected of them. As well, once you’ve identified roles, you can find any capacity gaps, which can then be addressed.

At the end of their conversation, Alan and Tim provide some advice to ALLIES conference participants about how to take next steps in building collaborative approaches in their work. They emphasized that it’s important for all present to realize that they are doing important work, and that it’s essential to maintain a clarity of purpose and focus in that work.

View the conversation

Alan Broadbent is the Chairman of Maytree. Tim Brodhead was the President and CEO of The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. Their conversation was moderated by Stephen Huddart, current President and CEO of The J.W. McConnell Family Foundation.

Find out more about the conference on the ALLIES site.

Advocacy is typically a word that the non-profit and, more so, charitable sector has come to fear and loathe. We all need to do it. We all want to do it better.

But, we don’t dare talk about it.

“We take a very broad view of advocacy. The Free Dictionary defines it as ‘The act of pleading or arguing in favor of something, such as a cause, idea, or policy.’ In our approach , we include not only ‘public-policy advocacy,’ i.e. organized, legitimate attempts to influence decisions of government and other public authorities at local, national and international levels, but several other dimensions as well. These include efforts to influence decisions and behavior of the media, institutions, corporations and other commercial interests, collective and individual behavior and public opinion.” Advocacy School

But what does it mean to be part of advocacy? To truly become effective advocates? How and where can we learn to do it?

Enter Advocacy School

Veteran lobbyist Sean Moore has started a school for the novice as well as the veteran, for board members and senior management as well as front-line workers and volunteers. It’s called Advocacy School.

If you want to improve your capacity and ability to influence public opinion and the decisions of government and others, Advocacy School is worth a look.

The mission of Advocacy School is to develop and deliver training and other supports on the means by which individuals and organizations can learn to effectively engage the public at large and governments in particular on issues of public policy and social change. Effective engagement would subsequently advance their beliefs, goals, visions and interests.

As Sean has stated previously: “Discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of Canadian democracy traditionally focus on the mechanics of elections and the machinations of parliament, an independent judiciary, rule of law and a free press – all important elements, to be sure. But isn’t the nature of our democratic practice between elections, the exercise of our right to petition government and to participate in policy and decision-making, the human effort and creativity to forge consensus on important questions – aren’t these all also important features of our civic life?”

Creating both a repository of useful information, expertise and practices, Advocacy School seeks to foster a community and dialogue about effective advocacy across the country. It’s a new project, a work-in-progress, and you are invited to join and help shape what the site will become. They’re planning to roll out a range of advocacy training workshops across Canada and on-line webinars starting early 2011. Take some time to review what they’re planning, and let them know what you’re interested in.

See Sean in action, from the 2009 Maytree Leadership Conference – Influencing Decision-Makers: The Narrative of Persuasion. Sean teaches participants how to sharpen their organization’s messages and be more effective in public policy advocacy.

We love the idea of Advocacy School. We hope you’ll join, play, learn, teach and share Advocacy School with your networks.

Related links:

• Can Public-Policy Advocacy Be Taught? Or Learned? (PDF)
• Advocacy School
• Five Good Ideas – Training for non-profits
• Five Good Ideas on Advocacy
• Five Good Ideas on Government Relations: Cornerstone of Effective Advocacy
• Maytree Leadership Network
• From Cities of Migration: MIRA: Media Advocacy With A Human Face (Boston, Massachusetts)
• From Cities of Migration: The London Living Wage Campaign (London, United Kingdom)