Associations know the research that the Millennial generation that is rapidly becoming the 
majority of our workforce and membership base is the most diverse generation we’ve ever had in the US – and that the yet-to-be-named generation coming up behind them is even more so.
We know that increased diversity and real inclusion produce increased innovation, better decision-making, faster and more creative problem-solving, better outcomes, and an improved bottom line.
We know that D+I is the right thing to do.
And we tend to have strong statements that reflect all that.
The place we often struggle is with turning our beautifully crafted D+I statements into real change in our staff teams, our volunteer leadership, our memberships, and the professions and industries we serve.
In Include is a Verb: Moving from Talk to Action on Diversity and Inclusion, Sherry Marts, PhD (S*Marts Consulting) and I tackle the challenge of turning associations’ powerful talk into equally impactful walk. We share some key concepts in D+I, discuss what makes the association D+I environment unique and the pros and cons that come with that, and provide concrete steps you can take for yourself, your staff, your volunteers, and your members to become a truly diverse and inclusive organization.
The whitepaper also includes interviews with a DELP mentor/scholar team (Shawn Boynes, CAE and Desirée Knight, CMP) and with Cie Armtead, the current chair of ASAE’s D+I committee; sidebars from noted D+I experts Jessica Pettitt, Joan Eisenstodt, and Joe Gerstandt; and case studies of three associations that are doing outstanding D+I work for the audiences they serve (the Association for Women in Science, the Entomological Society of America, and the Geological Society of America).
I’ll be blogging about the whitepaper for the rest of the week, highlighting some key findings and action steps you can take, but in the meantime, I invite you to download your free copy at http://bit.ly/2peWwP0 – we don’t collect any data on you to get it, and you won’t end up on some mailing list you didn’t ask for. We just use the bit.ly as an easy mechanism to count the number of times it’s been downloaded.
And don’t forget to check out the other FREE Spark whitepapers, too:
- Attention Doesn’t Scale: The Role of Content Curation in Membership Associations (with Jeff De Cagna, FRSA, FASAE), available at http://bit.ly/WVpP4a
- Member Relations: An Association-Centric Approach to Customer Relationship Management (with George Breeden, MBA, CAE and featuring Lehman Reports data), available at http://bit.ly/10s8UUb
- The Mission Driven Volunteer (co-authored with Peggy Hoffman, CAE), available at http://bit.ly/13Wwe1F
- Risk: The Missing Link Connecting Strategy to Implementation (co-authored with Jamie Notter and Leslie White), available at http://bit.ly/MJ5oo8
- Getting to the “Good Stuff”: Evidence-Based Decision Making for Associations (co-authored with Peter Houstle), available at http://bit.ly/1jwXcDX
- Leading Engagement from the Outside-In: Become an Indispensable Partner in Your Members’ Success (co-authored with Anna Caraveli), available at http://bit.ly/1GPNUM6
- Innovate the Lean Way: Applying Lean Startup Methodology in the Association Environment (co-authored with Guillermo Ortiz de Zarate), available at http://bit.ly/1NJJzkJ
- The Association Role in the New Education Paradigm (co-authored with Shelly Alcorn, CAE), available at http://bit.ly/29CIquL