{"id":325,"date":"2022-10-24T20:30:55","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T20:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpmu.mau.se\/nmict22group1\/?p=325"},"modified":"2022-10-24T20:56:25","modified_gmt":"2022-10-24T20:56:25","slug":"the-very-white-board-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpmu.mau.se\/nmict22group1\/2022\/10\/24\/the-very-white-board-room\/","title":{"rendered":"The Very White Board Room – As seen in aid organizations everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\r\n\n
\"\"
Today’s AI generated art was created with Dream by WOMBO on the prompt: “The very white board room of aid organizations”<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

In 2020, Anastasia Reesa Tomkin wrote this<\/a> text about the white leadership of non profits, in which she states that non profits are over 80% white led. (83% to be exact.) Admittedly, that statistic is two years old by now, but it is hard to imagine that it would drastically have changed since then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is this change taking so long? It has already been talked about for years. Many organizations pat themselves on the shoulder for admitting their shortcomings when it comes to racism and diversity of the leadership. Bonus points if they have diversity and discrimination policies that they refer to. However, for real change to occur in the board room, it has a lot more to do with giving up<\/em> power rather than including <\/em>more people around the table. Giving up power is uncomfortable. It requires you to trust someone else with it<\/em>. How many of us are actually willing to give up our own privilege for that to occur?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“the non profit industry as a collective continues to hire and promote them [white people], proving that it is more important to have gainfully employed white progressives with fulfilling careers, than it is to actually rectify systemic inequalities by putting the right people at the forefront.”<\/p>Anastasia Reesa Tomkin<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There are many great posts online where you can read more about the lived experiences of non-white employees working in aid organizations. If you would like to read more, may I suggest The Nonprofit Sector\u2019s Problems with Race<\/a>, We need to talk about racism in the aid sector<\/a> or, for a collection of quotes from different sources, Racism in the aid industry and international development-a curated collection<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this, I have lately been reflecting over what is important to me when supporting or donating to aid organizations. As a result, I have been doing a whole lot of Google searches for aid organizations, and clicked around on websites looking for information on their boards and executive teams. Perhaps this leisure investigative surfing does not say much about organizations’ overall diversity and structural racism, but it is still interesting. It does not take long to see a pattern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But how do we know which organizations are worth supporting and how much can we really know about the untold attitudes in an organization? Which boxes (and how many) do an organization need to tic to be ‘approved’? I am curious to know what is important to you, the readers of this blog, when you choose whether or not to support an aid organization. We would highly appreciate if you took the time to fill out the short, anonymous survey below. If you have trouble filling in the survey here, you can also click this link<\/a> to open the survey in a new tab. And as always, do not be shy to share your thoughts in the comments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n