By Duncan Exley, a consultant working with not-for-profits wanting to reach and recruit beyond their usual demographics.
ACEVO’s latest Pay & Equalities Survey report contains invaluable data, some of which has already been reported (e.g. on the underrepresentation of people from minoritised ethnic groups, and the fact that while most voluntary sector CEOs are women, men dominate the larger, higher-paying charities).
However, the report also contains data on the socioeconomic background of the sector’s CEOs, which shows, among other things, that privately educated people are more than twice as prevalent among sector CEOs than in the wider population (almost four times as prevalent in organisations with incomes of £5m-£15m). This aligns with other data, showing that the voluntary sector has a more pronounced underrepresentation of people from ‘lower’ socioeconomic backgrounds (measured by parental occupation) than both private and public sectors.
Voluntary sector leaders may already be aware of some of the opportunities associated with becoming more accessible to people from beyond the ‘dominant minority’ of people whose parents were in ‘professional and managerial’ occupations. These opportunities include recruiting staff and trustees from a wider talent pool (including those with an understanding of — and ability to engage — sections of the public with whom their current personnel are unfamiliar: consider the numerous organisations who were blindsided by the result of the 2016 vote for Brexit because they had little exposure to communities that voted leave). The opportunities may also include the approval of funders who are increasingly keen for charities to be ‘of the people, by the people’, rather than just ‘for the people’.
Speaking from my experience of running small, stretched voluntary sector organisations, I know that while we’d like to think about how to reach and include people from beyond our organisation’s usual demographic, our inboxes are overflowing with the urgent and the obligatory. However, something I’ve noticed in my work as a consultant is that much of what makes an organisation more accessible and user-friendly for people from outside of the usual demographics also have the effect of making the organisation more smooth-running and therefore freeing up CEO time.
For example, if the protocols by which people ‘get in and get on’ are opaque, unwritten and/or inconsistent, they put people from outside the ‘bubble’ at a disadvantage. This favours those who know how to navigate the ambiguous protocols (who tend to come from professional and managerial backgrounds, be of white British ethnicity and ‘neurotypical’) rather than those who know how to do the job well. But the lack of clear processes also creates inefficiencies, misunderstandings and resentments that require senior staff time to interpret, clarify and sort out.
There are numerous ways to become more accessible and user-friendly to current and prospective staff regardless of backgrounds and demographics (some of which relates to funders’ willingness to invest in capacity-building). The starting point is to know which sections of society are underrepresented, in the organisation and in particular departments or levels. (There are numerous examples of staff-survey questions on protected characteristics, and the Social Mobility Commission has guidance on “Measuring socio-economic background” background). In her introduction to the Pay and Equalities Survey, ACEVO CEO Jane Ide mentions a lack of “investment of time and resource into learning and development” and “clear process”. She’s right to do so: when we acknowledge that what appears clear and obvious to some may appear unfathomable to others, and take steps to make processes user-friendly to everyone, it can make the difference between an organisation that is muddling through its in-tray and one that has the collective headspace to power ahead with delivering its mission.
