Skip to main content
Due to maintenance, some parts of the ACEVO website won’t be available on Tuesday 10 December. For urgent requests please email info@acevo.org.uk

ACEVO’s EDI action plan

Improving equity, diversity and inclusion at ACEVO

Objective

Status 2022

Status 2023

Comments

Explicitly integrate EDI goals into our next organisational strategy.

Complete

Complete and Ongoing

Actioned and ongoing – our current  three-year strategy includes a specific objective relating to EDI. We will ensure new goals are integrated into our next Strategy

Provide training for staff and trustees at regular intervals, matching our actions to our organisational values.

Not started

Ongoing

ACEVO staffing has grown over the past year and action is in train to review training requirements across the team and allocate appropriate funding.

Regularly review diversity data to identify key demographics which are not present in the staff team or board.

Actioned and ongoing

Complete and Ongoing

This is done through annual review of both staff diversity and trustees’ skills and diversity (please scroll down to find out more about this)

Include regular discussions on EDI within board, SMT and staff team meetings.

Actioned and ongoing

Complete and Ongoing

 

Support a self-managed staff network of Black, Asian and minoritized ethnic team members (subject to demand).

Complete

Complete and Ongoing

Reviewed need and desire with new members of staff.

Define and promote inclusive behaviours

Complete

Complete and Ongoing

Annual Review process asks staff members to review actions undertaken to promote more inclusivity at ACEVO. We include celebrating inclusive behaviours as part of the quarterly staff recognition award. We have developed a new organisation value of inclusivity.

Ensure we always have a named senior team member and trustee responsible for staff wellbeing manager or the CEO

Complete

Complete and Ongoing

Currently Jenny Berry is the nominated team member and Ruth Marks the nominated trustee. 

Continue to monitor responses in twice-yearly staff survey to the question asking if staff have experienced any personal harassment in the form of unkind words or behaviour.

Actioned and ongoing

Complete and Ongoing

Latest staff survey showed no experience of harassment or unkind words or behaviour within the ACEVO staff team.

Ensure quarterly check-ins continue to enable staff to raise any incidents of poor behaviour.

Actioned and ongoing

Complete and Ongoing

Specific questions asked about staff well-being and team relationships as part of quarterly check-in.

Continue practice of offering informal one-to-one meetings between the CEO and all staff members where issues can be raised.

Actioned and ongoing

Complete and Ongoing

Opportunity for a private chat with CEO offered either once or twice a year to all staff who are not direct reports.

Ensure marketing materials reflect our commitment to EDI by reviewing marketing materials to assess gaps in diversity.

Ongoing

Complete and Ongoing

We are actively work to make our marketing materials accessible and review on a regular basis. Accessibility review complete for website.

Develop a manifesto for inclusion around disability (responding to our Hidden Leaders report) to include:

o  Principles which guide ACEVO’s work

o  How to request an adaption or adjustment

o  Transparency about how and when that will be made

o  Relevant information about organisational targets around disability inclusion

o  What disabled people can expect if interacting with the organisation or disclosing needs, including the availability of alternative communication methods and formats.

Ongoing

Complete and Ongoing

An Internal advisory group was established with representatives from SMT and trustee board. Key initial priorities from Hidden Leaders report have been actioned. ( See below)

Create a wellness action plan in the workplace, to help actively support employees’ mental wellbeing, and to help staff understand what is available and how to support one another positively in the workplace.

Complete

Complete and ongoing  

In 2022, we developed a bespoke version of the Mind wellness action plan for staff who had the option to complete it and review with their line manager at their annual review and quarterly check-ins. However, this wasn’t successful and there was low take up.  We have reviewed the Employee Assistance programme and launched a new offer to staff in 2023.

Review the exit interview process to identify trends of negative experiences related to characteristics.

Ongoing

Ongoing – not complete

We are reviewing our formal HR processes.

 

ADDRESS UNCONSCIOUS BIAS IN RECRUITMENT AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Review and formalise recruitment practices, developing standard operating procedures which ensure equity is in-built.

Ongoing

Complete and ongoing 

New recruitment platform Applied tested in 2021 but deemed to be too expensive. Attempted to adapt methodology and used SurveyMonkey for a while but has not been very successful.

SOPs now routinely include no all-white panels, consideration given to gender balance if possible given small staff team, no unnecessary requirement for degrees, always showing the salary for any job advertised and only advertising a set salary, not a range. We have also committed not to negotiate on salary on appointment.  We proactively ask candidates in advance if there are any adjustments that can be made to facilitate their participation and send questions in advance to candidates.

Continue to monitor responses in twice-yearly staff survey to the question asking staff about satisfaction with their pay and line management.

Actioned and ongoing

Complete and ongoing 

 

Embed new pay policy, benchmarking and salary banding

Complete

 Complete and ongoing 

2023 project to review banding and benchmarking being carried out.

Review current salary levels to reduce any inequity.

Complete

Complete and ongoing 

See above

 

MONITORING AND REPORTING

Annually publish gender and ethnicity pay gaps in the annual report and on the website

Actioned and ongoing

Complete and ongoing 

Published on website every year and linked to in TAR. https://www.acevo.org.uk/about/our-policy-on-pay/

Annually publish our progress towards board and staff diversity targets

Actioned and ongoing

Complete and ongoing 

Published on website every year end and included in TAR

Publish this EDI plan on the ACEVO website.

Complete

Complete and ongoing 

 

 

 

SECTOR-FACING WORK

Continue to make EDI a policy priority, including it in the policy strategy.

Ongoing

Ongoing

Policy strategy to be refreshed by head of influencing to reflect organisational strategy.

Create a more visible/accessible section on our website relating to EDI information and advice, with top level navigation.

Complete

Complete and ongoing 

We will review website navigation and move EDI Action Plan and ACEVO’s internal EDI actions to the ‘About us’ section, rather than Influencing section.  Materials, information and advice regularly reviewed.

Include regular equity and inclusion training in our programme and events calendar and encourage discussion within our network to enable peers to support each other in their progress

Ongoing

 Ongoing

Home Truths 2 programme launched in July 2023 will help inform further discussion and review of what is required.

Review EDI components of existing events and programmes eg New & Emerging Leaders, Dynamic Duo, Next Step Leadership, Leadership Learning training etc

Ongoing

Ongoing

In 2022-3 conducted review of ACEVO’s leadership development offer which included some elements of EDI review. However, additional specialist support may be needed.  Newly created post of Member Services Manager will be reviewing offering and establishing needs.

Continue to work with Voice4Change England to explore how we take forward the Making Diversity Count joint project.

Ongoing

Ongoing

We were successful in securing sufficient funding for Home Truths 2 in January 2023. We are publicly launching Home Truths 2 in July 2023, in collaboration with Voice for Change England and Dr Sanjiv Lingayah.  Home Truths 2 will be a series of initiatives aimed at challenging and supporting the charity sector on race equity and offering practical support to move further and faster.

Work to fulfil the following Home Truths 2020 recommendations:

 

  

o  Write to all ACEVO members to ask them to publish their ethnicity pay gap data as recommended in the Home Truths report

Ongoing

Partially completed

ACEVO publish our ethnicity pay gap, however, we have not yet written to our members to encourage them to do the same, but have encouraged sign up to our Racial Diversity Principles.  We are reviewing this recommendation, alongside the progress of Home Truth 2. 

Continue to ask sector leaders to commit to the Racial Diversity Principles. Monitor annually

Actioned and ongoing

Complete and ongoing 

As at March 2023, 132 leaders have signed up to the commitments and provided statements showing activity.  Home Truths 2 contains an element which seeks to work with sector leaders to advance racial equity in their organisations, which will have as a pre-requisite the adherence to the Racial Diversity Principles.

Publish data from the largest 20 grant-makers on how much of their grants are awarded to BAME-led organisations

Complete

Complete and ongoing

Responses published here from the 2022 exercise.

We plan to run this exercise again in late FY 2023-4

Work with other charities to develop independent or third-party mechanisms for reporting and addressing racism in the charity sector (funding permitting)

Ongoing

Ongoing

Home Truths 2 includes a segment of work aimed at changing conditions to increase support and healing resources for people affected by racism in the charity sector. This will operate through a mixture of convening and proposals to support racially minoritised populations in the charity sector. Specifically, this will include ‘think-tanking’ options for people to safely report racism within the sector and to receive help to deal with the situation.

Campaign for annual funding to be given to a BAME-led civil society group (or coalition) to carry out an annual ‘BAME Barometer’ survey to capture BAME experiences in charities.

On hold

On hold – pending Home Truths 2

This is not explicitly part of Home Truths 2 activity, but recommendation will be reviewed alongside progress of the programme.

Explore opportunities to work with other groups to progress race equality within our sector, eg the infrastructure collaboration group and the Change the Race Ratio initiative.

Ongoing

Complete

In 2021-2, explored the possibility of joining with the corporate sector on Change the Race Ratio, but decided the targets they were working to were not ambitious enough for our sector. 

In 2022-3, we participated in the Civil Society Group ‘Dismantling Racism’ project, which worked with infrastructure organisations to understand progress made against the Racial Diversity Principles.

We will collaborate in other exercises as appropriate, including running Home Truths 2.

Review and agree ACEVO’s approach to individuals within membership who exhibit discriminatory behaviour.

Complete

Complete

In 2021-2, working with an external advisor, we have reviewed and refreshed our membership code of conduct and complaints procedure.

We will continue to review

Continue to use the Pay and Equalities Survey to highlight the pace of change on equity issues within the sector.

Ongoing

Ongoing

Next survey to be published in Autum 2023

Seek funding for continuing the CEO/chair race equity action learning set programme.

On hold

On hold

This programme is not part of Home Truths 2 as scope was too wide and involves high resource.

We will explore with Association of Chairs the possibility of seeking funding for for 2024-5

Promote the initial recommendations of Hidden Leaders report to encourage members to progress in their own efforts to become disability inclusive organisations.

Ongoing

Complete

Initial targets achieved:

1.   Produce or promote existing materials and resources which support CEOs, leadership teams and human resources departments to understand what is meant and required in law under reasonable adjustments.

2.   Provide templates so that organisations can develop their own access and inclusion manifestos, and capture and share appropriate disability workforce data.

3.   Produce materials for members on how to avoid tokenism and ‘inspiration porn’ when recognising and celebrating disabled staff.

Look to work with a more diverse set of suppliers and corporate partners, including minority-owned or disability-led businesses

Ongoing

Ongoing

Efforts are ongoing – it has proved more difficult to be able to source disability led businesses partnerships but we continue to make efforts to do so.

March 2021

1. Purpose and vision

The purpose of this equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategy is to set out ACEVO’s EDI objectives for 2021-24 and the steps we need to take to deliver against these objectives.

We aspire to be a genuinely inclusive charity through diverse representation at all levels, a culture that supports staff and volunteers to fully be themselves, and to be a charity that is anti-racist and able to demonstrate how we have removed structural barriers that perpetuate racism, ableism and other discriminatory behaviours.

Our diversity and inclusion activity for our staff and board will ensure that we adhere to ACEVO’s code of conduct. This commits us to creating a warm and welcoming environment for all and to ensure that our members, every person who works for or with us, volunteers with us or otherwise comes into contact with us is treated with dignity and respect, and feels that they are in a safe and supportive environment, free from inappropriate, discriminatory, offensive or harmful behaviour.

The strategy will also help us plan how we comply with the duties placed on ACEVO by the Equality Act 2010, which states that is against the law to discriminate against someone because of age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation.

We don’t think there is a hierarchy of oppression: all inequality needs to be tackled. In order to implement real change, we need to focus our limited resources, hence this plan’s focus on the three areas of race, disability and gender. We recognise that an individual’s identity is not limited to one dimension and we hope that our work will contribute to more inclusivity within ACEVO and our members’ organisations for all under-represented people.

Whilst we adhere to equality legislation, that is the minimum activity we undertake. We aspire to be better than the minimum of legislation and we also recognise inequalities such as caring responsibilities, social mobility and ways individuals can be discriminated against, such as class or accent discrimination.

This plan details what activities we need to pursue to meet our objectives and how we will monitor our progress and success in meeting them. We will ensure that our staff and trustees understand the part they play in helping ACEVO deliver on our EDI objectives and realise our vision by regularly providing resources and learning materials.

This strategy is a living document which we will keep under review so we can adjust our approach as and when required.

2. Context

McKinsey’s research on diversity shows that companies with more diverse gender, culture and ethnicity outperform employers that don’t support diversity.

The research found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity experience outperform by 21%. For ethnic and cultural diversity, there was a 33% likelihood of outperformance.

However, fewer than one in 10 voluntary sector employees (9%) are from Black and minoritised ethnic backgrounds – a lower proportion than both the public and private sectors (both at 12%) and the UK population (14%). Only between 4-8% of executive and non-executive leaders in the sector are from BAME backgrounds. Groups classified as BAME include people identifying as Asian/Asian British, black/African/Caribbean/black British, white Irish, Arab, Latinx, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese, or Gypsy or Irish Traveller, as well as those of multiple ethnic backgrounds. In this document we use ‘BAME’ in a particular and limited way to describe the aggregate experiences of (often) racialised and minoritised people categorised as other than ‘white British’.

In the 2020 ACEVO Pay & Equalities Survey, which is completed by charity CEOs across England, Wales, Scotland and N Ireland, 16% of respondents identified as having an impairment, health condition or learning difference. Women are also underrepresented in leadership positions within larger charities, while women of colour and/or disabled women are underrepresented at all sizes of charities.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement has brought into global focus the structural and systemic racism within our society. The pandemic is also creating rising inequalities in health, education and financial wellbeing with people with protected characteristics likely to suffer disproprortionately in all these areas.

3. ACEVO’s progress on EDI

3.1 Race equity

ACEVO first included the issue of race equity in the charity sector as a policy priority in 2017. While we have made some progress in our ongoing work of informing and engaging sector leaders with the issue, we still have much work to do on our own systems and processes to ensure we are an anti-racist and genuinely accessible organisation to staff, trustees and members.

  • Together with the Chartered Institute of Fundraising, we published eight principles for sector leaders in July 2018. We currently have over 100 sector CEOs signed up to the principles, with links to published evidence of their action on delivering the principles.
  • In May 2019 we published our diversity targets for the staff team and board (see below).
  • In January 2021 we changed ACEVO’s articles of association to allow the board to appoint five trustees by co-option to give us greater flexibility in fulfilling the board’s skills and diversity requirements.
  • Our Home Truths report, published with Voice4Change England in June 2020, centred the voices of over 500 Black and minoritised ethnic employees within the charity sector and made a series of recommendations for organisations, regulators and leaders, comprising practical ideas to help the charity sector turn decisively towards race equity, diversity and inclusivity.
  • We have written to the largest 20 grant-makers to ask them to publish data on how much of their grants are awarded to BAME-led organisations.

3.2 Inclusion and accessibility

  • In February 2021, ACEVO published its Hidden Leaders report, commissioned primarily to help ACEVO understand what action we should prioritise in order to meet the targets we have on improving disability representation within the team and in membership.
  • We have taken steps to improve the accessibility of ACEVO’s events including adding an extensive checklist of accessibility needs to our events booking form and using the Otter AI transcription service for online events.
  • We also appoint a ‘disability champion’ from within the staff team for any large-scale events, who is fully briefed on the venue and how to access the services within it (eg disabled loos, lifts etc). They are also responsible for handling any issues or requirements that may arise during the event. Delegates with accessibility needs will be personally greeted on arrival and introduced to the disability champion so they have a key point of contact throughout the event. We also allocate reserved seating for disabled delegates depending on their needs (eg access to hearing loop etc).
  • In September 2019 ACEVO launched its new website, alongside a new brand identity. Ensuring accessibility was a key part of the project with a stated outcome being that the website and associated tools have passed all accessibility requirements. Consultants bidding for the project were specifically asked to highlight how they would manage accessibility for disabled people. Prior to launch, a member testing group, which included a disabled member, was formed to give feedback.
  • Eighteen months on, we continue to make improvements to the website, and will continue to do so. Descriptions are added to photos using Alt+text and, most recently, we have improved the accessibility of ACEVO reports with content being published as individual web pages, in addition to a pdf format.
  • ACEVO’s Women in Leadership group meets at least twice annually as a safe space for women leaders to convene and connect.
  • The second cohort of our Jane Slowey Memorial Membership programme, who began the programme in January 2021, is a group of seven women leaders of colour in the early stages of their leadership careers.

3.3 Pay transparency

  • Our pay and performance policy includes a banding system for positions within ACEVO and makes it clear how staff members can apply for pay reviews. We hope this improves transparency around pay decisions and improves the opportunity for existing staff members to feed back to the management team about their salary.
  • ACEVO published its gender and ethnicity pay gap data in July 2020.

3.4 Tackling discrimination, bullying and harassment

  • Our twice-yearly staff survey asks if staff have experienced at ACEVO any personal harassment in the form of unkind words or behaviour, with 100% of staff disagreeing or strongly disagreeing with this in all surveys carried out to date.
  • Quarterly check-ins with their line manager enable staff to raise any incidents of poor behaviour.
  • The CEO has informal one-to-one meetings with all staff members, at a frequency of their choice, where issues can be raised.
  • We have a named senior team member and trustee responsible for staff wellbeing to whom staff can speak if they do not wish to speak to their line manager or the CEO.

4. Good D&I practice

The newly revised Charity Governance Code asks boards to:

  • Think about why ED&I is important for their charity and assess the current level of understanding.
  • Make space as a board to understand current systems, cultures and the broader context.
  • Set out plans and targets tailored to the charity and its starting point. Develop context-specific, realistic and time-bound goals.
  • Monitor and measure progress through a process of regular self-assessment.
  • Be transparent and publish the charity’s progress, including sharing progress, challenges and learning.

5. Current status

Staff and trustee diversity targets

The ACEVO/Chartered Institute of Fundraising racial diversity leadership principles ask civil society organisations to “commit to setting permanent and minimum targets for diversity that reflect the participants, donors, beneficiaries and the population of the area that my charity operates in.”

ACEVO’s staff and board targets are:

ACEVO staff

Benchmark

Status at May 19

Status at 5.2.21

Gender balance (women:men)60:4093:787:13
Proportion of BAME staff40%33%31%
Proportion of BAME staff at senior management team level 40%20%20%
Proportion of staff with a disability or long-term health impairment20%0%13%

ACEVO TRUSTEE BOARD

BENCHMARK

STATUS AT MAY 19

STATUS AT SEPTEMBER 23

Gender balance (women:men)

60:40

60:40

50:50

Proportion of BAME trustees

40%

27%

33%

Proportion of trustees with a disability or long-term health impairment

20%

0

22%

Proportion of LGBT+ trustees*

20%

n/a

22%

*Added in 2023

Pay gap data

Full report available on the page ‘Our policy on pay’.

 2023202220212020
Mean gender pay gap in favour of men20.10%23.30%22.40%23.50%
Median gender pay gap in favour of men27.70%37.90%33.80%30.10%
Mean ethinicity pay gap in favour of white British staff17.10%10.90%20.30%23.70%
Median ethinicty pay gap in favour of white British satff32.70%28.20%38.80%33.30%

6. Key objectives

  • We recognise that ACEVO needs to improve representation of BAME people at senior levels within the organisation, and of disabled people within the staff team.
  • We need to increase the number of men on the staff team.
  • We need to address our ethnicity and gender pay gaps.
  • We need to ensure diversity and inclusion considerations are a natural and integral part of our key business decisions and that staff and trustees understand the need to address bias in decision making.
  • We want to maintain current levels of staff satisfaction as evidenced in the Dec 2020 staff survey which found zero levels of personal harassment in the form of unkind words or behaviour and no reports of bullying.

7. Objectives

1. Embed an inclusive workplace culture

a. Explicitly integrate EDI goals into our next organisational strategy.

b. Provide training for staff and trustees at regular intervals, matching our actions to our organisational values.

c. Regularly review diversity data to identify key demographics which are not present in the staff team or board.

d. Include regular discussions on EDI within board, SMT and staff team meetings.

e. Support a self-managed staff network of Black, Asian and minoritized ethnic team members (subject to demand).

f. Define and promote inclusive behaviours:

  • Agree a common understanding of what inclusive behaviours are
  • Ask as part of annual goal-setting reviews about what staff members have done to help achieve more inclusivity at ACEVO
  • Include inclusivity as part of the monthly staff recognition award.

g. Ensure we always have a named senior team member and trustee responsible for staff wellbeing to whom staff can speak if they do not wish to speak to their line manager or the CEO.

h. Continue to monitor responses in twice-yearly staff survey to the question asking if staff have experienced any personal harassment in the form of unkind words or behaviour.

i. Ensure quarterly check-ins continue to enable staff to raise any incidents of poor behaviour.

j. Continue practice of offering informal one-to-one meetings between the CEO and all staff members where issues can be raised.

k. Ensure marketing materials reflect our commitment to EDI by reviewing marketing materials to assess gaps in diversity

l. Develop a manifesto for inclusion around disability (responding to our Hidden Leaders report) to include:

  • Principles which guide ACEVO’s work
  • How to request an adaption or adjustment
  • Transparency about how and when that will be made
  • Relevant information about organisational targets around disability inclusion
  • What disabled people can expect if interacting with the organisation or disclosing needs, including the availability of alternative communication methods and formats.

m. Create a wellness action plan in the workplace, to help actively support employees’ mental wellbeing, and to help staff understand what is available and how to support one another positively in the workplace.

n. Review the exit interview process to identify trends of negative experiences related to characteristics.

2. Address unconscious bias in recruitment and performance management

a. Review and formalise recruitment practices, developing standard operating procedures which ensure equity is in-built, ensuring they are consistent with the advice in our Racial Diversity in the Charity Sector report.

b. Continue to monitor responses in twice-yearly staff survey to the question asking staff about satisfaction with their pay and line management.

c. Embed new pay policy, benchmarking and salary banding.

d. Review current salary levels to reduce any inequity.

3. Monitoring and reporting

a. Annually publish gender and ethnicity pay gaps in the annual report and on the website

b. Annually publish our progress towards board and staff diversity targets

c. Publish this EDI plan on the ACEVO website.

4. Sector-facing work

a. Continue to make EDI a policy priority, including it in the policy strategy.

b. Create a more visible/accessible section on our website relating to EDI information and advice, with top level navigation.

c. Include regular equity and inclusion training in our programme and events calendar and encourage discussion within our network to enable peers to support each other in their progress

d. Review EDI components of existing events and programmes eg New & Emerging Leaders, Dynamic Duo, Next Step Leadership, Leadership Learning training etc

e. Work to fulfil the Home Truths recommendations:

  • Write to all ACEVO members to ask them to publish their ethnicity pay gap data as recommended in the Home Truths report
  • Continue to ask sector leaders to commit to the Racial Diversity Principles, including providing a statement about the actions they plan to take. Monitor this annually
  • Publish data from the largest 20 grant-makers on how much of their grants are awarded to BAME-led organisations
  • Work with other charities to develop independent or third-party mechanisms for reporting and addressing racism in the charity sector (funding permitting)
  • Campaign for annual funding to be given to a BAME-led civil society group (or coalition) to carry out an annual ‘BAME Barometer’ survey to capture BAME experiences in charities.

f. Explore opportunities to work with other groups to progress race equality within our sector, eg the infrastructure collaboration group and the Change the Race Ratio initiative.

g. Review and agree ACEVO’s approach to individuals within membership who exhibit discriminatory behaviour.

h. Seek funding for continuing the CEO/chair race equity action learning set programme.

i. Continue to use the Pay and Equalities Survey to highlight the pace of change on equity issues within the sector.

j. Continue to work with Voice4Change England to explore how we take forward the Making Diversity Count joint project.

k. Promote the recommendations of Hidden Leaders report to encourage members to progress in their own efforts to become disability inclusive organisations.

l. Look to work with a more diverse set of suppliers and corporate partners, including minority-owned or disability-led businesses.

m. Review ACEVO’s approach to paying speakers at events.

Roles and responsibilities

We will ensure that ACEVO staff are aware of their responsibilities in implementing this strategy. Responsibilities include:

  • Senior managers to demonstrate inclusive leadership and champion diversity and inclusion across their teams.
  • Line managers to lead teams inclusively, ensuring that individuals can realise their full potential and capability.
  • All senior managers to be aware of their responsibilities as employers in relation to the Equality Act 2010 and other relevant legislation.

Not an ACEVO member?

If you have any queries please email info@acevo.org.uk
or call 020 7014 4600.