DIVERSITY, EQUALITY & INCLUSION
‘WHEN IT COMES TO DIVERSITY, WE TEND TO GET STUCK AT THE BIG TWO…’
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is like throwing a party. Diversity is inviting a bunch of your friends who have different backgrounds, different abilities, those types of things. Equity is making sure everyone can enter the party. Is there a ramp for people who need wheelchair access? And inclusion is making sure everyone feels a part of the party. Do they feel like they belong? None of these things can really exist without the other. An association might say they’ve homed in on diversity, but how do those people actually feel when they’re engaging with you? Do they have a seat at the table? Do they feel included in conversations? A lot of international associations get stuck at diversity. ‘We’re a global organisation. We have people all over the world. Full stop.’ But diversity is not just about people ‘from all over the world’. It’s about people of colour. People who are neuro divergent. It’s different cultures. It’s LGBTQ+. You might have lots of people coming to your conference from all over the world, but is it easy for them to access the conference rooms or even get into the conference centre? What do your speakers look like? Are they all from a single demographic? We tend to get stuck at ‘the big two’ – gender and race. But when it comes to something like website design, we might not think about people who are visually impaired. Or when we’re creating content, we might overlook those who are hearing impaired. Can people with physical disabilities take part in your community service day? These are the things we need to be thinking deeper about. No one wants to feel tokenised. No one wants to think, the only reason we are visiting
the Civil Rights Museum is because we’ve got a black person on the panel. Let’s make sure we are thinking about the holistic experiences, what that means, who’s going to be included in that experience. And that has to be top of mind in everything we do until it becomes second nature. One of the first things we think about when planning an event is ‘how do we loosen up the crowd?’ And the answer is usually, ‘Well everyone loves food and drinks!’ But what about people who don’t thrive in those situations? We need to stop thinking about our norms and start asking people what a good networking opportunity looks like to them. It could be a sightseeing bus tour, or a game night. It could be providing a quiet environment for people who like to talk in small groups. We think about DEI as a separate programme from everything else that we do as an association, and if you’re just starting it needs to be. Why? Because programmes get strategies, they get resources. But once you start to integrate those strategies into your organisation it doesn’t just stop, it has to continually evolve. New issues pop up and they need to be top of mind for someone in the organisation who can keep the organisation honest in terms of addressing this properly. There’s merit to having someone involved in this 100 per cent of the time. Associations are very meticulous about explaining the precautions they are going to take to keep people safe from Covid-19. And that is absolutely necessary. It is also absolutely necessary to let your delegates know the things you are going to do to ensure they have an enjoyable experience if they have a hearing impairment or if they require mobility assistance.
MARJORIE ANDERSON FOUNDER, COMMUNITY BY ASSOCIATION
AMIMAGAZINE.GLOBAL 2022 #1 41
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