Internal Comms
Internal communication strategies play a large role in shaping organizational culture, which in turn impacts how equity is implemented in day to day work activities. Communicators have the power to create inclusive environments by establishing safe spaces for conversation, uplifting voices throughout the organization and modeling DEI language and behavior.
We’ve created these six tips with the communicator in mind. It’s flexible, so use it as a checklist, a launching point for a discussion, or even an assessment survey to improve your DEI communications.
Comms
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Your DEI mission starts and ends with the staffers who are all passionate about a common cause. By using the Intranet as a tool to spur connectivity, you’ll see an inside-out cultural change that will pay dividends down the road.
Use online communication to share organization-wide happenings. When you establish a consistent platform, it’ll enable you to create an inclusive culture.
Use message boards and employee blogs to encourage transparency and honesty. Enable BIPOC staff members to start their own digital communities where they can gather with other staffers who are keen to discuss pertinent issues facing the community.
Allow for messaging apps like Slack to encourage staff members to improve and develop working relationships. Collaboration and camaraderie go hand-in-hand.
Learn More: Improve Your Nonprofit’s Internal Communication and Collaboration
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In your org-wide newsletter, craft content that puts a spotlight on the diversity of your staffers — both in terms of their racial backgrounds, but also in terms of the varying interests, skills, and insights they bring to the table.
Evaluate which employees you’re currently featuring. Are they all white, senior-level employees? Work to share inclusive spotlights, stories, and announcements.
Share uplifting and positive stories about the communities you are working in.
Eliminate existing idea silos. Use newsletters to create inclusion by sharing different ideas and work that various people are doing.
Learn More: How to Create Inclusive Content to Make your Audience Feel Seen (and Heard)
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Every word your organization publicizes, whether it’s internal or external, should reflect your programs and your core values.
Think about inclusivity and diversity in both your language and images. Don’t rely on common stereotypes and anecdotes.
Make sure your language is ADA compliant. Have you ever asked people to “step up” to the cause? Think about how commonly used phrases can uphold stereotypes.
Pay attention to the details and be consistent. Small things like capitalizing Black, or using Latinx instead of Latino, can make a massive difference. Often, there is not a right or wrong use, but preferences do differ based on regions and their historical context. Consider sending around an internal language guide so that all members of the organization are on the same page on terminology.
Learn More: A Progressive’s Style Guide
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Make sure your report reflects the efforts you’ve been taking as an organization to improve your DEI. It should uphold all of the basic tenets you’ve applied to your communications strategy.
Talk about your organization's impact in terms of people, not just statistics. Numbers are a great supplement to the story, but they’re never a substitute. Annual reports should incorporate direct quotes from individuals of a variety of backgrounds.
Answer this question: Are you talking about your impact in a savior perspective or through a partner perspective? Work to present your organization as a partner, not a hero.
Talk about the communities you work with by focusing on their assets, not their deficits. This is asset framing. This aspiration-based perspective will showcase the strengths of your partners. The images you use should also be aspiration-based, focusing on positive impacts and transformational change.
Learn More: Kellog’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion 2019 Features
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Every organization should have an equity value statement that is published on their website or at the very least circulated internally. It should be bold. Crafting a communicable equity mission is a long process, and in order to properly address diversity issues, you’ll need to consult a variety of stakeholders, both internally and externally.
Determine your goals: What do you hope to accomplish with this statement? What is the focus area? Who are your stakeholders? Learn and draw inspiration from others by not only reading their equity statements but also doing a deeper dive into their process.
Without accompanying action items, an equity statement is largely void of the potential for progress. Give heft to your statement by creating a roadmap of actionable benchmarks and metrics.
Include language that calls out the systemic barriers to equity, and how your organization works toward fixing them.
Learn More: Steps to Create a Statement on Cultural Equity
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No matter what department, it’s key that everyone upholds the strategies that communicators use to foster diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Discuss how your internal communications practices impact the broader organizational culture. If you want the organizational culture to recognize race, racism, and DEI then you must articulate those values via internal communications.
Distribute your equity statement to all teams. Include action items that encourage members to dismantle racism within their individual spheres.
Hold a periodic org-wide meeting to discuss how your communications strategy surrounding DEI has evolved over time.
Learn More: How to Make Your Communications Team a Catalyst for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
“...racism is pervasive and persistent. If we can’t address it directly, we will make little progress. It may be difficult to hear the pain and often anger that is expressed from communities of color and understand what it means unless there is an authentic commitment to confront bias and hate, respect experiences different than your own and understand current and historical data and its implications.”
Carmen Anderson, Director of Equity and Social Justice