Is Cultural Diversity in the Australian Philanthropic Sector a Problem?
Dr Meera Varadharajan's latest report highlights a stark lack of cultural diversity within the Australian philanthropic sector, particularly at decision-making levels. She offers actionable recommendations aimed at fostering inclusion and ensuring the sector truly reflects and serves Australia's diverse population.
Businesses globally are being urged to do better to address racial and human justice inequalities. This includes the philanthropic sector, which plays an important role in supporting work to address social and systemic issues. International research has noted the importance of the sector establishing diversity, equity and inclusion best practices and working in partnership with people and communities who are racially and ethnically marginalised. However, disappointingly, there is a lack of research on cultural diversity[1] and representation within the Australian philanthropic sector.
In order to address this gap, researchers from the Centre for Social Impact (CSI) at University of New South Wales and Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education at University of Technology Sydney recently conducted a study to develop an understanding of the extent of cultural diversity representation (which includes First Nations peoples) in the Australian philanthropic sector and the impact on the partners it works with. Interviews and surveys were conducted with grant funders and grant recipients who represent or support culturally diverse people, communities and organisations.
Results from the study found there is a lack of cultural diversity in the philanthropic sector, especially at decision-making levels, such as in boards and in senior leadership teams. The sector does not currently reflect the diversity of Australia’s current population, makeup and cultures. The study also found that funding organisations did not appear to be implementing culturally inclusive practices and strategies, or making genuine efforts to understand the community they seek to serve. This can negatively impact the communities the sector seeks to serve, for instance, there is a lack of funding available to grassroots organisations and a lack of targeted support to help recipients succeed and thrive. In addition, recipients felt invisible, their needs were not heard, understood, or prioritised.
To improve representation and funding processes – and ultimately a roadmap for shifting practice in the philanthropic sector, 16 actionable recommendations are set out in the study findings. These are listed below.
Representation in board roles and beyond:
1. Adopt inclusive practices to recruit people from different backgrounds, cultures and sectors to board, executive team and staff roles that have influence and make decisions.
2. Establish dedicated committees with direct access to boards to advise on diversity and inclusion matters.
3. Work with culturally diverse people and community representatives to find optimal solutions to increase representation. The aim is to lessen the cultural load[2], particularly on not-for-profit organisations, while attracting people from different cultures and backgrounds.
Partnerships:
4. Start early to initiate partnership-building processes, recognising commitment, trust and solidarity as key to success.
5. Shift towards an immersive, engaged, co-designed and collaborative process and practice and away from gatekeeping practices.
6. Promote the practice of participatory grant-making across organisations and the sector.
Funding and visibility:
7. Make networking and other social capital opportunities more inclusive, to encourage a wider group of people from diverse backgrounds to grow their networks and increase their visibility.
8. Examine and be open to amending funding opportunities, grant guidelines, application processes and reporting requirements to be culturally sensitive, less cumbersome and less competition-driven. Re-frame or re-write rule books, guidelines and norms in close consultation with the partners being supported.
9. Embed an equity and intersectionality lens such that both issues and the people impacted by these issues are understood and equally prioritised – cultural diversity becomes the norm rather than an ‘add-on’.
10. Establish guidelines to collect robust baseline and other data, to build and share information about cultural diversity and the various groups that come under it.
11. Develop a coherent and comprehensive system for collecting, sharing and monitoring key data within the philanthropic sector.
12. Learn lessons from other successful non-Western informed[3] philanthropic funding models.
Questioning purpose, power and privilege:
13. Identify blind spots and genuinely attempt to understand how power and privilege play out in decision-making.
14. Establish standardised principles to embed equity-centred safe workplace culture, values, practices and policies.
15. Set out a plan of action to incorporate transparency, accountability and robust measurement with respect to cultural diversity representation and granting practices.
16. Be an advocate for shifting culture and mindset and creating change within the sector.
It is time for the philanthropic sector to come together to have difficult but necessary conversations and commit to an action plan for cultural diversity and inclusion. Creating the right conditions in Australian philanthropy will enable the sector to progress, from ‘embracing’ diversity to enabling and actioning genuine inclusion.
To access the full report, click here.
[1] ‘Cultural diversity’ is used to broadly refer to culturally marginalised people and communities including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, that are not from Anglo-Western origins. It is acknowledged that ‘cultural diversity’ can be used as a construct that is both part of an individual identity, and a term that can be ‘put on’ others as a way of describing or othering or discriminating against culturally marginalised groups of people.
[2] Cultural load is the (often invisible) additional load borne by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at work, where they are the only Indigenous person or one of a small number of Indigenous people (Ragg, 2019).
[3] The term ‘Western-informed’ refer to Anglo-Western modes of thinking that are not informed by Indigenous and culturally and/or racially marginalised methodologies and practices.
Dr Meera Varadharajan is a Research Fellow at CSI and led the study titled ‘From Colour Blind to Race Conscious: A roadmap to action diversity and inclusion in Australian philanthropy’ (July 2023).
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