DEI and Communications for Good 2021 Survey
Sean Gibbons
CEO
The Communications Network
@SeanGibbons_
Key findings:
More foundation & nonprofit communications shops are bringing the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion into their daily work and operations as compared to 2019
More orgs are using their voices to offer values-based leadership in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and reckonings with racism
Asset framing has become more commonplace across the field, but work to unseat divisive and diminishing narratives remains less common
Some resistance to building DEI into comms work continues at the org leadership level, and shared understanding and definitions of DEI values are evolving across the field
Read the 2021 DEI and Communications Survey Analysis
The Communications Network has been committed to learning how foundation and nonprofit communications shops are applying the deeply American values of diversity, equity, and inclusion in their daily work and operations.
We first brought these questions to the field in 2019. This year, we asked again, to see what (if anything) had changed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the reckonings with racism across the United States.
To ask for your help, we sent you an email that borrowed from The Beatles to remind you we all “Get by with a little help from our friends…”
That’s never been truer than over the last year. And it’s the central idea that propels our purpose at The Communications Network to connect, gather, and inform our field.
So, how are we doing? To offer a headline from our 2021 DEI/Comms Survey, I’m summoning another Beatles song: “Got to admit it’s getting better. It’s getting better all the time…”
Read the exclusive writeup of our findings in today’s Chronicle of Philanthropy.
