Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion


Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at BGC Mercer

Executive Summary

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Mercer County’s (BGCMC) Leadership Team and Board Members are committed to advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in our organization by developing a strategic vision which positions BGCMC to be a leader in providing, and maintaining, a diverse, inclusive, and equitable environment for everyone.  

The organization has developed a Strategy with goals, objectives, action items, roles, responsibilities, and key partnerships that exist or will exist to facilitate BGCMC’s ability to successfully recruit, hire, promote, educate, and retain a more diverse workforce, and to create an organizational culture that encourages inclusiveness, collaboration, flexibility, and fairness to enable individuals to participate to their full potential. The Strategy will be executed in partnership between BGCMC’s Leadership Team, Board of Trustees, our employees, and community stakeholders.

For BGCMC, fostering an organizational culture of inclusion and ensuring all our employees, volunteers, and members/families feel supported, embraced, and heard. As a non-profit organization, we have a unique opportunity to leverage our resources – our people, programming, and platforms – to work toward lasting solutions.

Message from the President/CEO and Board Chair

Reggie Coleman -- President & CEO:  With approximately 100-150 employees in Mercer County, we all benefit when we embrace diversity and inclusion at all levels. As the President and CEO of BGCMC, I have made it a priority that diversity and inclusion increase within our organization. BGCMC knows that we deliver our best work for the children we serve when we reflect the diversity of those, we serve, and everyone is included. 

 

Our staff provides young people, in Mercer County, ages 3-18, with social, educational and enrichment activities. By drawing on our colleagues’ individual identities and experiences, we become greater than the sum of our parts.

 

Paul Ashley -- Board Chair:  Promoting a diversity of backgrounds and experiences among our staff will help us better achieve our organization’s mission. Our shared mission to enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, and responsible citizens bring us together to do our best for children every day. 

 

The Board of Trustees is committed to supporting this diversity, equity, and inclusion strategy to better fulfill the vision and mission of the organization.

 

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Vision, Mission, and Values Statements

Vision:  Be a model organization, celebrating a widely diverse workforce and providing an inclusive and equitable environment for everyone, reflective of the communities in which we work and the children we serve all across Mercer County.

 

Mission:  Develop, strengthen, and support educational programs, initiatives, partnerships, policies, and organizational culture that promote a diverse workforce of individuals who feel that they are equitably treated, respected, visible, and enabled to do their best work in their chosen areas of expertise to increase our innovativeness, strengthen our adherence to our core values and enhance our work for children.

 

Value Statements:  We believe in:

• An open, inclusive organization — built upon respect, communication, integrity, and a collaborative work environment.

• Realizing the power of people by respecting the differences among all staff.

• Encouraging creativity and investing in innovation — to build our future.

• Pursuit of excellence through continuous learning — becoming smarter all the time about what we know and what we do in service to the children we serve.

Definition of Terms

Diversity:  Innate and acquired differences that make every individual unique including (but not limited to): age, race, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, education, language skills, veteran status, work experience, organizational level, marital status, religion, and philosophical and intellectual perspectives.  Embracing diversity is about moving beyond tolerance to understanding and appreciating each other by respecting and celebrating diversity in each individual and the organization as a whole.

Equity:  The guarantee of fair treatment and access to opportunities that provides the chance for everyone to succeed regardless of diverse traits.  Equity seeks to reduce barriers that prevent some groups and individuals from fully participating.

Inclusion:  Empowering all individuals to contribute their unique perspectives and fostering a positive environment in which any individual is welcomed, respected, supported, valued, and encouraged to be their full authentic selves at all times by eliminating both implicit and explicit barriers to communication and participation.

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Goals

The Boys and Girls Clubs of Mercer County is committed to fostering and cultivating an organizational culture of diversity, equity and inclusion in all aspects of our organization.  This includes:
•    Board & Leadership Staff
•    Employees & Volunteers
•    Club Policies & Procedures
•    Programs & Curriculum
•    Club Partners, Vendors, and Funders
•    Student & Community Voice
•    Physical Environment – Facilities

 

The Club will achieve this by focusing on the following Goals:

1.    Workforce Diversity: Recruit from a diverse, qualified group of potential applicants to secure a high-performing workforce drawn from all segments of American society. 
2.    Workplace Inclusion: Cultivate an organizational culture that encourages collaboration, flexibility, and fairness to allow individuals to realize their full potential and to promote retention.
3.    Equal Opportunity: Ensure equal opportunity with proactive workplace resolutions. 
4.    Sustainability: Develop structures and strategies to equip leaders with the ability to manage diversity, be accountable, measure results, refine approaches on the basis of such data, and institutionalize an organizational culture of inclusion.
5.    Community Engagement: Promote an organizational culture, policies, initiatives, and programs which demonstrates to the members/families of the communities we serve that BGCMC is a welcoming and inclusive organization that values the diversity of its staff, members, and their families.
6.    Ensure that BGCMC’s policies and practices are consistent with this DEI Strategy. 

 

Goal 1: Workforce Diversity
•    Sustain a skilled, highly engaged, and diverse workforce at all levels, including leadership
•    Engage and train leadership in understanding and implementing workforce diversity
•    Ensure leadership is committed to sustainable diversity and inclusion strategies
•    Ensure that recruitment and selection practices are reflective of this DEI Strategy
•    Provide all employees with equal access to developmental and advancement opportunities
•    Identify and address barriers that could lead to lower retention of under-represented groups
•    Build and sustain a diverse leadership team

Goal 2: Workplace Inclusion
•    Cultivate an inclusive workplace where employees’ unique talents, skills, and perspectives are valued and leveraged
•    Develop inclusive workplace initiatives
•    Develop inclusive behaviors in leaders
•    Remove opportunities for adverse bias in workplace practices
•    Improve workplace inclusion of employees with disabilities by providing these employees with the necessary resources for success in their jobs. 

Goal 3: Equal Employment Opportunity - Anti-discrimination, Anti-harassment, and Anti-retaliation
•    Maintain a workplace free of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation
•    Comply with all applicable federal, state, and local anti-discrimination, anti-harassment, and anti-retaliation laws
•    Provide equal employment opportunities to all employees, job applicants, and other covered persons without regard to unlawful considerations of race, color, religion or creed, gender, sex (including pregnancy), national origin or ancestry, ethnicity, citizenship status, genetic information, military or veteran status, age, physical or mental disability, family status, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws
•    Implement processes to mitigate and resolve workplace conflict
•    Provide effective and reasonable workplace accommodations for employees with disabilities where such accommodations will not result in an undue hardship

Goal 4: Sustainability
•    Update Club employment, enrollment forms, and program materials to current inclusive terminology and language
•    Conduct diversity and inclusivity training for staff
•    Include inclusivity topics into the social, emotional, learning curriculum
•    Work with each school to dove tail their policies into CIS programming, and facilitate any update to school policies as needed
•    Be a resource for members through our Family Case Managers and LSW, as well as a resource for clients
•    Build a robust and integrated suppliers/partners/funders diversity program:
o    Partner with suppliers/partners/funders, whenever possible, that mirror our diverse talent and embrace the same value-driven organizational culture.
o    Implement effective procedures that support diversity. 
o    Increase opportunities for diverse suppliers/partners/funders to participate. 
o    Advance the development of diverse suppliers/partners/funders; and 
o    Improve internal suppliers/partners/funders diversity awareness. 

Goal 5: Community Engagement
•    Have a diversity and inclusivity workshop for parents
•    Publish parent information in multiple languages
•    Hire staff that is reflective of the community we serve.
•    Include a community stakeholder on our Board of Trustees, Committees & Task Forces
•    Utilize software in which provides for multiple language translation.  Examples include Schoology and Now Pow

Goal 6:  Polices & Procedures:
•    Review Policies & Procedures on an on-going basis.

Roles and Responsibilities


BGCMC’s Senior Leadership Team (SLT) and Members of the Board will sponsor this work at the highest leadership level. SLT members are role models and change agents who drive this work to ensure that DEI efforts are sustained in the long term.The SLT members are thought leaders who establish and promote a shared vision of DEI and will support the execution of the activities described in this strategy. They will foster a partnership with HR and the learning group to align policies/organizational processes/programming/curriculum with DEI guiding principles. 

People Managers will promote DEI across the Club. People Managers will embody DEI guiding principles in their approaches and decision making. People Managers will receive training and resources to deepen their cultural understanding, and to support their own understanding of DEI.


BGCMC welcomes and values suggestions from employees as to how to foster diversity and inclusion in the workplace so we can continue to improve our organizational culture. BGCMC will implement staff suggestions at its discretion.

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