Spokes, an organization providing resources to support and empower the nonprofit community, will offer online class Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Basics for Board Members at 11 a.m. on March 5, 2024.
Closing out Spokes’ 2024 Board Academy––a multi-session program that educates attendees on all aspects of nonprofit board service––the new class will be the first offering in 2024 Spokes programming developed in partnership with Diversity Coalition San Luis Obispo County.
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Basics for Board Members will encourage attendees to engage in deep self reflection in an effort to build awareness of implicit bias, acknowledge privilege, examine social responsibility and understand how socialization and culture impact the work of nonprofits. Led by Cal Poly Dean of Students Joy Pedersen, Ph.D., the class will help introduce participants to racism as an institutional structure and explore their social responsibility to engage in bystander intervention, advocacy and social change.
“In order for a nonprofit board to best serve the needs of all the communities it serves, it must understand and be sensitive to cultural differences––and ideally, be diverse in and of itself,” said Michael Simkins, chief executive officer of Spokes. “We’re excited to partner with Diversity Coalition to bring this class and other critical programming, to our nonprofit members and others who will benefit.”
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion: Basics for Board Members will be held online in Zoom from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. on March 5. Cost is $25 for non-Spokes members; $10 for Spokes members; and free to Spokes Board Academy 2024 attendees. For more information and to register, visit https://bit.ly/DEIBoardBasics.