Author: Dorene Weston

Published: 2012

There are solid arguments in favour of ensuring that governance bodies in the public and nonprofit sectors reflect the rich diversity of our society. Hundreds of thousands of public and nonprofit boards around the world oversee and deliver a wide range of both volunteer and business activities in our daily lives.

The benefits of diverse leadership include improved financial and organizational performance, enhanced innovation and creativity, and strengthened cohesion and social capital. These benefits extend to diverse leadership in governance – a growing field of study and a potentially powerful initiative for your community. Yet, while cities around the world are becoming more and more ethnically and racially diverse, there often is a striking lack of diversity at the top of corporate, public and nonprofit organizations. This is a missed opportunity.

In the Greater Toronto Area, DiverseCity onBoard addresses this challenge of lack of diverse leadership with a proactive matching service that identifies, trains and facilitates placements of highly qualified candidates in board roles in public and nonprofit agencies, boards and commissions.

To help you set up your own program, we have created a replication toolkit. The aim of this toolkit is to describe a successful program model and give you the tools to replicate this program in your community.

This toolkit answers the following questions:

• How can I connect qualified members from under-represented communities to agencies, boards, commissions and nonprofits?
• What can I learn from Maytree’s DiverseCity onBoard program?
• Where can I find up-to-date resources and sample tools?

You may find this information valuable if you are

• ready to embark on a similar program and require more information about how to make it work
• doing some background research before making a programming decision
• curious about the program

Communities vary in size and it takes time to bring a new program to full capacity. This toolkit provides you with a fairly detailed outline of a mature program set in a large urban centre. You can select which sections are the most relevant to your community and organization and how you might introduce new ideas and variations to meet your needs.

For more resources on governance, you can find links to useful publications, documents and links to websites.

Download the Diversecity OnBoard Toolkit (PDF).

Cathy Winter, Manager of DiverseCity on Board, speaks about the onBoard program:

Reason for Replication

In 2011, DiverseCity onBoard was selected from over 400 international proposals to receive second prize in the Intercultural Innovation Awards sponsored by the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and BMW Group.

The award opened up a new chapter for DiverseCity onBoard. It supports the replication of DiverseCity onBoard nationally and internationally and has resulted in a growing network of 21 cities working together to develop similar programs in countries around the world.

There is interest in adapting or replicating our program expressed, among others, from organizations in Auckland, Atlanta, Barcelona, Berlin, Birmingham, Boston, Calgary, Cologne, Copenhagen, Dublin, Hamilton, London, Montreal, New York, Oakland, Ottawa, Stuttgart, Sydney, and Vienna.

For more information, please contact diversecityonboard(at)ryerson.ca.