STRATEGIES FOR ENGAGING, ATTRACTING AND RETAINING A DIVERSE STAFF:

• Strategies for Putting out the Welcome Mat to Engage Diverse Constituents by Leah Cooper for PAHRTS. 
• Things You Can Do Right Now to Make Your Workplace More Healthy & Diverse compiled for PAHRTS. Feeling powerless? Here’s a massive list of simple things (and complex things) you can do that will have a big positive impact on you and your organizational culture.
• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: The Big Picture by Andre Koen for PAHRTS. An easy to understand breakdown of the differences and connections between diversity, equity, and inclusion, and the questions you need to ask to assess where you are on the scales.
• Two Sides of the Same Coin: Balancing Workplace Diversity Initiatives and Nondiscrimination Laws created by Megan Anderson & Sarah Duniway of Gray Plant Mooty and Alfonso Wenker of the MN Council on Foundations.
• Color-Conscious Casting: Three Questions to Ask by Lavina Jadhwani for HowlRound. The questions in question are: 1. What story does this casting tell? Is it clear and supported by the text? 2. 2. Is this story appropriately complex? and 3. Do I have the right players?
  • Color Conscious Directing: Three More Questions to Ask by Lavina Jadhwani for HowlRound. A followup to the previous article introduces three more questions: 1. What Are My Personal Biases? 2. How Can I Create a Safe Space? and 3. How Can I Create Room for Others?
• 2042 See Change: A video discussion from SphinxCon Detroit 2015: Empowering Ideas for Diversity in the Arts, featuring Tim Dang, East West Players, and respondents Teresa Eyring, TCG, and Gary Anderson, Plowshares Theatre Company. See also: the 51% Preparedness Plan.
• HowlRound: You Want a Diverse Theatre? Prove It. by Kareena Ingersoll and Deena Selenow: A blog post on inclusion in casting and hiring processes. From howlround.com.
• You Have to Want It: Diversity in Ensemble Theatres by Monty Cole. When asked by six different theatre companies in one week “How do I diversify my theatre’s ensemble?” Monty Cole takes to Howl Round to write a thorough response.
• A Guidebook for Building an Immigrant Workforce in the Nonprofit Sector by the Calgary Chamber of Voluntary Organizations. More from our Canadian neighbors, this guidebook contains tips for attracting, recruiting, and retaining immigrant including a great DIY implementation worksheet.
• Employer’s Guide to Integrating Immigrants into the Workplace by the Ottowa Chamber of Commerce. From our neighbors to the north, this guide contains a lot of tips for working across and through cultural differences, for preparing your workplace to welcome immigrants, and for translating work experience from different countries.
• Eliminating Bias: Working Effectively with your Muslim Clients and Colleagues by Council on American-Islamic Relations Minnesota. A powerpoint covering the basics of Islam as well as workplace implications for Muslim employees and clients.

CASE STUDIES:

• Yes and No: Conversations About Thriving with Artists of Color in the Twin Cities, a report for the McKnight Foundation. Interviewees were asked “What does it mean for you to thrive as a working artist of color?” “Are you thriving now?” “What do you need to thrive (more)?” “What have been supportive resources for you thus far in your life/work as an artist?” and “What challenges and barriers limit your ability to thrive as an artist?“
• Katori Hall, Keynote Speaker 2012 TCG Fall Forum on Governance: Video of Katori Hall’s keynote speech to TCG’s Fall Forum on Governance to the nation’s theatre trustees about her experience as a playwright of color.
• How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Discussing Race by Jay Smooth for TEDx Hampshire College (transcript available at link). NYC’s longest running hiphop radio program, the Underground Railroad, speaks on moving through defensiveness and fear to focus on growing through our imperfections.
• I’m a black actor. Here’s how inequality works when you’re not famous. by Bear Bellinger for Vox. Recounting his own experiences with auditioning and performing for stage and television, Bear sounds the call for more diverse environments.

Further Reading:

• Steady Growth and Big Changes Ahead: The Regional Forecast to 2040 from Metro Stats. Statistics on job growth and demographic shifts in the Twin Cities in the next two decades.
• The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates for The Atlantic. “Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.” A long-form essay with incredibly poignant insights drawn from a chronicling of the last five centuries of African slaves and their descendants in the United States.
• Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The famous 1963 letter penned by Rev Dr. MLK Jr containing a strong defense of nonviolent resistant against racism, including the phrase “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
• “Yes, And” by Second City‘sKelly Leonard and Tom Yorton. (external link to purchase book) Chapter 4 is focused on their efforts toward diversity within the company.
• Diversity at Work: Creating an inclusive and supportive work environment in the HR Council of Canada library. Another toolkit for embracing diversity in the workplace.