In 2013, the Northwest Arkansas Council started EngageNWA, its project whose goal was to provide a platform and the tools needed to help the region become more diverse and inclusive.
This past summer, as Black Lives Matter protests occurred across the nation, the council announced it had adopted a leadership pledge as a commitment to end systemic racism in the region. The pledge was quickly taken by many of the area’s businesses, which partner with government, educational and private organizations to form the council.
The pledge is a good start but it is, after all, just words for a situation that requires concrete, intentional actions. EngageNWA Executive Director Margot Lemaster said it is important that meaningful change follow from the more than 160 businesses and organizations that took the pledge.
“Our focus is how can we support them on their journey to fulfill the commitment they made,” Lemaster said. “Obviously we can’t just have people signing the pledge and then they’re done. That is what we see as part of our job, to support this regional accountability and hold one another accountable.”
A lot of EngageNWA work is foundational right now and it may seem like results are lagging behind, but it is important to have clear metrics to better judge progress, Lemaster said. A survey that the council did in 2019 shows the need.
The survey, done by the Center for Business & Economic Research at the University of Arkansas’ Walton College of Business, revealed that while the region is 73% white, business leaders are even whiter. Whites hold 84% of leadership positions and 88% of board of director positions.
“We want that to serve as our benchmark so we can measure our progress over time,” Lemaster said.
Balancing those numbers so that leadership at businesses and organizations reflect the communities they serve is important and not just from a fairness perspective. Lemaster said numerous studies have shown that more diverse companies do better financially.
“Reputation to attract talent is important,” Lemaster said. “That is a huge one for northwest Arkansas. We need to be able to attract the best talent from anywhere in the world. If you’re a homogenous organization that is not taking steps you’re not going to be able to attract the talent you need.”
Complementary Actions
In October, EngageNWA started the NWA DEI Business Cohort with 15 businesses within the five regional chambers of commerce.
The cohort will run through March and will provide training and strategies to help businesses develop policies and practices for diversity, equity and inclusion, which is what DEI stands for. The 2019 survey showed that, among businesses with 50 or fewer employees, just over one third had internal oversight over DEI efforts and just 18% had DEI workforce goals.
EngageNWA partnered with the Walton College of Business in the fall for a virtual meeting about race. Lemaster said 75 businesses participated as well as more than 100 members of the UA’s faculty and student body.
There were also more than 650 participants in a discussion with Ijeoma Oluo, author of “So You Want to Talk About Race.”
“That was a big success that got a lot of people talking about these issues,” Lemaster said. “If they hadn’t already started the conversation within their organization or business, this really allowed them to get started.
“In 2021, it is really going to put us to the test. Will we hold ourselves accountable to the commitment we made in 2020? We want to see our region deliver on that commitment.”
On Feb. 8, the Walton Family Foundation announced its five-year strategic plan would provide up to $2 billion in grants, and one of the main areas of focus was to be projects that promoted diversity, equity and inclusion. The foundation said diversity would be an important factor in grants across the board from environmental causes to educational ones.
“I think it is heartening that so many organizations are paying attention to this work across the region,” said Karen Minkel, the Home Region program director for the foundation. “I would say the work should all be complementary. You’re not going to achieve this ambitious vision without a massive effort across the region, so it can’t be a few individuals or one organization. It has to be a critical mass of people and organizations.”
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