How successful has the American Cancer Society been in creating a diverse work force?
We’ve done a great job at building a diverse staff at the home office in Atlanta. The diversity of our staff exceeds the national average. But, as a whole, we don’t have as good a track record. Our goal is to have each office have a staff that reflects the communities they serve. How will you measure your success? We really are just looking at trends. We don’t have targeted numbers. I really don’t think that’s an effective way to produce change. But we’ll be developing metrics that will tell us if we’re doing a good job of attracting and retaining a diverse work force. I’m planning to develop a diversity scorecard so we can track how well we are doing. Is it harder for nonprofit organizations to attract diverse talent than it is for the private sector? The nonprofit world still has the stigma of hard work and low pay. I think the American Cancer Society has created a structure of competitive salaries to attract the number of people we need to fulfill our mission. It isn’t the mom-and-p
