Benedict Roemer Organizational Culture

This past week was very interesting at work because almost the entire office was gone at conferences. With most of the office absent, I took the time outside of the regular office culture to reflect a little more on the organizational culture that I am usually immersed in. There were also two specific influences on this reflection: my work on the racial equity blog, and a conversation I had with my supervisor’s associate about a prior work environment that she was in.

First the conversation. While taking a break in the office kitchen, my coworker told me about a previous office she was in where she and the other women in the office began to notice that they were always the ones cleaning up the kitchen, while the men never thought or volunteered to help out. She also said that the CEO of the office was often guilty of saying micro-aggressions. In the end, she teemed up with the other women and refused to do the dishes anymore, but when the CEO noticed, he asked one of the interns, also a women, to clean them up, thus perpetuating the problem. In the end, my coworker left to get away from this office culture. I couldn’t believe that a non-profit organization would have such a culture, naively thinking that all, or at least a huge majority, of non-profit workers were progressive and “woke”. But maybe that belief comes from being lucky with where I have worked.

Included in my blog on racial equity is a section on racial equity within organizations. While doing research for this, I found that only 10 percent of non-profit CEO’s are people of color, as well as 10 percent of board chairs and 16 percent of all board members. While a lot of non-profits work on progressive issues, the organizations themselves don’t always reflect that progressive mentality, and without diversity within the organization, a unhealthy culture can fester.

While I have been critical of some aspects of the Campaign for Youth Justice, I will say that the organization has a wonderful office culture when it comes to diversity. First of all, the organization is led by a women, and out of 8 full-time staff, only one is a man. Two women with the title “director” are also black women, and the communications associate is also a women of color. The office has been working hard to be intentional in how they address racism by starting out on a racial equity training this summer and by speaking out about the racial disparities evident within the youth justice system. While I am unaware of anyone in the office identifying as LGBTQ+, the blog has also been full of articles speaking up about the treatment of this community within the justice system, and we recognized Pride Month during the month of June.

As I express in my blog, it is very important for an organization seeking to effectively lead a movement of change to understand how different communities are affected by the issue being addressed. The culture of an organization, which isn’t necessarily reflective of the diversity but often can be, is key to this understanding. Campaign for Youth Justice has done well in making sure that they are fully aware of the intersectionality of youth justice, and they are therefore primed for success in their mission to bring justice to youth from all walk of life.