(For local resources on mental health tools, please visit Families First Indiana resources, including a six-part podcast series and a 2020 Mental Health checklist)

COVID is not just a health crisis that has laid bare the vast economic disparities and social injustices of the United States. It also has uncovered the fragility of the country’s anemically resourced nonprofit sector.

There are an estimated 1.5 million nonprofits organizations in the United States, and 65% have budgets under $500,000, according to the Harvard Business Review. This means, even before the pandemic, nonprofits were under resourced, understaffed, underfunded. Now, COVID-induced death, economic chaos and social disruptions have sent client need escalating and revenue has failed to keep pace.

The resulting uncertainty and drastic changes are also taking a severe toll on the mental health of nonprofit staffers, many of whom are becoming as vulnerable as the clients they serve.

On the other side of the heroic agency story of staff pivoting to provide COVID-19 complaint services in record time is an uptick in staff stress, anxiety and depression.

“At some level everyone is not OK. You can’t be 100 percent,” said Shanell Ransom, program officer for the Social, Racial & Economic Justice portfolio at the Samuel S. Fels Fund.

Ransom also manages the Fund’s Beyond the Grant program for its grantees. Beyond the Grant provides resources (however, not direct cash support) for grantees to help them better manage their grants and their programs. In that capacity, she has been fielding a growing number of grantees’ calls concerned about their employees’ mental health and well-being.

It’s a growing concern for the nation’s nonprofit leaders.

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With recent equality movements gaining momentum in society, there is a powerful microscope on companies today. Many are trying to evaluate their own organization’s diversity, but diversity has many layers. Yes, it’s about race, but it’s also about gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and any other trait that differentiates one person from another. The pressure is on for businesses to move beyond a simple definition of diversity and reach a level of inclusion.

At their most simple, diversity practices in business often mean making sure there is appropriate representation from different groups of people. That intent is admirable, but it’s not enough on its own. Even with diversity, if a company culture is still focused on one group of people, then the richness diverse populations bring to the workplace is lost. In that environment, employees can feel like they are not part of the group. Their viewpoints are either missed or not embraced, and they may even downplay their diversity in an effort to conform to the company.

Diversity is most valuable to organizations when it is not just viewed as a legal, compliance, or ethical concept. Diversity is most powerful when differences are embraced throughout the organization. Inclusive representation like that improves internal engagement and also helps a company provide services and products to diverse customers better. In other words, inclusion is the real goal, not just diversity.

In life, it’s difficult to learn anything without listening first. The same holds true for diversity and inclusion efforts in organizations. The companies that have received backlash for their efforts are those that jumped into the fray with a statement that had no real weight behind it. They thought they solved the problem without even understanding the views, experiences, and emotions of their people or their audience. That’s why conversations are one of the most powerful tools available.

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