09/09/2021

How a Staff-driven DEI Effort Took Off

The ENA's emphasis on diversity takes care to include all parts of the organization

Last year, Rashonda Legault knew it wasn’t difficult to have conversations in the office about diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). But it was more of a challenge to have those conversations touch the entire organization.

Legault, senior manager, learning services at the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA), had long been having conversations around DEI with her colleagues—“a secret little club at work of people who are interested in these things, and that’s never been more than that,” as she puts it. But following George Floyd’s murder in May 2020 and the ensuing expansion of conversations around racial justice, she saw an opportunity to take the DEI discussion to the association more openly.

To do that—as she detailed in a session at the 2021 ASAE Annual Meeting on August 17—she recognized that addressing DEI within the staff alone wouldn’t be enough. So she devised what she calls a “three pillar” model that’s designed to address how ENA embraces DEI principles among staff, membership, and volunteer leadership.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Associations Now.