NOTEBOOK: Grand View leads effort to increase minority membership on nonprofits’ boards

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A few months ago, Grand View University’s Rob Barron called just about every organization he knew of that represents minority and underrepresented groups to ask them a simple question.


Barron, special assistant to the president for government and community relations, asked: “If I can put together a training for people interested in serving on nonprofit boards, do you think you would have an interest in participating and getting people from your community to participate?”


Long story short, everybody said yes, and that led to Grand View’s plans to host an inaugural “Building Better Boards” forum on Oct. 27.  


Before being hired by Grand View in February, Barron was political director for NextGen Climate Action Iowa. He previously was a member of Sen. Tom Harkin’s staff for 13 years, and currently serves on the Des Moines School Board as its only Latino member. A year and a half ago, he co-founded Latino Political Network, a nonprofit that seeks to empower more Latinos to seek elected positions.


“One of the reasons I came (to Grand View) was the opportunity to work with diverse populations,” he said. “The frustrating thing is that it’s not hard to find these folks (who could serve on boards); the step that’s missing is those (nonprofit) entities going out and empowering those folks.” In addition to addressing ethnic diversity on nonprofit boards, the initiative also seeks to increase representation on boards by people with disabilities.
 
To develop the workshop, Barron enlisted the aid of the Community Foundation of Greater Des Moines, which helped him secure a trainer to lead the event — Glennda Bivens, a community development specialist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. In addition to ISU Extension providing the training at no cost, AARP Iowa has committed to picking up other costs associated with the event, among them providing the course materials translated into Spanish.  

The initial concept for the event was to provide training just for aspiring minority board members, followed by a networking event to bring together current and aspiring board members.


As the planning evolved, however, organizers realized they should also provide a concurrent training session for current nonprofit board members to hear presentations from people who may have served as the sole minority member of a board.


“So we really have an opportunity to make gains on both sides,” Barron said. “It’s all about maybe shaving the top of the learning curve off a little bit so that this process happens faster than it might otherwise.”


As an institution, Grand View is working to improve its own diversity. The university recently installed five new board members, all women and two of them African-American. Additionally, two of the new board members were born outside the U.S., one in China and the other in Mexico, Barron noted.


At last count, 26 people had reserved spots for the training session. Sessions are also scheduled to be held in December and March, and Barron is hopeful the concept could be replicated around the state.  


For nonprofits, “I think there’s value in making sure that a board has a diverse set of experiences, but still maintains the qualities and skills that are necessary for board service, and that’s why we’re doing this training,” he said.


“We look at it from the perspective that we sit here on the east side of Des Moines, surrounded by some diverse communities, both ethnically and socioeconomic. We really want to be an anchor for our neighborhood, and we work really hard to be that way.”  


For more information and to register for the Oct. 27 event, click here.