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At Junior Achievement, DEI is Mission Central.
This page is designed to help you access resources to integrate diversity, equity and inclusion in your JA Area’s volunteer recruitment and retention efforts.
DEI is not "extra" work. It is mission central.
At JA we are committed to helping every young person feel inspired, skilled and ready for their economic futures. To do that well, we acknowledge the diversity of young people, their neighborhoods, perspectives, families and access to resources.
Addressing DEI means making sure that each child can see themselves through the volunteers they connect with, the JA curriculum, and the experiences they engage with. We also want every young person to see their talent and assets and potential. Using mission-centric language, metrics, values, and growth mindsets helps break down barriers and persist in this important work.
Use your data!
Look at your community data about young people in your region by race, ethnicity, language, economic-status.
TIP: Find school data sharing this information or look at census data for people under 18.
As a team, set some goals and actions for change.
For example: Is there one student audience where you want to focus? How do you modify your volunteer recruitment strategy to increase representation of your students?
Pull the data of the profile of students your JA Area serves. Who are the young people your JA Area serves? How are these populations represented in your community? who might you be overlooking or underserving?
Consider sharing the data once you've developed a plan to make improvements.
Pull the demographic data of your Board, staff and volunteers.
How does it compare to your community and the students JA is serving?
If you do not have this data, put a plan in place to get it.
Look for inclusion opportunities every day.
Check our default settings for equitable impact.
Prioritize thinking about inclusion in the development of your everyday activities.
For example, consider inclusion when you're making decisions about whose voice you’re amplifying on your social media channels. Ask yourself who doesn’t see themselves?
Each decision you make is an opportunity to practice inclusion. Think about how you can model inclusion during trainings.
For example, when you're making decisions about the time and place to hold volunteer training consider if the location is accessible to a person who struggles with mobility. Could you use community buildings? Could you provide childcare to make it easier to attend? Could you buy cookies for the meeting from a minority-owned or woman-owned small business? How might you elevate volunteers who are under represented among your volunteer pool to welcome guests to the training or lead the session?
Recruit volunteers by visiting First Friday events; business incubators; fraternities and sororities; Jack and Jill; 100 Black Men and 100 Black Women
Examining our default settings is a great way to impact equity.
For example, some organizations have default settings where donors influence where programs are offered. This default setting might create barriers for students who are not connected to these donor groups.
Other auto-pilot practices might create barriers for inclusion.
Company partners recruiting volunteers from organizational-ranks where BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) people are underrepresented, requirements for parent volunteers might make participation difficult for people who aren’t able to leave work during the day, scheduling based on volunteer needs instead of fit with students, transportation requirements might make JA too expensive for some schools, or the absence of an intentional plan to engage students with learning disabilities.
Work with your team to examine who benefits and who is burdened by current practices.
Double-check your recruitment approach.
Ensure diverse representation in recruitment materials.
Assess recruitment material imagery and design to ensure people of diverse backgrounds are well represented and fairly characterized.
Assess current marketing messages.
Review, with diverse panels, how our messages accelerate and inhibit interest of Black, Indigenous, Leaders of Color, and other underrepresented volunteers.
Translate materials.
Translate materials to support recruitment and training of volunteers who bring second language expertise to students.
For example, Spanish language translation for volunteers who speak Spanish to engage Spanish speaking young people.
Highlight new champions.
Encourage and support Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) leaders to engage with other JA committees and the Board as brand champions.
Recognize unconscious/ implicit bias.
Consider how our definitions of an “effective volunteer” may be constrained by implicit bias and limit the pool of volunteers who we actively recruit.
For example, in what ways do we see people with disabilities? Are people with disabilities viewed as a market for exceptional volunteers?
Discover Resources to Help You Communicate Effectively
Visit the resource pages linked below to explore the available tools to support your recruitment efforts.
Communication Resources
Check out our on-ramps for effective communication about DEI and volunteer recruitment on the JA Intranet.
Find templates for DEI Recruitment and Marketing on the JA Intranet
Check out some other helpful links!
Navigate your way through JA by bookmarking our quick links from this site.
View Upcoming DEI Forums or Ask For Support in MS Teams
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