“A remarkable lack of diversity among speakers.”
For any association or meetings professional, that comment represents an alarming reminder of the work to be done. During my time running a conference for practicing attorneys, that post-event evaluation comment represented a turning point in our processes and systems for speaker selection.
The diversification of content leaders ranks as a top priority in the association community. In 2019, a groundbreaking Association Forum study revealed that 64% of members considered speaker diversity a necessity, while only 46% agreed that their conferences had achieved it. With DEI reported as a top priority for associations in McKinley’s 2021 Association Viewpoint study, how can we get better at diversifying the speakers who deliver content at our conferences and events?
Part of building lasting change is the ability to share openly about challenges, successes and lessons learned. In this blog, I outline the steps we took and systems we changed to realize measurable improvements in speaker diversity.
An abundance of studies had documented gender and racial inequities in the legal field. While we couldn’t control the demographics of the broader workforce, we could choose who would take the stage for the 2019 event.
Fortunately, the chair of the conference committee was committed to improving speaker diversity and our core team was unified in its efforts. In many cases, DEI initiatives fail because they don’t have executive support. If you want to make improvements but lack initial leadership support, you’ll need to make the moral and business cases for change:
As we embarked on the ten-month planning process, we needed to establish baseline demographic data. Here are the steps we took:
Next, our core staff and volunteer team drafted goals for gender, race and ethnic representation of our 2019 session chairs and speakers. Our 2018 baseline data, while flawed in the collection process, revealed miniscule representation beyond white men. In hindsight, our goals could have been more informed by reviewing available workforce data. Either way, we had no place to go but up.
To create informed goals, your association should consider reviewing:
Once we solidified our goals, we engaged the planning committee. We distributed a report on the 2018 event which, in addition to attendance and sponsorship data, included the evaluation data and the comment which served as our call to action.
It was important to create a shared vision with the committee — our conference champions but also a largely homogeneous group — of how the event could be improved for 2019.
In addition to sharing the conference report and referencing the workforce studies, the conference chair shared his passion for creating a more diverse event. He was authentic in his purpose and committed to creating lasting change for the organization and the field. The committee rallied around his vision.
Our next step involved refining our approach to speaker recruitment.
If your process involves an open call for proposals, you’ll need to change how you market, collect and evaluate submissions. A blind review process that withholds names, companies and identifying information from reviewers can mitigate biases. In addition, you may need to curate some sessions if the traditional process doesn’t help you fully meet your goals.
For this specific example, most conference sessions involved a chair recruiting three to five other panelists. We found that this process was limited—most chairs seemed more likely to invite those in their inner circles, who often fell into similar demographic categories.
While we couldn’t fundamentally change the process at that time, we could be more intentional about the diversity of the people we invited to serve as session chairs. In addition to sharing the duties and deadlines in those invitations, we specifically outlined expectations around creating a more diverse event:
In particular, we established two simple yet important guiding principles to help us achieve our goals:
Some session chairs needed little support and immediately embraced our goal. They provided draft lists with more women than men and/or with a majority of black, indigenous and people of color (BIPOC). We approved these draft lists of panelists.
Other chairs needed additional support, and this is where some of our most important work took place. When some felt they were unable to meet our diversity goals — a common symptom of homogenous networks — we did two things:
Making fundamental changes to your meeting or conference can be daunting, especially when sponsors or other long-time supporters expect speaking spots. Fortunately, the results of these efforts are often significant and highly rewarding. Having established our baseline metrics, we were able to quantify improvements in the 2019 conference:
These results represented a first step. As we embarked on planning for the next event, we continued to refine our approach and processes with a new chair and planning committee.
In addition to measuring the demographic makeup of our speakers, we also noted that measuring the demographic makeup of our attendees could be a valuable metric in future years. In our small way, perhaps we could positively influence the broader gender and racial inequities in the legal profession.
For more on DEI awareness and initiatives, please contact us, read our previous blog posts, and view our webinar on the topic: