Charity board members have admitted that their worst performing area of governance is improving equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in their organisation.

Trustees of small charities are particularly concerned about their lack of action to improve EDI in comparison to their larger counterparts. Those in lower income charities are also among those who are more likely to believe they are the worst performers in this area.

The survey has been carried out by Directory of Social Change among more than 1,000 users of its governance app.

The three aspects of EDI work trustees score lowest in are engaging in learning and reflection, leading their organisation in improving EDI, and monitoring targets.

“Overall, questions about equality, diversity, and inclusion had the highest variance between scores, and least consensus between users),” DSC added.

“Compared to other governance areas, user opinions were more acutely split between those that felt their board was performing well in this area, and those that found it more challenging.”

Lack of action to tackle diversity

A number of reports in recent years have highlighted a lack of action by charity leaders’ to improve equality in their organisations.

Among the most damning was last year’s Warm Words Cold Comfort report by ACEVO and Voice4Change England which found that senior staff are most often cited as having “a significant role in acts of racism”.

Also last year, the RACE Report campaign found that the proportion of global majority staff in environmental charities had flatlined and “difficult conversations” were needed to improve diversity.

Elsewhere in DSC’s survey, opinions on the openness and accountability of organisations is another divisive governance topic, in particular around publishing staff remuneration details.

In contrast, most charity boards believe their organisation shows strong leadership and sense of purpose.

Integrity is the governance area charity leader believe they perform best at, cited by four in five trustees.

“Scores showed that ‘acting with honesty, trustworthiness and care’ was the specific aspect of integrity that app users felt their organisations did best,” said DSC.

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