Whether your association has been "doing diversity" for decades or is just beginning to explore diversity and inclusion (D+I) as a strategic objective, consider collaborations. Connecting with other like-minded associations to launch or revitalize your D+I work can reduce duplication of efforts, augment limited resources, increase efficiencies, and improve outcomes on complex or intractable problems.

Granted, collaborations among associations are not new. Strategic collaborations can, however, bring a fresh perspective to your D+I work when they are undertaken with an informed, innovative, and intentional approach.

Strategic collaborations can bring a fresh perspective to your D+I work when they are undertaken with an informed, innovative, and intentional approach.

What might that look like? These two examples, one in the engineering industry and one in the healthcare space, offer a glimpse at how strategic collaborations can yield meaningful and measurable outcomes, particularly when tackling tough D+I issues.

Improving Engineering

The problem: A dearth of underrepresented students graduating from engineering schools, despite decades of diversity efforts implemented by individual organizations.

The collaborative response: Create an initiative aiming to graduate 50,000 engineering students from underrepresented groups by 2025.

The 50K initiative is coordinated by the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE), in partnership with the Society of Women Engineers (SWE), the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES).

Soon after Dr. Karl W. Reid became NSBE executive director in May 2014, he reached out to his counterparts at SWE and SHPE to begin identifying common challenges. Their initial conversations led to a one-day exploratory session with representatives from several other groups. The participants eventually agreed on a common problem that could best be addressed through collective action: low college graduation rates among the target population of students.

Leaders from that exploratory session swiftly moved into action. Peter Finn, deputy executive director and chief learning officer at SWE, says the group held regular virtual meetings for the next six months to develop the project and apply for a grant from the United Engineering Foundation (UEF). Reid designated the NSBE director of external and government affairs, Constance V.A. Thompson, to shepherd the project.

"NSBE has been a huge driver for the project," Finn says. The D+I-focused engineering professional societies initiated the project, but the mainstream discipline societies readily accepted the invitation to participate in the collaboration, Thompson notes. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers, and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers are now supporting partners in the 50K initiative. The collaboration received the UEF grant and will convene again later this spring to move the project forward.

Diversifying Healthcare Leadership

The problem: Lack of diversity at the senior levels of healthcare management, despite decades of diversity efforts implemented by individual organizations.

The collaborative response: Create a comprehensive, web-based executive diversity roadmap for aspiring C-suite healthcare executives to access career development resources, and develop a comparable centralized resource for employers to build inclusive cultures that recruit, hire, and retain diverse C-suite executives.

The American College of Healthcare Executives, like many of its peer associations, has conducted various D+I programs for more than 20 years. Yet, the most recent ACHE research on diversity in healthcare leadership indicated no notable improvements since its first study of race and ethnicity in the field in 1992. ACHE President and CEO Deborah J. Bowen reached out to leaders of the Institute for Diversity in Health Management, National Association of Health Services Executives (primarily consisting of African-American healthcare executives), National Forum for Latino Healthcare Executives, Asian Healthcare Leaders Forum, and LGBT Forum for healthcare executives.

After preliminary conversations, leaders from this core group of healthcare associations developed a memorandum of agreement "to formalize the existing cooperative relationship among the participating organizations to engage in collaborative initiatives designed to increase and sustain diversity and inclusion at the highest levels of healthcare leadership."

In February 2016, ACHE secured the required signatures on the agreement, which set the stage for a facilitated working session in summer 2016 that will develop the executive diversity roadmap as the first phase of the initiative.

Getting Started

If these two examples have piqued your interest in kick-starting your own D+I partnerships, become familiar with the basic tenets of successful collaboration. For example, understand the continuum of potential connections between groups. Working together can be characterized as cooperation, coordination, collaboration, or collective—each one with different distinguishing factors.

Whatever label you choose, secure agreement on the structure, communication guidelines, decision-making process, and expected risk and reward for each participating organization. Clarifying these points can offset the inherent challenges of collaborative work. The Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth offers a broad array of collaboration resources [PDF].

For the 50K engineering initiative, Thompson has used the Collective Impact framework developed by the Stanford Social Innovation Review. This model emphasizes five characteristics as essential for successful collaborations: common agenda, shared measurement systems, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication, and a supporting infrastructure.

Investing the upfront time to establish an evidence-based, practice-proven collaboration will garner the positive attention of your internal stakeholders, strengthen your association's D+I brand, and help to resolve the problems that plague much of our D+I work.