The Transparency Challenge in Environmental Organizations: Factors Influencing Whether Institutions Collect and Reveal Diversity Data

Abstract

In recent years, diversity advocates have organized a national campaign to get environmental organizations to reveal data on their institutions’ demographic characteristics publicly. Environmental organizations are urged to be more transparent and put their data on GuideStar (renamed Candid). Past research indicates that as of 2018, less than 4% of the organizations have done so. Still, diversity and transparency campaigns focus on disclosing data on Candid. Despite the push to get environmental nonprofits to disclose their demographic data, scholars and diversity advocates have not investigated if and how organizations collect and reveal demographic and other types of diversity data. This article addresses this gap in our knowledge about environmental institutions’ collection and disclosure of diversity data. The article reports the findings of a national study of 516 environmental organizations that analyze the following questions: (a) To what extent do environmental nonprofits collect diversity data? (b) What kinds of diversity data do organizations collect? (c) Why do organizations collect or refrain from collecting diversity data? (d) Where do organizations disclose their diversity data if they collect any? I collected the data reported here in 2018. The study assessed if organizations collected data on 12 different diversity metrics. The study found that 31.4% of the nonprofits collected or tracked data on at least one metric. Nonprofits are also more likely to collect data than to divulge them. Almost 26% of the organizations said they shared data on at least one diversity metric. The results show that a much higher percentage of organizations collect and reveal data than are currently disclosing such data on Candid. The research also found that organizations are more likely to collect data on their boards than on their staff. The nonprofits are more likely to share diversity data with funders and their boards than any other kinds of external or internal sources. The findings suggest that in crafting diversity and transparency campaigns, diversity advocates should pay more attention to the kinds of data organizations collect and how they reveal such data.