Diana Noriega is working to create anti-racist nonprofits
Navigating challenging conversations is a skill that Diana Noriega has mastered, which is good because she does it for a living. As the chief anti-racism and equity officer at Good Shepherd Services, a youth development and family service nonprofit organization, she has led racial equity initiatives, including restructuring Good Shepherd Services’ executive leadership team from 90% white to 63% people of color. She also spearheaded the development and implementation of hiring practices that would help achieve greater diversity, such as DEI-centered job descriptions as well as bias-minimizing résumé rubrics and interview questions.
She is also one of the leaders of the NYS Equitable Economies Coalition, which is dedicated to ensuring people of color obtain more opportunities as vendors with the nonprofit sector, and founder of the Anti-Racism and Equity Institute, a 128-hour intensive program that empowers nonprofit leaders to lead diversity and equity initiatives in their own organizations.
New York Nonprofit Media sat down with Noriega to speak about what brought her to this work, how she was able to create such significant change at GSS and what she hopes for the nonprofit sector in the future. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How did you begin your work in anti-racism? What led you to this work?
When I was 14, I was actually in student government in my high school and that led to summer youth employment, and at that time they were teaching us as young people on how to facilitate workshops to our peers about implementing the new math and science standards. Some people think it’s odd, but for me it actually created my trajectory and commitment into being in a nonprofit as a profession. I learned at 15 how to facilitate a workshop and was really kind of ingrained, even at that point in time, what does it mean to watch the New York City education system change and how can I as a young person help advocate for young people? So that’s kind of how I truthfully started on the path in the work.
Source: NYN Media