2017 Diversity Survey Shows Non-Profit Tech Outpaces Big Tech, But Not By Much
by Omar Khan, Common Sense Media & CJ Rayhill, Public Library of Science
In recent years, the tech sector has begun to have a more open discussion about diversity and inequalities between race and gender in education, opportunity, and discrimination. Several large employers have released metrics around their efforts to improve diversity among their employees, but there are limited opportunities to compare notes with small- to medium-sized employers.
CTOs for Good, a group of twenty technical leaders at nonprofits that deliver social impact primarily through technology and digital strategy, is proud to release our second Annual Nonprofit Tech Diversity Survey. The goal of this survey is to capture the state of diversity within engineering teams at some of the most tech-forward, established nonprofits so that we can have an honest conversation about where we are as a sub-sector within tech and how we can move forward, together.
There have been small improvements since last year — we remain slightly ahead of the for-profit tech stalwarts in gender diversity — but that is not saying much. There is, however, a ray of light that affects for-profit tech firms as well.
Survey Results
Key results are that:
- Overall we are slightly ahead of big tech in gender diversity.
- The picture looks much brighter in design and product management.
Pure engineering teams across the 18 organizations (Charity Navigator, Code for America, charity: water, Common Sense Media, Crisis Text Line, DoSomething, DonorsChoose.org, Empatico, Foundation Center, Global Citizen, Global Giving, Khan Academy, Kiva, Planned Parenthood, Public Library of Science, Ushahidi, VolunteerMatch and Watsi) participating show men occupying 72% of positions (down from 76% in 2016), with women at almost 28% (+4%) and others at barely 1%. This compares to 80%+ male developers at Google, Facebook, Twitter and Uber.
Our non-profit cohort improved year-over-year in ethnic diversity, with 67% of staff in engineering white (down 5% from 2016), 7% African-American (no change), 6% Hispanic (+3%), 12% Asian (-1%) and 8% Other/Mixed (+2%). However, this remains even less diverse ethnically than for-profit engineering teams, which are just over 50% white, have fewer African-Americans and Hispanics (~ 1% and 3%), but far more Asians (~40%) than our set of non-profits. The far higher Asian proportion in for-profit engineering teams than non-profits is worth noting but no clear reason emerges other than the for-profit sample being limited to a small set of large companies.
The ray of light is that, unlike the for-profits, we uniquely broke down diversity in the Design and Product Management departments. Their work is increasingly tied together with that of developers (both areas are also becoming more technical in some ways, and staff often sit at the same tables, virtual or not). Women are a majority in Product (54%) and Design (66%) (-6% and +4% among CTOs for Good since 2016). This is important, considering that product staff generally manage engineering work and the inputs that flow to developers.
Our total overall — Engineering, Product, Design — breakdown by gender is 60% men (-3% since 2016), 39% women (+3%), 1% other. This is better than an average (71% males, 29% women) across seven US tech companies (Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Twitter, Amazon, Intel), who do not quite break out their data for product or design separately (nor do they update their numbers; this average is mostly from 2015 tallies).
Next Steps
CTOs for Good intends to update our results every year, and report on any progress and commitments we have made in the coming year. We have also been trying hard to address the glaring lack of diversity in our own ranks, with mixed success (we welcome nominations/referrals, see below). We also published a set of Core Values for Diversity and Inclusion after our last in-person meeting which all participants committed to support. We plan to share lessons learned and recommendations on improving diversity, along with resources from some of the pioneers in this area like the important recommendations for any organization at Project Include, or the Kapor Center’s Tech Leavers Study, which gives annual insight into why people leave tech jobs. These findings will also be included in an upcoming report from Fast Forward on the state of the tech nonprofit sector.
Comments, referrals and suggestions welcome at hello at ctosforgood.org
