117: Harnessing the power of GEDI(Gender, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion) to build a more inclusive organisation: Kavneet Sahni, Dasra

The Elephant in the Room

Kavneet Dasra Shownotes:

In my second innings I have been intentional about working with the third sector. Through The Elephant in the Room, I am able to engage vicariously with the sector without being a part of it. To some extent I have been able deepen my understanding and engagement with the sector through PRADAN where I truly believe there is an alignment between my passion and their purpose. However, truth be told the sector is cliquey and closed like most sectors/industries the world over. A bit jarring considering they exist to make society more equitable and inclusive, to provide support to the most excluded.

In the Indian sub-continent where I have spent a lot of my time it is no different. A cursory look at leadership, boards and composition of teams can be revelatory. That they mirror society, and all its inequalities is a bit alarming? Is it possible for them to continue to work with the excluded and marginalised, and be effective in their current avatar? What does it mean for the sustainability of the social sector short term and long term?

To learn about what the sector is doing to change, I reached out to Dasra one of India’s most respected and leading third sector organisation. Dasra evolved from being a philanthropy fund to a bridge between NGOs and funders. On their website they state that, ‘Equity is at the centre of everything we do’. To kickstart my conversations with the sector I spoke with Kavneet Sahni, who anchors internal DEI efforts, spear heads the GEDI (Gender, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion) initiative at Dasra and leads on their Social Impact Program. GEDI is a lens that not only guides Dasra’s internal inclusion strategy but also informs their funding and grant making strategy. For the uninitiated GEDI is commonly used amongst multilateral organisations including ILO, IRC, UN to frame conversations on diversity and inclusion.

In this freewheeling episode Kavneet and I spoke about her background, move to the third sector, faith, privilege, GEDI, the drivers for change in the social sector, representation, war for talent, barriers to change, best practice, inclusive campaigns and initiatives, successes and failures………

My one key takeaway, the road to inclusion is paved with failure and learning……..

To hear more, head to the podcast….

Episode Transcript

Sudha: Good morning, Kavneet. It's wonderful to have you as a guest on The Elephant in the Room podcast today. Thank you for being here and making time.

Kavneet: Thank you, Sudha. It's a pleasure to be here and I'm so delighted that you actually are interested in learning a bit more about my journey and the work that we do at Dasra around diversity and inclusion. So, thank you for having me.

Sudha: Let’s start with a quick introduction to who you are and what you do.

Kavneet: So, I work as an Associate Director at Dasra and my role primarily is to design and implement capacity building programs for non-profits and other stakeholders in the sector. You may know this, but Dasra was formed on the basis that there is a lot of funding, a lot of focus that goes into supporting programs, on ground and very little focus on building stronger institutions like we often do in the corporate world. So, my role, my journey at Dasara has been, very old. I've spent close to 11 years at Dasara now and most of my time goes in building, designing programs, which will help nonprofit leaders, look through their own leadership journeys, become better leaders, but also strengthen their teams, their organisation.

In the last few years, with a lot of chatter happening on diversity and inclusion. I also have had the opportunity to dive a little bit deeper and understand. Beginning from who I am, what is my identity, how does that bring the privilege that I carry. And even at Dasara, I've had the opportunity to anchor some of the diversity and inclusion efforts.

So that's a little bit about me professionally. I'm a mother, I like to call that out, of a seven-year-old. He keeps me on my toes and kind of teaches me, new lessons every day, if I can put it out there.

Sudha: Amazing. So, like you said, you didn't start off in the social sector.

If you were not at Dasra, what would you be doing? Have you thought of it? Do you think about it sometime?

Kavneet: Yeah. I was at the crossroads and there was this dilemma back in 2013/14 when I joined Dasra. But on one side I had to pick this job at Dasra and the other side I had an offer from Johnson & Johnson. So, it was either the corporate world or the development sector. And I'll be honest, I did give it a thorough thought at that point of time because of course, if you enter the corporate world, you get a better salary, as a starting point, you have a lot of other incentives. There is a clear career path that you're moving ahead on. At the same time, I think my passion lies in the development space, and I really wanted to contribute my skills, my experience to the society and that's where I picked Dasra. But wherever I would have been, if not Dasra, Johnson & Johnson, any corporate job, I think I would still be doing the very same thing, engaging with stakeholders, working on diversity and inclusion, because my background was in human resources.

Sudha: That's so interesting. So, you are passion led and you knew very clearly where you want to go and how you want to use your skills. How important, Kavneet, is your identity to you? And what are the experiences that have shaped you and influenced the work that you do today? Because, we are also confused about our identities, like, who am I at the end of the day? Most of us tend to be identified by our designation and the place where we work.

Kavneet: That's such an interesting question, Sudha. And I see it in a way that there is a perception or there is a way in which the world identifies you. And then, there are certain things that you identify very closely with your own personality, with your work, with your personal family life.

And to the world, of course, I would say I have the privilege to be an able bodied woman, married women born in a upper class, upper middle class family, had the privilege of finishing a double masters and supported by my parents. So, I think I do acknowledge the privileges that I've had while growing up.

But at the same time, I also I always try to not negate the challenges that I have had, whether it is around, socioeconomic challenges of being in a family where I was the first girl to not get married at the age of 22. Where I was the girl who was like, I want to do a master's, but I don't want to do a BEd, which is apparently the best way for me to settle down in life and, in my career. Where I was the one who said, okay, if you don't want to, sponsor my MBA, I will take an education loan and I will go ahead and I'm ready to take the risk and the responsibility of the repercussions that come along.

So, I also had my own set of challenges, whether it was around seeing the financial difficulties, parents and me not getting on the same page around when to settle and what's best for me in my life. But I think what's always stayed with me are some values, that I identify myself with.

I am very into preachings of Guru Nanak Devji, and I follow Sikhism as a religion. But I think more than any of the gurus, any of the teachings, I'm very influenced by the teachings of Guru Nanak and he has spoken a lot about being kind to others, not discriminating, just believing in the oneness of God, but also the oneness of human beings. So, I think those are some of the values I really identify with and hold very closely to my heart.

Sudha: That's so good to hear gives a holistic view into who you are, your spirituality and faith that often, sort of grounds us and is our North Star and guides us in making decisions in life.

Tell us about your journey at Dasra internal, to DEI as strategic imperative, because I don't think for the social sector, it has been a big priority. What are the drivers? Why is it that the social sector really needs to sort of get started and get going very quickly on this journey?

Kavneet: Yeah. So, Dasra was formed in 1999, we've been in existence for 25 years. And I think some principles that have stayed at the very core of whatever programs we build, whatever path, new strategies that might have come along. We always want, and we always try to keep the communities, the vulnerable communities that we serve at the centre of everything we do.

So that has been like the core right from the beginning as to how can we think and how any program, any activity, anything that we do, any action taken at Dasara, how is it influencing these communities positively? I think that has been one of the very, I would say strategic drivers, for us to do what we do today in the field of D&I. And if you have to go back, D&I was not a buzzword either in the corporate or in the social sector. Back in 2008, Dasara was one of the leaders in the sector who said that we will pick on audiences or target groups or communities that nobody else is serving or focusing or highlighting.

So adolescent girls, for example, we started, with a few research reports that we did on adolescent girls, the condition of young women. Till date, we have like 25 plus research reports that we've published, focusing on girls, women in the sectors of education, nutrition, water and sanitation.

And it was in 2013 that we actually built the first collaborative that was focused on adolescence, specifically girls. So, in my mind, when I look at our journey around D& I, it's not new, it's something which is very inbuilt in our own strategy, in our own vision that we have for the organisation.

But I think it was back in 2019/20 where we were reflecting on where we are in terms of the organisation demographics. Is there enough representation of the different strata that India, kind of has? And that's when we realised that we are an organisation with 70 percent of women and an equal percentage around 67 percent of women also in the leadership positions in the organisation.

We decided that, let's move beyond just gender. Let's also look at, other aspects of diversity, whether it's caste, whether it's disability, gender and sexual orientation. We've, then kind of moved ourselves, not just looking at women, as one of the demographics, but also looking at other aspects that are so inbuilt in the society that we have.

And since then, we've done two demographic surveys, and we continue to do that once in two years so that it gives us a sense and a pulse check of, which are the underrepresented groups in the organisation. And so that our hiring and a recruitment strategy is focused on that.

But also, we try to dive deeper into understanding how are they voicing their feeling, are they able to bring their authentic selves to work or not? And these, pulse checks or employee surveys it kind of informs the vision for us on what next do we do on GEDI.

So, I think one thing which I just would like to highlight is that for us, it is a little bit around how can D&I be a lever for us to do what we do well. And there has been a lot of conversations with the leadership here where we've sat down for two days straight and just spoken about, do you think that as an organisation we need more diverse talent? How would it help us meeting our vision? How does that contribute to the goals that we have set for ourselves? Are we ready as an organisation to take this up? Are we ready to perhaps slow down our pace of work, perhaps open more ways of doing things, not just sticking to the ways that we might have been following for years at Dasra.

Sudha: So clearly externally you have looked at marginalized communities and internally when you have started doing that sense check on what the makeup of Dasra is like, you're looking again at excluded groups or communities and seeing how you can increase representation and of course belonging. But why is this a necessity today, is it just because Dasra believes that this is the way we should operate or are there bigger drivers or imperatives?

Kavneet: So, after the first demographic survey that we did, we were left with a few questions. And these were very, honest questions that we put out to the leadership and to the D&I committee, which said that what does D&I mean to us at Dasra? Why do we need to go on this path? We really have to move on this path or is it fine because Dasra as an organisation is doing fine and, will it be of a value add. Do you see it as a strategic lever?

And two things Sudha that came up very clearly for us, which has been pushing us to move ahead on this journey.

One, we ourselves, not just by the research that exists today and the data points that we have, but by our own experiences we realised, by having diverse perspectives, by having people who have different ways of solving things, we are able to innovate and are actually able to build programs that we would have not had built otherwise.

So, that was a learned lesson for us, and it was something that we weren't just saying because we read a research report say this, but we had five examples at Dasra where we saw this happen. And the second piece, I mean, India's social fabric is moving with a lot of layers of caste, class, gender, religion, and for us equity is the core belief, right?

It's like again, the centre of our work. And for us to bring any change, we have to solve for the structural inequities that exist in the society. And for that reason, if we have to make a change in the lives of the marginalised group, we need to start internally. We need to have them become part of the work that we're trying to do for them. So, it's a bit of like, it would be ironical if, we're saying, Oh, we want to break those inequities, but we don't start at home.

Sudha: So, I started the last question also speaking about the sector and the poor track record that it has on, DEI or equity inclusion representation.

One would assume that this would not be the case. Please, could you share your insights on what the barriers are for the social sector to be more inclusive? I mean, if you look at the statistics and if you look at just a couple of the big social sector organisations and you look at their leadership or their boards, they're clearly not representative, right?

And just having lots of women in an organisation doesn't mean anything. It doesn't show that you're inclusive or equitable unless everyone has a path to forge ahead in the organisation. What would you say are the barriers for this sector to moving in that direction. I think from my perspective, it is, they feel that they do a lot of stuff already because they are working externally with marginalized communities.

Kavneet: Yeah. I think a few things, right. One, I think first and foremost, we need to understand that the development sector is also part of what India's social fabric has right? So, it will definitely be a reflection of what is happening in India, the complexities, the challenges, the same social fabric who have these unconscious biases. Who have these you know ingrained understanding of the context or the society. So, we are all eventually part of the same social fabric and the challenges remain the same. But I think first and foremost, we also need to acknowledge and understand that the development sector is way behind in terms of the resources we have, the availability of resources we have as compared to any other sector.

The intent here of every organisation, every not-for-profit organisation is to not focus on profit, but it's to focus on bringing that change. Unfortunately, India continues to be way behind as compared to its, other countries like US and, UK, where philanthropy is way ahead on the journey and people are still giving a lot more as compared to India.

I think the resource crunch is a big factor, I feel, because if you have limited resources, it's logical that you will end up prioritizing, the programs on ground, you will look more external versus looking internal. And that comes to you only once you have reached a stage in the organisation journey where it's not a hand to mouth situation or you have, set the organisation on a path that you feel comfortable for the next five years on where the organisation is going.

I think the second thing is that, and funds is one, but also talent, right? There is not enough talent that's coming to the sector, and I have personally seen this change in the last five to seven years. Now, we get to see people who are picking social sector as a choice. And there are also a lot of myths and assumptions that, oh, you didn't get a job elsewhere, so you're joining, or you're a woman, that's why you just are picking this as a hobby.

So, there are still these stereotypes and assumptions that exist in our society which also act as a barrier for talent to come in. I think those two to me are, two of the very important things that we need to keep in mind. But apart from that, I think there is a lot of scope, and I will not, pull back on saying this, that we need to, in the sector, work more on the leadership commitment, that it has to be very clear role models. That women have to be seen and there has to be tracking and accountability, there has to be certain mechanisms, governance mechanisms in place that will hold the organisation accountable on, internal D&I aspects as well.

And thinking a little bit more of platforms, right now we do not have enough platforms where the underrepresented groups can connect with each other, can actually gain perspectives from each other and build the confidence in their own abilities. I think women, for example, I remember when I go back, when I started my career, every, every, every review I used to be told, you need be assertive, you need believe in yourself. And I agreed because, as women we're taught to not contribute to a decision that is being made at home. We're not, we're just told this is the...