Why Nonprofits Need Sensitivity Readings

Natasha here!

If you know me personally, you’ll know that two of my first loves were reading and writing. If I was ever lost in the store, my grandmother knew her best bet was to check the book section, where she’d likely find me sitting cross-legged with a story propped open in my lap. In adulthood, my love for writing has only grown, eventually transforming into a business that offers–in part–writing services for nonprofit associations and other social impact organizations.

However, before I started Spark & Thrive, I was a freelance writer offering sensitivity reading services to published and upcoming authors. A sensitivity reader is essentially someone who performs a document audit, someone who reads a text for potentially offensive materials, cultural insensitivities, or harmful misrepresentations. If I were to define sensitivity reading within the nonprofit sector, a sensitivity reading would include reviewing and assessing an organization’s content through a DEI lens.

Sensitivity reading can benefit nonprofits by centering marginalized perspectives, avoiding well-intentioned missteps, and creating space for the organization to better understand the communities they serve.

Imagine you’re developing a launch plan for a startup serving folks living below the poverty line in the McGill neighborhood. You’ve got the basics, meaning the who, what, when, where, why, and how. Now you need a second pair of eyes for the review process. The sensitivity reader you hired reviews the text using a DEI lens, and they notice a few problem areas:

1.  The community you serve (the who) is too general and lacks nuisance.

2. By extension, your programs (the how) don’t cohesively fit into your larger mission.

Your description of “people suffering from poverty in the McGill neighborhood” doesn’t consider intersectionality and doesn’t address the unique needs of these sub-communities. For example, the McGill community is composed of two large groups: an elderly population and a young immigrant population. If you plan on serving both these groups, you and your staff will need to understand what’s the base cause of poverty in both communities and how this poverty shows itself.

The elderly population may skip out on medication, while the younger immigrant community restricts their food intake. The former needs financial support for their medication, and the latter needs a food pantry, or help applying for food stamps. Of course, it’s not always the newbies that make mistakes. None of us are ever too old to learn, including more experienced organizations.

Medium to larger-sized nonprofits usually have a human resource department in charge of training and onboarding new hires. Training videos around harassment and discrimination are common but sometimes miss the mark because they don’t consider the marginalized identity’s actual experiences. When these experiences aren’t considered scenarios are depicted that either (1) don’t make sense or (2) show extreme cases of discrimination, doing more harm than good. Sensitivity readers remind organizations that discrimination, prejudice, and hate don’t always show up as slurs or physical violence (macroaggressions). Instead, this behavior can be more subtle yet still as damaging.

Additionally, when developing content like this, the HR team should rely on recorded instances of discrimination instead of their imaginations or their ideas of what discrimination looks like in the workplace based on movies. Let’s use another example. 

MakeBelieve Org just hired a new Chief Technology Officer, Dennis Brown, who will join the team in a month. Management wants to give him a warm welcome and introduce him to their supporters through a blog post. The communications team is provided some general information from management and told to write a press release that will be reviewed by Dennis before publication. Unfortunately, after reviewing the draft Dennis is upset and considering rescinding his acceptance.

In the draft he is described as “their first Native employee and CTO at MakeBelieve Org” and “a handicapped athlete.” Dennis explains that he doesn’t see how any of those details are relevant to the press release and that there is so much focus on his single identities the draft is offensive. Additionally, he says he feels he has been tokenized for the organization’s benefit with the language “their first Native employee.” The communications team is worried about his response. They’re not sure how to make amends.

While none of us are perfect and likely to make mistakes, having a sensitivity reader to perform document audits can limit the amount of potential harm. In the end, lessening harm should be everyone’s ultimate goal.

If you’re interested in learning more about sensitivity reading and document audits, schedule a free consultation with Spark & Thrive. We look forward to seeing you thrive!

Contact Us