What is DEI coaching?

For nonprofit leaders who do not identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, or People of Color), initiating your path toward embracing the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace can feel challenging. We are here to provide you with guidance on this transformative journey. 

At Bonsai, DEI coaching is designed to empower non-BIPOC individuals with a deep understanding of  DEI principles and their internalized relationship to power, privilege, and culture. By focusing on each client’s unique relationship to the core tenets of equity and inclusion, we help leaders move to the center of DEI work with greater confidence, skill, and self-awareness. enabling them to discover strategies that cultivate an inclusive workplace.  

There is no better time to begin your journey into DEI coaching than right now, no matter your starting point. 

What is DEI coaching? 

A DEI coach is a professional who can help nonprofit leaders advance their understanding and knowledge of diversity, equity, and inclusion.  

DEI coaching looks a lot like other forms of coaching. It is individualized support focused on a client’s goals. Focusing on the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the coaching relationship means we are guided by client-centered goals to better respond to diversity within our professional community, prioritizing equitable results across groups, and fostering team and organizational culture that ensures all people feel heard, seen, valued, and supported.  

Why hire a DEI coach? 

There are many reasons to engage a DEI coach for yourself or your team. Perhaps you are looking to break through your own barriers of age, race, gender, and economic status to better relate to your staff. Perhaps staff members have experienced collective trauma and you need assistance figuring out how to create a compassionate space. Maybe your organization is experiencing high turnover of BIPOC staff members and you want to understand your role in resolving the underlying issues. Maybe you need a space to ask a DEI professional questions, make mistakes without causing harm to the organization or individuals, and grow.  

Whatever your why, the best time to start working with a DEI coach is now. 

Additionally, there are many benefits to working with a DEI coach, including: 

• Understanding the importance of DEI and how it benefits their organization 

• Identifying and addressing unconscious bias 

• Addressing mistakes, questions, and past behaviors 

• Cultivating personal and professional growth 

• Expanding your competence to address conflict and navigate values misalignment 

Nonprofits with leaders who prioritize DEI coaching create a more inclusive workplace culture and attract and retain top talent. Leaders at all stages of their journey tell us their DEI coaching experience felt both challenging and supportive, fostered greater self-awareness and confidence, and helped to develop and internalize skills to mentor other non-bipoc colleagues. Our clients also find coaching helps to operationalize DEI principles in the form of program and policy change, and to more elegantly advocate for diversity-related shifts within the workplace. There is no downside to working with a DEI coach. 

The DEI coaching experience 

Our approach to DEI coaching work blends acceptance and accountability. We help our clients embrace diversity and take responsibility, aiming to create accessible pathways to the DEI movement for all. 

Clients initiate the process by evaluating their relationship with DEI around cultural values, worldviews, power dynamics, voices, and social experiences that exist beyond the confines of dominant cultural norms and perspectives. We use the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) to assess each client’s approach to navigating difference, with the goal of furthering each client’s cross-cultural competence and expanding awareness of the role of power and privilege within workplace relationships. 

To fully benefit from this experience, clients are encouraged to bring a genuine curiosity and an open-minded, novice perspective that prioritizes active listening, learning, and responsiveness to internal collaborators, advocacy groups, partners, researchers, movement leaders, or friends within this sphere. 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion coaching at work helps clients: 

• Assess their current DEI strengths and weaknesses 

• Receive ongoing guidance and a space to ask questions 

• Examine and illuminate core beliefs and biases 

• Devise and test ideas related to DEI implementation 

• Develop customized plans for adapting organizational practices that 

• Understand how macro- and micro-level systems work together to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion 

• Examine how DEI work happens in the personal, the organizational, and the community spheres  

DEI coaching with Bonsai Leadership Group will help you develop skills to become a stronger leader so that you can help create a nonprofit where all people feel valued and can thrive. 

Together, we’ll build awareness, knowledge, and an understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion so you gain takeaways that help your nonprofit organization. 

To get started on your DEI coaching journey today, get in touch.