March 24th, 2007
It is a beautiful rainy Saturday morning in Omaha, Nebraska. Lets take a look at what is going on in other communities…
Here is an article about efforts in Frostburg, VA regarding Diversity and Inclusion. City leaders consider joining the Inclusive Communities Project, which neighboring Clarksburg did after the KKK came to town for a rally in 1999.
In this article, Duncanville, TX, also joins the Inclusive Communities Project and city leaders view Diversity as a significant asset for the community…
"Together, we will work throughout the year on programs and efforts designed to celebrate our diversities of race, religions and cultures in order to build a Duncanville that is more accepting and representative of the differences among our residents."
This article talks about Inclusion efforts in Dunedin, FL, which also joined the Inclusive Communities Project.
This article focuses on Winston-Salem in North Carolina, which…you guessed it, joined the Inclusive Communities Project.
And this article is about Albany, NY, where:
"Today Mayor Gerald D. Jennings held a press conference to reaffirm Albany’s commitment to racial and ethnic equality, by signing a “Declaration of Tolerance” and proclaiming the week of September 25-29, 2006 as “Race Equality and Inclusive Communities Week” in the City of Albany."
Oh, and by the way, Albany belongs to the Inclusive Communities Project.
And here is an article about Indianapolis joining the Inclusive Communities Project.
And here is a website that focuses on the role that Diversity plays in Boston. There is a lot of good articles on this site.
But take a look at what is going on next door…in Des Moines, they have the Greater Des Moines Partnership Diversity Committee, which does this:
The Greater Des Moines Partnership’s Diversity Committee
We are a member committee of the Greater Des Moines Partnership, made up of 20-25 members of the Greater Des Moines business community who are committed to creating inclusive corporate cultures and growing varied customer bases. The Diversity Committee acts as a catalyst to mobilize the business community toward a broad economic development vision that incorporates all people as valued contributors and valuable customers. Our typical committee member is a human resource professional or business executive with experience managing diversity in the workplace.
The Diversity Committee has set objectives in three main areas:
- Sponsoring Diversity Events
- Recognizing diversity initiatives within the Partnership’s member organizations
- Providing access to diversity-related educational resources
From what I can tell this is a community level initiative which is supported by the Chamber in Des Moines. They have some nice information on the web and a nice newsletter. They also give out an annual Diversity Award. So what about Omaha? What is Omaha doing to promote Diversity and Inclusion? As far as I can tell…nothing. We do not belong to anything such as the Inclusive Communities Project (which is a program of the National League of Cities), and we do not have anything like the Diversity Partnership in Des Moines. We do have some local events and organizations that focus in this area, but there is no focused community level effort which involves the businesss community. That is unfortunate for us.
Until we as a community make a focused and intentional effort to capitalize on Diversity and Inclusion as community assets, we will never become the community that we have the potential to be.