ASJA’s DEAI Ambassadors Program is Committed to Welcoming All

“In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.” — Audre Lorde

“Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.” — Ruth Bader Ginsburg

With ASJA continuing the rollout of the DEAI Ambassadors Program announced in the organization’s 2024 DEAI progress report, we cannot emphasize enough the importance of standing by initiatives to support underrepresented perspectives. One sign that ASJA’s commitment isn’t just lip service is the board’s recent use of practices aligned with diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion as a deciding factor in the organization’s search for a new association management partner.

Since ASJA announced the DEAI initiative in 2021, the organization has undertaken a series of incremental changes to become welcoming to writers of all backgrounds. The changes include:

• Establishing a DEAI task force—which is now a full-blown committee
• Creating a DEAI webpage with resources
• Offering scholarships to attract writers from underrepresented communities
• Hiring DEI consultant Janet Stovall
• Providing all members with programming and professional development opportunities to learn more about DEAI topics and inclusive writing practices.  

As we shared at ASJA’s 2025 conference in New York City, these DEAI initiatives are in place to help our organization and industry better represent the diversity of our country and our readers, which helps us grow our audiences. It’s work that aligns with ASJA’s mission, which past President Emily Paulsen pointed out in a previous post about ASJA’s approach to DEAI. She wrote: “For ASJA to meet its mission to be the voice and career resource for independent, entrepreneurial, professional nonfiction writers, our membership should reflect the demographics of our profession.”

Rolling Out the DEAI Ambassadors Program in the AMC Search

In the ongoing effort to remove bias from ASJA’s processes, we’re using the DEAI Ambassadors Program to incorporate inclusive practices into all aspects of the organization. The initiative, led by the DEAI Committee that I run along with my co-chairs and colleagues Leanna Lee and Charmaine Seitz, has been in the works for several years. That’s given us time to grow the committee and prepare members for ambassador roles. 

Ambassadors are joining ASJA committees as full members to help suggest and implement inclusive practices. The board got a preview of what the program looks like in practice during the search for a new association management company. At the start of the process, I shared recommendations to make the request for proposal (RFP) and candidate evaluations more inclusive. Recommendations included: 

• Increasing access to the opportunity by broadening the networks where we shared the RFP
• Creating standardized questions for candidates and their references
• Developing a quantitative rubric to provide an objective snapshot of each candidate
• Increasing transparency by giving candidates advance notice of questions and sharing the rubric
• Providing actionable feedback to candidates that were not selected

The board adopted the recommendations in a conscious effort to avoid perpetuating disparities and to take actions that helped level the playing field for candidate firms with leaders from all backgrounds. ASJA took steps to make the process more fair and equitable, while recognizing everyone’s dignity, hard work, and potential by making the RFP available to a wider variety of networks, being transparent and consistent in our line of questioning and evaluation criteria, and sharing feedback to help all candidates rise (particularly in light of data that women and professionals of color are the least likely to receive actionable feedback).

Lessons Learned From a Holistic Approach

During the association management company hiring process, the board learned a valuable lesson in taking a holistic approach to deliberations about the final candidates. Although there was a clear frontrunner based on quantitative data from the rubric, factoring in qualitative data from the interviews and reference checks enabled us to come to a more nuanced consensus. The process led to an unanimous board vote to hire C2 Association Strategies.

ASJA President Darcy Lewis welcomed the inclusive framework. “Just as DEAI research has shown, broadening our reach and standardizing what we could made it easier to compare companies’ strengths and potential solutions to ASJA’s challenges,” Lewis said. “The framework that Gabby created led all 12 board members to unite behind a single choice and left us feeling as good about the process as we do about the outcome.”

A lot of that good feeling came from everyone on the board having the opportunity to provide input, whether they were using the rubric to evaluate proposals or to assess candidate firms in person. Having the criteria in the rubric also gave board members clarity on what we were looking for and gave us a common language for debating the merits of each company. This inclusive approach resulted in everyone having access to the data and insight needed to make an informed pick, which in our case led to a unanimous decision.  

ASJA aims to keep building on this momentum. As we work toward becoming a more diverse, equitable, accessible, and inclusive organization, we welcome all members to share their feedback. Please email asjaoffice@asja.org for more information on the DEAI Ambassadors Program and the DEAI Committee, which is open to all.

**

Gabrielle Gayagoy Gonzalez (she/her/siya) writes about equity, leadership, and career success for women and professionals of color. She was named to Diversity Woman Media’s Power 100 List and is a co-author of Racial Justice at Work: Practical Solutions for Systemic Change, which inspired both a companion podcast and the award-winning Racial Justice at Work Summit. Gonzalez serves on ASJA’s Executive Committee and Board of Directors and co-chairs the Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion Committee. She is the founding principal of 3G Collaborative LLC, a boutique DEAI consultancy specializing in events, books, podcasts, documentaries, and other media. Her writing has appeared in Self, Seventeen, Shape, The Inclusion Solution, Weight Watchers, and Women’s Health.