How Diverse is the Community Industry?

Measuring diversity metrics are an essential part of staying informed within our industry. As a community professional we can use this data to better understand who we are serving and how our programs, strategies, and vision can have the most impact!For the 2021 Community Industry Report we surveyed 368 community professionals about their job roles, ethnicity, and racial identity. Below, we’ve included our findings.Please note: These graphs only focus on North American data, because it was our most robust data pool. You can compare against the “overall” numbers at the bottom of each chart. See the full Community Industry Report for more!

Which job title best describes your role (By gender identity)

Women lead the management sector with 56% of them currently holding a position. Men lead Founders with 9% reporting that they founded a company. Both men and women indicated that 14% of them were Community Directors giving us hope for strides towards gender equality in the workplace.Community Managers made up at least half of the overall report, which is a promising metric for an organization committed to helping community professionals thrive!

Which job title best describes your role (By racial or ethnic identity)

When we took an in depth observation of the racial and ethnic identities of our gender respondents we saw that a staggering 71% of managers who responded are Black/African Descent. Black/African Descent also led the founders category with 10%. Whites lead the community director category with 16%.It is exciting to see that many Hispanic/Latin/a/x are dominating the entry level of the Community industry with 29% fulfilling community associate/specialist positions. We look forward to seeing how their growth contributes to higher level positions.

What is your racial or ethnic identity

Ethnically, we noticed that there is a fluent distribution of culture within the industry. Asian women surveyed at the highest rate with 76%. They were followed by 71% of Black women who outscored their counterparts by 42%. Those who identified as Hispanic/Latino/a/x were closest to even split with women reporting 56% and men reporting 41%.Based on our report the community industry is attracting a higher rate of women from diverse backgrounds with 69%.The beauty of diversity is its ability to provide members with the opportunity to learn, educate, and collaborate with each other. Through diversity we can acknowledge that despite our differences, we still have the chance to embrace our commonalities.Learn more about diversity in the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging track at CMX Summit 2021!Want to learn how to run a Health Survey in your Community? Check out How we run Community Health Surveys at CMX!