ABSTRACT
This chapter provides initial considerations for the identification and assessment of diversity resistance in cultural organizations that have chosen to develop and disseminate cultural equity statements. Turnbull et al. (2010), Hays-Thomas et al. (2012) and Wiggins-Romesburg and Githens (2018) are synthesized through the lens of Lee and Nowell’s (2015) nonprofit performance measurement framework to open a dialogue within the field of nonprofit arts management about how to assess the gap that often exists between cultural organizations’ stated equity intent and actual impact on marginalized communities. This chapter provides a set of personal- and organizational-level indicators of diversity resistance that account for context-specific nuances in the field of nonprofit arts management and highlights how nonprofit performance management practices can be adapted to evaluate equity work. In addition to filtering the diversity management literature through the lens of nonprofit arts organizations in ways designed to advance arts management research and inform the work of arts management practitioners, this chapter offers suggestions for further research into the ways diversity management and resistance theories and practices can successfully be adopted and adapted in cultural organizations.
