Section 7. Building Culturally Competent Organizations

A neighborhood is experiencing significant demographic change. Residents who have lived there for many years are increasingly joined by Black, Latino, immigrant, multilingual, and other residents whose experiences and community connections may differ from those historically represented in the neighborhood association.

The neighborhood association has continued using the same communication methods it has used for years: newspaper notices, mailed newsletters, and announcements about meeting times. Yet its membership and leadership have not become more representative of the neighborhood.

Some residents see the association as an organization shaped primarily by the people who have historically participated in it. They may not see their communities, languages, priorities, or experiences reflected in its communication, leadership, programs, or decision-making.

The association therefore needs to do more than invite people to existing meetings. It needs to learn how different residents already organize, communicate, solve problems, build relationships, and participate in community life. It also needs to examine whether its own practices create unnecessary barriers to participation.

Organizational change can be difficult. People may be attached to familiar routines, roles, communication styles, or decision-making processes. Different participants may also hold legitimate but conflicting perspectives.

Building a culturally competent and responsive organization requires patience, learning, honest assessment, flexibility, and a willingness to change both individual behavior and organizational practices.

What is a culturally competent organization?

What is "culture?"

Culture refers to shared patterns of meaning, history, experience, values, traditions, communication, practices, identity, and community that develop among groups of people.

Culture may be connected with race, ethnicity, language, nationality, religion, region, disability, social class, gender, profession, family, age, or many other forms of identity and community.

People may belong to many cultures and communities at the same time. Individuals within the same cultural group may also differ substantially in beliefs, practices, communication styles, identities, and experiences.

Culture is not a fixed set of rules. It changes over time and is shaped by history, institutions, migration, relationships, technology, economics, geography, and individual experience.

Organizations also develop cultures. Policies, routines, leadership styles, decision-making processes, communication practices, expectations, and unwritten norms all shape how an organization operates.

An organization's culture may unintentionally make participation easier for some people than for others. Building cultural competence therefore involves examining the organization itself, not simply learning facts about the communities it serves.

What is the difference between "cultural knowledge," "cultural awareness," "cultural sensitivity," and "cultural competence?"

Organizations such as the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative have demonstrated the value of resident leadership, representative governance, and community participation in neighborhood development. The specific strategies an organization uses will vary by community, but meaningful representation and shared decision-making are important parts of building an inclusive community.

These terms describe related ideas, but they should not be treated as a simple ladder that an organization completes once and for all.

• Cultural knowledge involves learning about histories, communities, institutions, identities, traditions, and experiences that may be relevant to the people an organization serves or employs.
• Cultural awareness involves recognizing that our own assumptions, values, communication styles, and organizational practices are also culturally influenced.
• Cultural sensitivity involves recognizing and respecting differences without automatically judging one way of communicating, organizing, or participating as superior to another.
• Cultural competence refers to the ability of an organization to use knowledge, reflection, relationships, policies, resources, and practices to work effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds.

Cultural humility is also important. Cultural humility emphasizes continued learning, self-reflection, awareness of power differences, and recognition that no individual or organization becomes an expert on every culture.

Cultural competence should not mean expecting staff to memorize characteristics of different groups. It means developing organizational practices that allow people to describe their own identities, needs, strengths, and experiences and ensuring that those perspectives can influence decisions.

A Cultural Competence Model: 5 Essential Principles

1. Valuing diversity

Valuing diversity means recognizing and respecting differences both between and within communities. People who share a racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious, disability, or other identity do not necessarily share the same beliefs, behaviors, experiences, or priorities.

Individuals may also identify with several communities at once. Race, ethnicity, language, gender, disability, social class, religion, geography, generation, family, profession, and other experiences can intersect in different ways.

Avoid assuming that a person's identity tells you everything about what they value or how they will behave.

2. Conducting cultural self-assessment

Organizations should regularly examine their own policies, norms, assumptions, communication practices, physical environment, leadership, staffing, and decision-making processes.

For example, rather than assuming that physical distance, eye contact, touching, meeting style, or another behavior has one cultural meaning, organizations can ask whether staff are making assumptions about behavior and whether people have multiple ways to communicate and participate comfortably.

Surveys, interviews, focus groups, accessibility reviews, demographic information, service-use data, community feedback, and staff discussion can all contribute to organizational self-assessment.

3. Understanding the dynamics of difference

Historical and present-day discrimination, exclusion, unequal treatment, and previous experiences with institutions can affect how people approach an organization.

For example, Indigenous peoples, Black communities, immigrant communities, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ people, religious minorities, and other communities may have histories of unequal or harmful treatment by public or private institutions. Those histories may influence expectations and trust, although individuals within each community will respond differently.

An organization that has changed leadership or practices should not assume that the community will immediately recognize or trust those changes. Trust is developed through transparent communication, consistent behavior, accountability, and time.

4. Institutionalizing cultural knowledge

Cultural competence should be reflected throughout the organization rather than limited to occasional training.

Policies, services, staffing, communication, accessibility, evaluation, budgeting, outreach, leadership development, complaint procedures, and decision-making should all reflect the organization's commitment to serving and including diverse communities.

5. Adapting to diversity

Organizations should be willing to change practices when existing approaches create barriers or fail to meet community needs.

Adaptation may involve language access, disability accommodations, different outreach methods, new partnerships, changes in meeting schedules, revised hiring practices, different service-delivery approaches, or changes in who participates in decision-making.

What types of diversity should an organization consider?

Organizations should avoid ranking forms of diversity as inherently more or less important. Which identities or experiences are most relevant depends on the organization's purpose, community, history, and the barriers people encounter.

Relevant dimensions may include:

• Race
• Ethnicity
• Nationality and national origin
• Language
• Gender and gender identity
• Sexual orientation
• Social class and socioeconomic circumstances
• Religion, spirituality, and belief
• Disability
• Age and generation
• Education
• Family and household structure
• Health-related experiences
• Skills, knowledge, and talents
• Ideas, perspectives, and experiences
• Military experience
• Geographic background
• Housing and property-ownership status
• Occupation and employment experience
• Immigration, migration, and refugee experiences
• Justice-system experience

These characteristics may intersect. Organizations should therefore avoid assuming that one identity is always the most important part of a person's experience.

Why is it important to be culturally competent?

Communities and organizations include people with different cultures, identities, languages, abilities, histories, and experiences. Cultural competence can help organizations work more effectively with that diversity.

It is important not because diversity is a new phenomenon, but because organizations may have historically developed around the expectations and experiences of only part of the population they now serve.

Benefits of building an organization's cultural competence can include:

• Increasing respect and mutual understanding
• Bringing a wider range of perspectives and ideas into problem-solving
• Helping organizations identify barriers or unintended effects earlier
• Expanding meaningful participation
• Strengthening trust and cooperation
• Helping staff respond more thoughtfully when differences or misunderstandings arise
• Supporting inclusion and equitable access
• Improving the fit between services and the people who use them
• Strengthening accountability to the communities the organization serves

These outcomes are not automatic. Simply having a diverse staff or holding cultural-awareness activities does not guarantee trust, creativity, inclusion, or equity. Organizations need structures and practices that allow different perspectives to influence decisions.

When does an organization need to become culturally competent?

Cultural competence should be an ongoing organizational responsibility rather than something addressed only when a crisis occurs.

It is especially important when:

• The communities served by the organization are changing
• Some groups use services at lower rates or report different experiences
• Participation or leadership does not reflect the community
• Language or disability access is inadequate
• Complaints or conflicts suggest problems with inclusion or discrimination
• The organization is developing new programs or expanding into new communities
• Policies or practices appear to produce unequal outcomes
• Staff or community members identify cultural responsiveness as a priority

Organizations do not need to wait until they have identified every community need before beginning. A strong process includes ongoing learning, participation, evaluation, and adaptation.

How do you create a culturally competent organization?

Indicators of cultural competence:

• Recognizing that organizational norms, policies, and institutions are shaped by history and culture and may advantage some ways of communicating, leading, or participating over others
• Understanding how our own backgrounds and experiences influence how we interpret other people
• Avoiding assumptions that all members of a cultural group share the same beliefs, practices, or needs
• Recognizing that past experiences with institutions may influence present relationships and trust
• Building on the strengths, knowledge, relationships, and resources of different communities
• Allocating resources for staff learning, accessibility, language access, community engagement, and leadership development
• Identifying and changing discriminatory or exclusionary policies and practices
• Sharing meaningful decision-making authority with people from different backgrounds and communities
• Evaluating cultural competence and responsiveness on an ongoing basis
• Making participation accessible to people with different language, disability, transportation, scheduling, technology, and caregiving needs
• Establishing clear accountability when discrimination or exclusion occurs

Cultural differences can strengthen an organization when people are able to contribute meaningfully and when differences are not treated as problems to be managed. Reaching that point requires deliberate planning and organizational change.

Action Steps for Achieving Cultural Competence

Leadership support matters, but cultural competence is unlikely to become part of the organization if it is treated only as a top-down requirement.

Include staff, leadership, governing bodies, community members, and people who use the organization's services in planning and evaluation.

• Build support and accountability throughout the organization. Who is committed to change? What concerns or resistance exist?
• Identify the people and communities who should participate in planning, implementation, and evaluation.
• Identify barriers. What is making participation, employment, leadership, or service access difficult?
• Assess current strengths and gaps in cultural competence and responsiveness.
• Identify the resources needed, including funding, staff time, translation and interpretation, accessibility, training, community expertise, and technical assistance.
• Develop measurable goals, responsibilities, timelines, and implementation steps.
• Evaluate progress continuously and make changes when results show that the organization is not meeting its goals.

How to begin building a multicultural and culturally responsive organization

Create a structure for accountability.

A committee, working group, leadership team, equity office, or other structure may help coordinate cultural-competence work.

It should include people from different organizational levels and, where relevant, people from the communities the organization serves.

The group should not carry sole responsibility for organizational change. Senior leadership, supervisors, staff, and governing bodies all have responsibilities.

Write or review your mission and values.

Make sure cultural competence, accessibility, inclusion, and equitable participation are connected with the organization's actual mission rather than treated as separate activities.

Learn from other organizations and develop partnerships.

Other organizations may have useful experience with language access, disability inclusion, community engagement, recruitment, service delivery, evaluation, or other areas.

Learn from their approaches, but adapt them to your own community and organizational context rather than copying them without assessment.

Use current technical assistance and professional resources.

Public agencies, universities, professional associations, community organizations, disability organizations, language-access organizations, and other institutions may offer guidance, training, tools, or technical assistance.

Evaluate resources for relevance, evidence, accessibility, and whether they reflect current terminology and practice.

Conduct a comprehensive organizational assessment.

Examine mission, leadership, hiring, promotion, compensation, service delivery, communication, accessibility, language access, community participation, complaints, evaluation, budgeting, and organizational climate.

Use the results to develop a long-term plan with measurable goals.

Understand who lives in the community and who uses your services.

Learn about the racial, ethnic, linguistic, disability, socioeconomic, religious, age, gender, and other forms of diversity relevant to your service area.

Then ask:

• Who currently uses the organization's services?
• Who does not?
• What barriers might explain the difference?
• How do people experience the services?
• Who participates in planning and decision-making?
• Are some communities being reached primarily through other organizations rather than directly?

Do not interpret differences in participation automatically as lack of interest. Examine outreach, reputation, accessibility, eligibility requirements, cost, language, transportation, trust, scheduling, and other possible factors.

Create ongoing opportunities for staff discussion and learning.

Staff meetings, workshops, case discussions, facilitated conversations, supervision, learning groups, and other formats can help people examine assumptions and improve practice.

Cultural competence should not depend on a single luncheon, annual event, or one-time training.

Ask staff about their learning and support needs.

Staff may need support related to cross-cultural communication, language access, disability inclusion, working with interpreters, responding to discrimination, community engagement, trauma-informed practice, inclusive supervision, or other areas relevant to their roles.

Allocate resources for ongoing development.

Review your budget for training, accessibility, interpretation, translated materials, community engagement, evaluation, and other resources needed to implement the organization's goals.

Keep in mind: Discussions about culture, discrimination, power, identity, and organizational practice can create disagreement or discomfort.

Skilled facilitation may be useful, particularly when trust is low or previous conflict exists. Establish clear expectations for respectful discussion and a process for addressing harmful comments or unresolved concerns.

The goal is not to prevent all discomfort. It is to create a process where difficult issues can be addressed constructively and where people understand what will happen after concerns are raised.

Include cultural responsiveness in job expectations where relevant.

Job descriptions and hiring processes can identify skills such as respectful communication, working effectively with interpreters, serving diverse communities, inclusive supervision, accessibility, community engagement, or other competencies appropriate to the role.

Avoid using vague cultural-competence requirements without explaining what effective performance looks like.

Make facilities, programs, and communication accessible and welcoming.

Consider physical accessibility, transportation, operating hours, signage, restrooms, sensory conditions, communication access, language access, cost, safety, privacy, and other factors that may affect participation.

Do not assume that particular seating arrangements, eye contact, forms of address, or decor are appropriate or inappropriate for everyone from a cultural group. Ask participants what helps them feel comfortable and respected.

Maintain current learning resources.

Provide staff with reliable information on communities, histories, language access, disability inclusion, discrimination, communication, and other relevant topics.

Materials should be reviewed periodically because terminology, research, community conditions, and recommended practices change.

Build relationships with community members and organizations.

Residents, cultural organizations, faith communities, disability organizations, businesses, schools, service providers, and other community partners may have valuable knowledge about local priorities and barriers.

Avoid describing community members as “informants.” Treat lived experience as expertise, and compensate substantial community labor or consultation when appropriate.

Do not rely on one individual to represent an entire community.

How to manage the dynamics of building culturally competent organizations

Vision and context

It can take time for organizations and communities with histories of exclusion, discrimination, conflict, or broken commitments to develop trust.

People from marginalized communities may also be asked repeatedly to educate coworkers about racism, disability, culture, language, religion, or other issues. Organizations should not place the responsibility for everyone's learning on the people most affected.

All participants should take responsibility for learning, while also listening carefully when community members choose to share their experiences.

People should not be expected to conform to a single communication style, leadership style, or organizational norm simply because it has historically been dominant.

Include people from different backgrounds in developing the organization's vision, priorities, and measures of success.

Recruitment and outreach

Include people from diverse communities early enough to influence the organization's development rather than recruiting them after major decisions have already been made.

Representation is only a first step. Examine whether people have real authority, access to information, opportunities for leadership, and meaningful influence over decisions.

Outreach should use communication methods that people actually use and should address barriers involving language, disability, transportation, technology, scheduling, childcare, cost, or organizational reputation.

Training and organizational learning

Training can help staff examine stereotypes, learn skills, and understand community experiences, but one-time diversity training rarely changes an organization by itself.

Reinforce learning through supervision, policy, leadership expectations, evaluation, accountability, hiring, service design, and continued community feedback.

Keep in mind: Cultural learning should not become a list of traits associated with racial, ethnic, religious, or national groups. Such lists can easily become new stereotypes.

Organizational structure and operating procedures

Examine how work, information, authority, resources, recognition, and decision-making are distributed.

Create multiple ways for people to participate, including large-group discussion, small groups, written feedback, remote participation, surveys, one-on-one conversations, and other formats where appropriate.

Make sure quieter participants, people using interpreters, people with disabilities, and those who prefer different communication methods have meaningful opportunities to contribute.

Develop and enforce policies that address racism, sexism, ableism, religious discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, harassment, and other forms of discrimination.

Periodically evaluate meetings and decision-making processes. Ask who participated, whose ideas shaped the outcome, who may have faced barriers, and what should change.

Communicating

Use respectful and inclusive language and avoid assuming that everyone understands unwritten organizational rules.

Learn people's names and how they want to be addressed. Do not make judgments about intelligence, professionalism, or competence based on accent, grammar, communication device, speech pattern, or language proficiency.

Listen for what people are actually communicating rather than interpreting behavior through cultural stereotypes.

Ask clarifying questions when needed. Provide information in plain language and accessible formats, and make sure people have several ways to ask questions or contribute.

Tips:

• People may differ in how comfortable they are with confrontation, self-disclosure, public praise, eye contact, silence, disagreement, or speaking in groups. Do not assume the reason is culture without asking.
• Forms of address may differ by person, community, generation, profession, or setting. When unsure, ask people respectfully how they prefer to be addressed.

How to address language barriers:

• Arrange qualified interpreters when interpretation is needed. Bilingual staff or volunteers may help in some settings, but people should not automatically be expected to interpret simply because they speak more than one language.
• Design meetings so participants can contribute in the languages they use most comfortably. Depending on the group, this may involve simultaneous or consecutive interpretation, multilingual small groups, or separate sessions covering the same issues.
• Translate essential organizational materials into the languages needed by the people the organization serves, based on actual language-access needs and applicable requirements.
• Use plain, respectful language and explain technical or organizational terms that may not be familiar to everyone.
• Make interpretation and translated materials accessible to people with disabilities as well, including through captioning, accessible documents, sign-language interpretation, or other communication supports when needed.

Keep in mind:

Words can carry different meanings because of language, history, profession, politics, personal experience, or community context. Rather than assuming that a term has the same meaning for everyone, ask participants how they understand important words and explain how the organization is using them.

Understanding both common ground and difference

Avoid assuming that people have either more similarities or more differences. Both matter.

Shared goals can support collaboration, while important differences in history, identity, access, discrimination, communication, or community experience may affect how people understand those goals and what they need in order to participate.

Maintaining the commitment

Cultural competence requires continued attention. Organizations should periodically review their staffing, leadership, services, communication, accessibility, partnerships, policies, and outcomes.

Public statements about diversity and inclusion can communicate organizational values, but they should be supported by measurable practices and accountability.

Providing strong leadership

Create multiple pathways into leadership and make sure leadership development is available to people who have historically had less access to formal organizational power.

Mentoring, shared projects, committee leadership, training, succession planning, and transparent selection processes can help develop leadership.

Mentoring should support people's own leadership styles rather than expecting them to reproduce the style of an existing leader.

Providing activities

Integrate cultural responsiveness into the organization's regular programs rather than limiting it to occasional heritage celebrations or international events.

Community projects, recreation, public meetings, arts programs, advocacy, neighborhood improvement, education, service delivery, and other activities can all be designed so people from different backgrounds can participate meaningfully.

Cultural events, forums, panels, and dialogues can also be useful when communities themselves help determine the topics, format, leadership, and goals.

If participation does not reflect the community, do not assume that particular groups are uninterested. Examine outreach, trust, accessibility, timing, transportation, cost, language, program relevance, previous experiences, and who has decision-making power.

In Summary

Building a culturally competent organization requires more than changing how individuals think about people from different cultures.

It means examining how the organization communicates, hires, promotes, makes decisions, provides services, distributes resources, responds to discrimination, develops leaders, and includes the communities affected by its work.

Cultural knowledge can be useful, but it should not become a collection of stereotypes about how particular groups supposedly communicate, lead, behave, or make decisions.

People within the same racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious, disability, or cultural community may have very different experiences and preferences. Strong organizations therefore combine cultural knowledge with humility, listening, self-assessment, community participation, and ongoing evaluation.

Representation matters, but simply changing the demographic appearance of staff or leadership is not enough. People also need meaningful authority, access to information, equitable opportunities, and the ability to influence decisions.

Cultural competence also requires practical supports such as language access, disability access, flexible communication, appropriate outreach, staff development, transparent policies, and accountability when exclusion or discrimination occurs.

The work is ongoing. Communities change, organizations change, language changes, and new barriers may emerge. Culturally competent organizations continue learning, measuring results, listening to the people they serve, and adapting their practices over time.