Champions also undertake three “SMARTIE” commitments that can be accomplished in one year to advance gender equality in the organization’s processes, practices, and policies or in its programmatic work. SMART commitments are Specific, Measurable, Ambitious, Relevant, Timely, Inclusive, and Equitable. Champion’s pledges will be included in the Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy (GCNP) website, and Champions will report on their progress towards these pledges for inclusion in an annual report published by the GCNP.
Below are sample pledges that leaders may consider for inclusion in their additional three pledges. Leaders are encouraged to adapt these pledges (or create new ones) that are appropriate for their organization, ideally with input from a range of voices within the organization. Additionally, leaders are encouraged to develop a baseline understanding for each of the three pledges, so that they can clearly measure how adopting the pledges changes organizational behavior and practices.
Leadership and Accountability
Include gender equality as a standing item on all agendas of staff meetings dealing with the organization’s activities and functioning.
Mainstream a gender perspective in all speeches and presentations made by the champion.
Speak publicly in a specific number of speeches, presentations, and articles about the problems related to gender inequality, need for better inclusivity, and ways to address it.
Provide transparency to relevant stakeholders (board, staff, grantees, readers, etc.) about how the organization is doing in achieving its goals in inclusivity.
Governance
Create (if necessary) and educate all staff and board on formal policies, informed by best practices, related to reporting and responding to sex harassment.
Obtain the EDGE certification (a business certification standard for gender equality, applicable to organizations of varying sizes).
Create a formal mentorship program for mid-career staff in the organization, ensuring that women constitute at least 50% of the mentees and mentors.
Ensure that all selection panels and final applicant pools for new positions in the organization are not single gender.
Promote gender diversity in senior management positions, aiming that 50% of board and manager positions are held by women and guaranteeing that at least 40% of such positions are held by women.
Design/implement a hiring process that actively minimizes gender bias. This can include using inclusive rather than gendered language in job advertisements, anonymizing and randomizing job applications for review, comparing applicants across criteria rather than assessing individual candidates, holding one-on-one structured interviews, and replacing unstructured interviews with work sample tasks.
Conduct exit interviews with all departing staff and interns to understand why staff are leaving.
Meetings and Conferences
Hold a specific number of public events focused on the role of women in nuclear policy, either as keynote events and/or at normal business hours.
Achieve an average of 50% women’s participation in a specific number of the organization’s largest public events annually.
Collaborate with professional networks and organizations dedicated to the issue of increasing women’s participation to host a specific number of events per year.
Develop guidelines for hosts and moderators to encourage balanced participation and use of honorifics during panels and Q&A sessions.
Create, publish, and enforce a policy on respectful behavior for meetings hosted by the organization. An example of such a policy can be found here.
Media and Media Promotion
Ensure the organization’s media lists are up to date and gender balanced. Add new experts as they arrive at your organization.
Ensure the organization’s expert listservs have at least 40% women.
Create and distribute/promote a code of conduct on the organization’s listservs.
Ensure that early career experts (especially women) are single author on at least one article per year.
Provide media training to the organization’s experts, ensuring attendance/recipients include 50% women.
Actively promote inclusion of women experts when approached for quotes or interviews.
Commit that every article, op-ed, and blog post produced by the organization that quotes experts and policymakers includes at least one woman’s quote.
Organizational Culture
Conduct a staff survey (using a standard survey such as the one developed by LeanIn.org and Survey Monkey) to monitor levels of awareness and perceptions in relation to gender equality. Report the results to staff.
Create a program to retain mid-career talent.
Pay the organization’s interns.
Ensure men and women perform an equal amount of “glamour” work and “office housework.” Collect data on office housework (what is done and who is doing it), assign an equitable distribution of the office housework, and hold everyone accountable for the tasks they have been assigned. Alternatively, assign office housework on the basis of job description and hold everyone accountable for the tasks they have been assigned.
Conduct organization-wide bias awareness training on gender and race, such as having all (new) staff take the Harvard University Project Implicit test on unconscious gender-career bias or the Gender-based Analysis Plus (GBA+). If this (or the bullet point below) is chosen, the organization should be thoughtful in how it is used, recognizing that training is not a silver bullet.
Carry out workshops (with a facilitator, as needed) for staff on unconscious bias and inclusive leadership.
Deliberately create/use multiple types of spaces for informal relationship building (i.e. not just bars), and ensure those spaces are open to all genders.
Programmatic and Field Work
Achieve an average of 50% women’s participation in the organization’s training courses on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, and feature women speakers in the organization’s events and seminars.
Target women’s inclusion in the organization’s workshops and courses to improve the gender balance, provide scholarships for participants who need it, measure progress at every level and communicate progress and results regularly.
Strengthen recruitment and outreach so that women are encouraged to apply to the courses and workshops hosted by the organization.
Ensure every issue (or a set number of articles each year) of an organization’s magazine, blog, or journal includes at least one article with a feminist or gender lens.
Increase the number of grants awarded to women-led projects and organizations by 5% until the grant portfolio has gender parity.
Ask grantees for data related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, including gender, for their board, staff, and strategy. If possible, provide aggregate/averaged data about the overall portfolio on the foundation’s website.
Create and adhere to a set of public principles regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion, including gender, in making grant decisions.
Fund/conduct a specific number of research projects in the areas related to nuclear nonproliferation, disarmament and arms control with a gender or feminist lens.
Work-Life Balance
Establish parental leave/return and flex work time policies and compare it to best practices. Regularly educate staff on policies.
Provide advance notice of meetings to enhance predictability and planning.
Actively support telework and flextime options for staff.
Avoid calling critical meetings during evenings, weekends, early mornings, and public holidays, which are difficult times for those who provide care for others to attend.
