9 Community Leadership Insights Aldersgate, Charlotte, NC —Excerpts from an interview with Suzanne Pugh, President/CEO An expanding non-profit life plan community founded in 1943, Aldersgate, founded by the United Methodist church, is on a journey that began two years ago to become a more diverse, inclusive and equitable community. Strong discernment and dialogue at the board level started the process, with facilitation by a consultant, and a willingness to have very candid conversations. An initial realization was that the community had created “structural exclusions,” both intentional (i.e., fee structures) and unintentional over the 70-year history. The community saw that its board and leadership needed to change and began very intentional recruiting to create a more inclusive culture. A crucible moment for the organization came when a new board member, an African American surgeon, quickly commented on how his first perception was how much the community looked like a plantation. They saw that much work was to be done to address the ‘antebellum model’ of largely people of color serving largely white people. A guided task force worked for nearly a year to develop a strategic plan around diversity and inclusion, with measurable goals, resulting in the mission, vision and values of the community being rewritten in more inclusive language. Further, board members are now being recruited for a balance across multiple dimensions of diversity including age, sexual orientation and sexual identity, as well as faith tradition, racial and cultural diversity. The community uses a matrix for recruiting board members, within the context of its strategic plan, and this has helped create a more equitable and inclusive board. A unique aspect of Aldersgate’s efforts has been adding a Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer to its leadership team to send a clear message to residents, elders, staff and the larger community that it is invested and committed to this inclusion journey. A key role of the officer is to engage with front-line staff, managers and board members, as well as implement a very robust cultural competency calendar of events and trainings. While diversity and inclusion are goals of community leadership, residents’ viewpoints and desires are mixed. Some older residents hold what are considered to be “surprising opinions” and the community feels that this process is “really hard work that requires a commitment to digging into your most personal beliefs and values.” Management continues efforts of education within and outreach outside the community, positing that these efforts are “work of the heart” and “morally the right thing to do, as well as the smart thing to do for the business of the organization.” The community is still primarily Caucasian and working to meet its key performance indicators related to diversity and inclusion.