New Latina NGO Fights for Empowerment & Inclusion

There’s a new NGO in town that’s targeting companies that aren’t treating Latina women fairly.

If you belong to that nasty category of businesses, don’t scurry from sight. You won’t be selected for boycotts or other boisterous protests.

The primary weapon of this Short Hills, NJ-based non-profit organization, Latina Surge, is education.

“The message of Latina Surge is not to challenge in a negative way but challenge in a positive way,” explained Elisa Charters, who founded the group in 2015. “We would rather reward companies that come to the positive realization of inclusion.”

The issue isn’t only about parity in salaries – though it’s the keystone – but it’s also about parity in the executive board rooms of America. And it’s about empowering Latinas.

Charters, who formed Latina Surge on the basis of a variety of influences affecting her life, pointed out that today the civic and business landscapes aren’t as aggressive as they were a handful of years ago. The contemporary approach to achieving a goal is not in-your-face but rather it’s mellow.

“If a business person is not savvy enough to understand cultural intelligence, then he or she isn’t competitive in the marketplace,” she said.

Charters formulated this strategy early in her career. As a Latina, she empathized with her novias who are forced to endure unfair treatment and wages that are 47% less than others enjoyed. But she also understood that she couldn’t initiate changes until she passed a few life hurdles. The first one was getting an education. Afterward, she would be able to work for the good of her community or – as she said – give back.

“I could see what it meant to be given an opportunity for someone from an underserved community,” recalled Charters, who was the first in her family to graduate from college.

Ultimately, she received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in environmental science technology and society from New Jersey Institute of Technology and was hired by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Charters’ knowledge and skills helped her to be chosen for a management training program, which she described as an opportunity that led to other opportunities.

As she gained experience and seniority, she was invited to join an employee resource group call the Port Authority Hispanic Society that fostered professional and social development. As is her trait, Charters became active and ultimately was chosen to be its president. That’s when she saw that things aren’t always as nice as they seem.

“That opened my eyes to disparities. Things that I didn’t realize as a lower level employee but as president I could see and understand them,” she said.

Networking with other groups such as Asian and women’s, Charters assembled workers who began to discuss these disparities and lack of inclusion as various levels of management.

“We were measured against census data of the region but when you look at a breakout of where people of color where falling, we saw that we weren’t represented at the highest levels,” she remembered.

That’s when she learned that she could accomplish much more with honey than with vinegar.

“I learned how to negotiate inclusion into business plans,” she said. “In meeting with Port Authority officials we talked about the numbers and disparities and made recommendations for our inclusion.”

And this strategy succeeded. She said while she was at the Port Authority, the first Latino was appointed chief of police.

However, the mission wasn’t over. Charters then set her sights on resolving this unfairness toward her sorority of Latinas.

While she was pursuing additional studies at New York University and Columbia University, she learned about the world of non-governmental organizations and underwent an epiphany that she could right wrongs by working with civic groups. Charters reached out to other non-profits and community groups in New Jersey to learn how they address their issues.

“I sought to ensure that inclusion was happening not only in organizations and businesses but throughout society as well. That also led to cooperating with several New Jersey gubernatorial administrations,” she said.

Serving as her own valuable lesson, Charters strove to give back to the community because working for her family, friends and neighbors opened more opportunities for education and development.

Charters’ campaign was also meant empowering Latinas and women of color so they can advance and succeed through self-realization, education and development.

With the mojo “Surge to reward,” she observed that it is natural for women to be self-empowered.

“Women are buyers, they make purchasing decisions, and they should have knowledge about the companies that they’re buying from. Education, knowledge and information will lead to self-empowerment. Knowledge is power,” she emphasized, adding that women should reward those companies that support them holistically.

With success of both sides of this social structure – women and companies – rooted in education, Charters comprehended that diversity and inclusion can best be addressed and even mandated from the top down.

“Despite the value of employee-based negotiations about diversity and inclusion, if you have a champion in executive management that understands and empathizes with the value of fairness, then that company will have the highest competitive advantage in the marketplace,” she believes. Alternatively, working in an upward direction is ineffective and inefficient, she added.

Indeed, Charters emphasized, “corporate diversity and inclusion lead to better competitive advantage in the marketplace.”

And empowered consumers, women and Latinas tend to purchase from those companies.

The key is to devise a strategy that foresees collaborative meetings that drive continuous improvements in a non-aggressive manner, she indicated.

Charters has her work cut out for her as she raises Latinas’ awareness that their earning power is almost half of their counterparts in the workplace. She not only intends to have salaries raised but also to realign the composition of the executive management boardroom with an eye toward her novias.

Her NGO, Latina Surge, will drive the movement.

While the decision to establish the organization was easy, fulfilling it required additional education. Charters had to understand the organizational structure of a non-profit and what it can and can’t do. She had to study the necessary activity of fundraising and develop a plan on fulfilling the needs of the NGO within the abilities of society to support it.

“Now that there are many nonprofits, there’s a very competitive environment out there. We have to think outside the box about how we’re going to survive,” she said. “We’re partnering with other organizations and then split the proceeds which helps us survive.”

Charters said non-profits are further challenged by a lack of skilled volunteers who must decide if they’re going to find jobs to help their families or work as volunteers for a worthy NGO.

Despite the changing world, pitfalls and challenges, Charters is committed to her course and advises those who’d want to establish their own NGO to educate themselves about non-governmental organizations and their missions, research their activity and gain experience.

“You can help your cause by helping an existing NGO. If one doesn’t exist, form your own,” she recommends. “Then register your group as a 501c3.”

But what about passion?

“You have to be 110% passionate about your NGO. It’s has to be about passion because you probably won’t get paid. You really have to want to do it. It will have to be a priority in your life,” she affirmed.

You can follow Latina Surge’s progress via @latinasurge https://www.facebook.com/latinasurge/ https://www.instagram.com/latinasurge/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/latina-surge/