Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core inputs to the Acacia Valley HOA‘s strategic objective of tolerance. Indeed, tolerance is one of the most important among the HOA‘s strategic objectives, and appears in both the short form—

—and the long form—

—of the organization’s strategic digest.

To ensure that tolerance remains at the crosshairs of the organization’s strategic focus, on June 5, 2024, the board of directors convened a first-of-a-kind inclusion policy incubator to invent novel policies that further tolerance within and beyond the organization.

The Inclusion Policy Incubator followed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) workshop methodology to identify key action areas to nudge the HOA closer to its inclusive ideals.

From the meeting’s outset, a few things were clear to all members of the board:

1. That the HOA‘s strategic objectives are its greatest strength because they provide the HOA with common point of focus that keeps the HOA grounded in the values of its founding community and resists letting the HOA “drift” toward fads and trends in the HOA landscape that are not in the interests of HOA members.
2. That the HOA‘s singular nature reveals no immediate weaknesses or threats.
3. That the development of an inclusion policy presents a stellar opportunity for the HOA, because the HOA‘s members are its lifeblood, and the more they can be included, the more the HOA can fulfill its vision of moderated growth.

As part of the read-ahead materials for the Inclusion Policy Incubator, the board reviewed inclusion policies from competing organizations, including HOAs, corporate entities, public schools, and others, and found that most take an indirect, wishy-washy approach to inclusion efforts, favoring language such as “At Mount Holyoke, we’re ourselves, together,” which expresses the general spirit of inclusion without making any binding promises.

Although it does not appear in our strategic objectives, it occurred to the board of the HOA that a rigorous, data-driven, falsifiable inclusion policy could prove a decisive differentiator between Acacia Valley and organizations that put lip service ahead of real action on the critical issue that is inclusion.

It was at this point in the discussion that the 🔒 secretary of the HOA suggested an algorithm to ensure that the HOA‘s makeup is maximally representative of the community it serves, namely, the global community.

Note that the algorithm below is merely a white paper and has not been endorsed by the board as either an HOA binding policy or HOA recommendation (see the Policy portal for more on these terms).

The algorithm proposed by the secretary is as follows:

1. First, the HOA begins by creating a list of key inclusion demographic priorities that it wishes to prioritize in recruiting and promotion efforts. Inspiration for underrepresented groups who should be granted special priority in these efforts may come from the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission or Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (Note that the board has formally recognized these protected categories before in the nondiscrimination section of its policy on renting.)
2. The board assigns each demographic priority a target minimum proportion of individuals from that group. An acceptable default may be that the proportion of the global population represented by that group. However, this default could prove problematic with respect to demographics that tend to be secretive about their identity. Additional field research may be required.
3. Each time a new member joins the HOA, the HOA automatically computes (using a spreadsheet) the discrepancy between the current cohort’s proportion of each key inclusion demographic and the target minimum proportion established in the previous step. Formally, let X denote the total number of members in the HOA, and for each key inclusion demographic i, let x[i] denote the current number of members who belong to that demographic. Next, let r[i] denote the target minimum proportion for demographic i.
4. The demographic i* having the largest underrepresentation ratio r[i] / (x[i] / X) is called the highest-priority demographic. In accordance with the strategic objective of moderated growth, the HOA is known to utilize a waitlist to control the frequency with which new members join the HOA. Traditionally, this waitlist has been ordered on a first come, first served basis. However, in a slight modification to this system, this algorithm would automatically bump any applicant who belongs to the highest-priority demographic to the topmost position in the waitlist.
5. As applicants are accepted into the HOA from the top of the waitlist, this algorithm will tend to ensure that the organization moves quickly toward its key inclusion demographic priorities and associated target minimum proportions.
6. The board should revisit the key inclusion demographic priorities and target minimum proportions from time to time to ensure they are in keeping with the latest statistical data and best practices from leading inclusion experts.

We are not sure if this is legal.