A few of ONA15’s best take aways about diversity are available before its annual conference convenes this week in Los Angeles. The organization is sharing lessons learned from ONA’s own experiences to diversify the color and gender of it staff, speakers, events and topics.

“We humbly offer one hard-earned piece of advice: Take one step at a time, baking diversity into everything you do,” ONA said. That approach has helped broaden the gender and color of speakers. ONA15 speakers include 52% women, 36% people of color, 25% local news and 8% international representation.

ONA’s proactive measures are in response to past criticisms that its staff and programs did not reflect the mix of its members. ASNE's annual census for 2014, released in July, included online-only news sites where minorities made up about 19.2% of the workforce at the 47 organizations that responded. The survey, for the second year, also asked about volunteer and part-time employees at those sites. Minorities made up about 17% of all part-time employees and 35.5% of volunteer contributors.

Here are the highlight of ONA’s diversity tips:

Start at the top with leadership that embraces and initiatives change.

Talk about diversity every day: "Open up the doors and commit to finding diverse talent. Journalism doesn't have a alent problem. It has a problem committing to finding diverse talent." 

Venture outside your network: "There’s no better way to change up your perspective than to step outside your usual circles and into new ones. Join these groups. Find others. Read their blogs. Sign up for newsletters and mailing lists. Make time to stop into events when they host them. Stay a while. You’ll find new friends, ideas … and great hires."

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