What's the difference?

I admit that, even as a member of United Way's Diversity and Inclusion team, I've long struggled with the difference between the two - diversity and inclusion. As far as I could figure, inclusion was just another new, "corporate-speak" way of saying diversity. That is, until I saw the following on a piece of paper side-by-side...

Diversity: the quality of being different or unique at the individual or group level. This includes work style, parental status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, skin color, language, age, mental and physical abilities - and more. Even when people appear the same on the outside, they are different!

Inclusion: a strategy to leverage diversity. Diversity always exists in social systems. Inclusion, on the other hand, must be created. In order to leverage diversity, an environment must be created where people feel supported, listened to, and able to do their personal best.

And now it makes sense. Diversity isn't a program or an initiative, it just simply is. Choosing to embrace and leverage it is the real task at hand... and that's called inclusion.