The report, “The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations: Mainstream NGOs, Foundations & Government Agencies,” is the most comprehensive report on diversity in the environmental movement. It surveyed 191 environmental non-profits, 74 government environmental agencies, and 28 leading environmental grant-making foundations to investigate their gender and racial diversity composition, the majority of which state diversification as a “value.” The study included confidential interviews of 21 environmental leaders from diverse backgrounds and experiences. The result was an overwhelmingly white "Green Insider's Club."

This fourth and latest report from the Council of Michigan Foundations (CMF) shares the learning journey and organizational change efforts underway in eight CMF community, family, and independent foundations that participate in the Peer Action Learning Network (PALN) and provides important lessons learned to guide other foundations interested in following this path.  Related case studies on changes underway in three of those foundations -- Grand Rapids Community Foundation, Kalamazoo Community Foundation, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation – provide valuable insights and lessons for interested foundations and nonprofits.  

A focus on racial equity can increase your effectiveness at every stage of the grant-making process. Explores how a racial equity lens can help you scan your field or community, cultivate new leaders, encourage creative approaches, and nourish change inside your own foundation from Grantcraft. This guide was developed in partnership with the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity.

Highlights: 

Three tools for activating a racial equity lens
Your Race/Your Role
Questions to ask inside your foundation 

What's in the Guide?

What Is a Racial Equity Lens? For grantmakers and foundation leaders, using a racial equity lens means paying disciplined attention to race and ethnicity while analyzing problems, looking for solutions, and defining success. Some use the approach to enhance their own perspectives on grantmaking; others adopt it as part of a commitment endorsed across their foundations.

How a Racial Equity Lens Works: A racial equity lens is valuable because it sharpens grantmakers’ insights and improves the outcomes of their work. People who use the approach say it helps them to see patterns, separate symptoms from causes, and identify new solutions for their communities or fields.

Applying a Racial Equity Lens: Skills and Strategies: Where, specifically, does a racial equity lens get put to use by individual grantmakers? The answer is simple: everywhere. A keen awareness of race and ethnicity, and of their impact on access to power and opportunity, is a distinct asset when applying the classic skills of effective grantmaking.

Implementing a Commitment to Racial Equity: Policies and Practices: When a foundation decides to focus on racial equity, how does that commitment get translated into the organization’s goals and routines? Foundation leaders and program staff share examples of what they have learned about applying a racial equity lens to their programming, operations, and external affairs.

Looking Inward: Using a Racial Equity Lens Inside Your Foundation: Grantmakers who have championed racial equity within their foundations describe a handful of tactics for getting over the predictable hurdles. Ground the discussion of racial equity in the foundation’s mission, they say, be open to learning, and be upfront about your goals. But don’t lose sight of the possibility of resistance and setbacks.

Diversity, Inclusion & Effective Philanthropy provides a fresh perspective on how social diversity and inclusiveness can be used as practical considerations to achieve more impactful results in philanthropic giving.

Philanthropists who want to increase impact and reduce waste are turning to diversity and inclusion as tools for effective giving. Good intentions do not make for philanthropic success on their own.

Blind spots cost philanthropists—and the causes they espouse—dearly. A gift can be given for the right reasons to the wrong group. A grant can be generously dispersed, but without careful research. An investment in a social enterprise with great promise can be rendered impotent by a misguided business plan. To make the most of their philanthropic dollars, donors practice due diligence. Staff, advisors and even donors themselves check financial information, perform site visits and talk to experienced stakeholders. This much is well known. But when the concepts of diversity and inclusion are added to basic due diligence, the result can create a philanthropy that is both responsive and efficient.

W.K. Kellogg Foundation has launched a web-based, racial equity resource guide. This interactive resource guide provides individuals and organizations with access to extensive learning materials, tools, and data on racial inequities, their impact on communities of color, and the process for healing racial wounds so that communities can work together across differences.  The resources include articles, organizations, studies, books, media strategies, and training curricula and the website allows users to customize their own packages of materials on specific topics.

This self-assessment is a tool for philanthropic organizations to determine where you are in your work with tribal communities, Native organizations, and Indigenous peoples, and to identify areas that can be strengthened as you move towards equity and effectiveness.