The Stanford Social Innovation Review published an article last week about our checklist of recommendations to reduce implicit bias and promote DEI in grant-making practice! Please click here to view it.

Here are a couple excerpts from the article which frame our motivation for developing this checklist:

Our experience suggests there is widespread appreciation within the social sector for the principles and goals of DEI, but there are huge gaps in our understanding of which populations ultimately benefit from grant dollars—and from what we do know, the distribution is not particularly equitable.

There is very limited data in terms of the amount of funding grant makers awarded to projects focused on ethnic or racial minorities, because many grant makers do not track this type of data. Based on the limited data available:

 …according to the D5 Coalition, less than seven percent of grant dollars [that we know of] went toward ethnic or racial minorities in 2013, even though these individuals comprise nearly 40 percent of the US population.

We think this is the case largely because

…in their effort to ensure that grant dollars go toward effective organizations, many philanthropists have adopted grantmaking practices that can actually perpetuate the unequal distribution of funds. For example, traditional grantmaking practice tends to favor organizations that have existing relationships with funders and dedicated development staff, which better position them to garner philanthropic support. As a result, less funding may make its way toward smaller organizations, many of which may be serving similarly under-resourced communities. Such implicit bias may lead some funders to fall short of their own goals to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.

It is our hope that grantmakers will use our checklist useful as we work toward ensuring that our grant dollars reach the people who need them most.