Strategies to address DEI

We are starting with a board diversity policy trying to define what diversity means for our foundation. Our board has talked a lot about the concept of diversity of thought rather than focusing on one particular category. We plan to use this policy as a starting point for our discussions since several positions need to be filled over the next 12 months.

That's great @KentWeimer. Maybe you can share in this forum if it passes. We are not in a position yet to adopt diversity metrics but I would love to see how you and your board navigate this process in a meaningful and intentional way.

On a webinar with PEAK Grantmaking about Equity in Tech and heard about this site: Equitable Evaluation. More info about upcoming event: https://www.peakgrantmaking.org/event/making-the-case-for-equitable-evaluation/

@KarenWolf - Our Board approved a "Statement of Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion" in 2018 and formed an Equity & Inclusion Board Committee this year. We are using a matrix to collect all different kinds of demographic information (age, race, city of residence, industry of employment, etc.) on potential board members. On competitive grant applications, we are now asking for certain demographics of the applying organization's Board (since we are reporting this info to Candid on our own Board) - race/ethnicity, gender and ability status. A standard question - and evaluation criteria - for our competitive grant applications is: "how does your organization/program advance racial and other forms of equity through your work and your leadership"? We just completed a grants mapping project so we can literally see what we are funding (which will show most of of our dollars granted to white-led organizations). We are including a lot more education around racial equity in regards to equitable grant evaluations/scholarship evaluations with our grant and scholarship committee members. We also hired a consultant to do Racial Equity training with our staff and Board.