Project News: Briefing #3
Dear Friends of Diversity in Philanthropy,
Thank you for your continuing partnership with and support of the Diversity in Philanthropy Project (DPP). We deeply appreciate your commitment to expand field representation and effectiveness through greater diversity on foundation boards and staffs, in private grantmaking, and in philanthropic sector contracting and investments.
As we enter the mid-point of our three-year voluntary initiative, and head into the Summer months, we offer another in our series of information blasts to help advance our campaign to bolster foundation diversity, inclusion and equity.
Our website (www.diversityinphilanthropy.org) offers a platform for promoting and disseminating information not only about our work but also the work of other key diversity in philanthropy stakeholders. The site’s current content includes important information and tools for diversity advocates in the field. It also features interviews with leading voices on the issues, articles, case studies, commentaries, and references to other resources and websites that can help field leaders to advance diversity in their own and other institutional settings.
DPP Activities Update and Next Steps
The Diversity in Philanthropy Project approaches this coming Summer with another year of hard work and solid accomplishment behind it. The initiative was proud to contribute to the Council’s successful 2008 Summit in Washington, DC and to unveil an important new set of proposed principles and practices statements for field leaders committed to diversity, inclusivity and equity.
The COF Summit featured another series of diversity and inclusiveness workshop sessions and an historic plenary session on the issues – the first plenary discussion committed to an examination of field diversity performance since the late 1980s. It also resulted in key leadership awards to leading DPP advisors Dr. Robert K. Ross of The California Endowment and Linetta J. Gilbert of the Ford Foundation. Click here to download a program of Diversity Sessions and a summary of Council on Foundations Summit highlights.
The DPP’s work during the past year also advanced important new strategic partnerships with groups including:
- CommonVision, a coalition of diversity and inclusivity advocates concerned about the intersections of race and sexual identity issues in philanthropy.
- The Council of Michigan Foundations, to model regional leadership and learning initiatives on diversity and inclusivity.
- Council on Foundations and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, to encourage field stakeholder coordination and collaboration.
Over the next year, DPP will continue to seek ways to expand our partnership base and also our broader influence on institutional policy and practice, leading with our proposed diversity principles and practices statements. Through this work, we hope to see a significant number of private grantmaking executives and institutions formally adopt voluntary commitments to enhance diversity and inclusion.
Our case study and commentary platforms will feature new content related to diversity and inclusion in fields ranging from community economic development and the arts to civic participation and the environment.
In addition, the Project will keep you posted on the progress of a newly formed Benchmarking Excellence Group. This group, a subset of the coalition of funders we are seeking to adopt our baseline principles and practices, now includes a dozen self-selected foundation CEOs, trustees and philanthropy network executives committed to undertaking more intensive and advanced diversity promotion efforts in mutual support over the coming years.
During 2009, the Diversity in Philanthropy Project will ensure that key elements of our program agenda continue after we cease operations. We will begin to close out and transition our activities to our collaborators, including leading field anchor organizations and advocacy groups. In the interim, we will work to galvanize consensus, funding and shared objectives so that this work can continue with significant force in ways that concretely improve diversity performance and impacts in the private giving sector.
Read previous DPP Briefings