Project Updates
Dear Friends of the Diversity in Philanthropy Project,
Thank you for your continuing interest in and support of the important work and goals of the Diversity in Philanthropy Project (DPP). As we dive into summer, celebrate LGBT Pride month, and honor the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall protests, we find ourselves in the midst of challenges and opportunities on a number of fronts.
As a nation, we’ve experienced the opposing events of the California Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Prop. 8 and New Hampshire becoming the sixth state to uphold marriage equality rights for same sex couples. We’ve seen the nomination of federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court and ongoing debate about whether her experience as a Latina should factor into her interpretation of the Constitution. Her Senate confirmation hearings, set to begin July 13, will no doubt raise many diversity-related issues.
We don’t need to tell you that these historic events, relative to our sector’s work on diversity, have coincided with unprecedented economic challenges. Many of us are acutely aware of foundations’ struggles with dwindling assets and funding priorities. This recent Sunday New York Times article captured some of the difficult choices and hurdles ahead.
We believe that maintaining our commitment to advance diversity and inclusion is essential. We must stay the course, especially in these times of daunting uncertainty. Indeed, our sector’s evolving relevance and public credibility in the future will rest on our actions now to make inclusion a core strategy and asset of our social investment aims. As in all aspects of field leadership, it is not what we do when things are easy, but rather what we do when times are hard that will define our legacy.
In this issue, accordingly, we highlight the DPP’s continuing work on the issues in recent months, lift up an important case study on evaluation practices that support diversity, and offer important field perspectives on civil rights and marriage equality, and on inclusion in philanthropic executive searches.
These publications and commentaries, along with other useful information and resources, are available for review and analysis on our site. As always, we urge you to add your own perspective by emailing us your comments at info@diversityinphilanthropy.org.
Council on Foundations Conference: The Commitment Grows
First, it was tremendous to see so many of you at the recent Council on Foundations Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. While the economy may have affected the numbers of participants, it did not dampen the enthusiasm.
As in years past, the Conference was a vivid illustration of our sector’s awareness of and commitment to diversity and inclusion in our field. Some 60 sector leaders joined us at a rather early DPP breakfast, sponsored by Healthcare Georgia Foundation, where we announced substantial commitments from our organizations to the transition to D5—an evolving partnership initiative with five leading philanthropic sector anchor organizations and networks to advance long term diversity gains in the field. For more information about this transition and its underlying aims, click here.
Also at the breakfast, foundations publicly endorsed and offered support for DPP’s Common Principles and Promising Practices. The momentum is tremendous, and the leadership exhibited is inspiring. We now have 22 institutional adopters, 13 organizations supporting this work through policies consistent with our proposals, and 17 individual endorsers. For the complete lists, to see if your organization has taken a position, or to add your endorsement, click here.
We were pleased to debut at the breakfast a dynamic DPP-sponsored video, produced by California-based Luna Productions, of the Council of Michigan Foundations' and DPP's jointly sponsored leadership symposium, The Michigan Experience. To see segments of the video now available online, click here.
DPP also sponsored a high-profile leadership panel with our Co-Vice Chair Sterling Speirn, Carol Goss, CEO of the Skillman Foundation, Diane Kaplan, CEO of Rasmuson Foundation and Aaron Dorfman, Executive Director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Together, these leaders tackled tough questions raised in recent public debates about diversity and effectiveness best practices. Panelists offered their unique and valuable perspectives, speaking movingly about their commitment to diversity and inclusion in philanthropy and their successes and challenges in building diverse and inclusive foundations.
Tools for the Field: A New Case Study
As we are challenged to do more with less, the importance of evaluation cannot be overstated. We focus on that very topic in our latest case study in a series that explores opportunities to achieve greater diversity and effectiveness in philanthropic governance and grant making.
Evaluation With A Diversity Lens: Exploring Its Functions And Utility To Inform Philanthropic Effectiveness was principally prepared by Dr. Ricardo A. Millett, a senior consultant to DPP, former CEO of the Woods Fund of Chicago, and long-time Director of Evaluation at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. He reveals practical insights that can help foundations realize greater effectiveness through increasing inclusivity investments. This study will prove particularly timely and instructive for funders embarking on the practice of evaluation with a diversity lens (EDL), a still evolving practice encouraged by the piece. Click here to read more.
Perspectives: Commentaries from Field Leaders
Special Feature on Human Rights and Marriage Equality
As we noted above, the California Supreme Court recently rejected the legal arguments made by LGBT advocates and upheld the ban on same-sex marriage imposed by Proposition 8, passed by voters last November. LGBT leaders Roger Doughty, executive director of the Horizons Foundation, and Tim Sweeney, president & CEO of The Gill Foundation discuss the implications of the Court’s ruling and the repercussions of Proposition 8 that go far beyond the question of marriage, raising fundamental questions about human rights, social equality and racial justice. The commentaries also suggest ways that grant makers—including those that have not historically included LGBT communities in their program priorities—can support efforts at the local and national levels to ensure that the rights and freedoms of all families are equally recognized and protected. We plan to continue coverage and commentary on this essential human and civil rights struggle in future newsletter and Web site reports. Read the commentaries here.
Special Feature on Diversity and Inclusion at the Executive Level
To further thought, practice and impact in these difficult economic times, we offer expert commentaries on diversity and inclusion’s essential role in advancing recruitment and leadership at the highest levels of our field. Our first commentary, Diversity and Effectiveness in Philanthropy: Inclusion as a Model for Leadership Recruitment, Retention, and Excellence is from Christine Boulware and Dan Nevez of the Boulware Group, a national retained executive search firm based in Chicago. The authors explore the principle of inclusion as a means of promoting philanthropy that is both more responsive and impactful. They identify important steps for inclusion through the prism of recruitment, hiring practices and work culture. Our second commentary, Accessing New Talent to Enhance Diversity and Effectiveness in Philanthropy is from Lauren Gumbs, founder and senior partner of Gumbs & Partners, a New York City-based firm specializing in executive search services on behalf of private grantmaking organizations and nonprofit institutions. She highlights strategies that foundations of various kinds can employ to enhance their prospects of success in the evolving environment of change that surrounds all of us. In future issues of our newsletter and Web site, we hope to include additional commentaries on executive search and related human resource management issues of relevance to our work. To read the informative commentaries referenced, click here.
Updates
DPP and CMF: A Fruitful Joint Effort
In March 2009, the Diversity in Philanthropy Project partnered with the Council of Michigan Foundations (CMF) to co-host a Knowledge Symposium to launch CMF's five-year Transforming Michigan Philanthropy Through Diversity & Inclusion initiative. The results of this remarkable event are now posted at michiganfoundations.org. The contents include details of a number of creative planned next steps, the launch of a Peer Learning Community, photographs and video content from the event, and several studies related to Michigan philanthropies’ commitment to diversity and inclusion.
In preparation for the symposium, more than 40 interviews were conducted with Michigan Foundation leaders and national experts, and developed into a landscape scan to explore the question of “what does it take to build a foundation’s ability to constructively address diversity and inclusion, so that it maximizes its effectiveness and impact?” The scan summarizes the ways Michigan foundation leaders and national experts define diversity, the reasons they believe diversity is valuable to their institutions and the field, their thoughts on the challenges that make building diverse and inclusive foundations so difficult, and examples of their on-the-ground experiences implementing diversity efforts in their institutions. To read the full report, click here.
DPP and Race & Equity in Philanthropy Group (REPG) Collaboration
DPP and REPG recently co-commissioned a study to reflect on learning from the experiences of REPG members regarding what it takes to effectively incorporate racial equity into foundation priorities and systems, and how these efforts are critical to other aspects of diversity and philanthropy promotion in general. REPG member foundations include The Atlantic Philanthropies, Annie E. Casey Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The results of this study, Lessons Learned in Addressing Racial Equity in Foundations, are now available on our site. To read the report, click here.
Diversity and the Impact of Giving Circles
The Impact of Giving Together, a new study from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers, and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, provides important new insights into giving circles — through which individuals pool their money and decide collectively how to distribute it — with implications for diversity. Researchers Dr. Angela Eikenberry and Jessica Bearman found that giving circle donors are more likely to give to organizations that serve women and girls, ethnic and minority groups, or to groups that promote arts, culture or ethnic awareness. Giving circle donors also more frequently take into consideration cultural differences, race, class and gender when making funding decisions. To read more about the report findings, click here. To read a snapshot of the report, click here.
Finally, to supplement the rich material contained in this update, we strongly encourage our readers to visit the Latest News section of our site, to read more about marriage equality and current events from DiversityInc. and the American Civil Liberties Union, among other diversity related topics.
Thank you again for your enduring interest and engagement. We look forward to continuing to build momentum in this work and further partnering with each of you in the months to come.
Sincerely,
Robert K. Ross, MD
President & CEO
The California Endowment
DPP Advisory Board Chair
Stephen B. Heintz
President & CEO
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
DPP Advisory Board Co-Vice Chair
Sterling K. Speirn
President & CEO
W. K. Kellogg Foundation
DPP Advisory Board Co-Vice Chair