Racial Equity

Special Collection

Racial equity can be defined as "the condition that would be achieved if one's race identity no longer influenced how one fares." (from "Awake to Woke to Work: Building a Race Equity Culture" by Equity in the Center). This collection focuses on racial equity and also includes works that explore the larger diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) framework. Our aim is to raise awareness about funding for racial equity efforts as well as activities in the social sector meant to realize racial equity. The collection is part of Candid's Funding for racial equity special issue website.

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From Seed to Harvest: A Toolkit for Collaborative Racial Equity Strategies

September 14, 2021

This tool is meant to guide racial equity practices in the creation and assessment of sustainability and renewable energy policies and programs. It offers a framework and systematic process to build cultures of accountability and work towards racial equity outcomes in decision-making. Lastly, it provides a tangible pathway for an ecosystem approach to operationalizing collective racial equity values.

Connecticut Town Equity Reports

September 9, 2021

This series of reports is designed to inform local-level efforts to improve community well-being and racial equity. These reports disaggregate data from the 2020 Census, American Community Survey microdata files, DataHaven Community Wellbeing Survey record-level files, and other federal and state sources to create relevant town-level information that is not typically available from standard public databases.DataHaven has published a town equity report for all 169 towns in Connecticut. We have also created these reports on request for custom-defined geographic regions, such as agency service areas.

Everyday Donors of Color: Diverse Philanthropy During Times of Change

August 25, 2021

The findings of this research demonstrate expanded philanthropic support from individual donors for racial and social justice causes in 2020. The research also found that while donors of color led this growth, they are also beginning to drive a shift in the sources of influence that have historically shaped the charitable community's approach to racial and social justice giving. The report incorporates data from a national survey of 1,535 households, insights from focus groups with diverse donors, and an analysis of case studies on the impact of mutual aid.

Centering Racial Equity in Measurement and Evaluation: Emerging Lessons and Guidance from Human Services Nonprofits

July 21, 2021

Many nonprofit organizations that provide direct human services are exploring how racial equity and inclusion (REI) and performance measurement collectively inform decision-making and strategies that affect their core mission. Human service nonprofits often hold an explicit charge to increase the well-being of people who have been disempowered, disadvantaged, and systematically oppressed. Starting from this mission orientation, organizations can benefit from guidance, outlined in this report, on operationalizing racial equity values within their measurement and evaluation work and acknowledging the systemic barriers that influence client outcomes.

Moving from Intention to Impact: Funding Racial Equity to Win

July 15, 2021

This joint PolicyLink-Bridgespan analysis says funders are a key part of the racial equity ecosystem: to benefit the entire nation they should both be transparent in reporting where grants go and fund what movement leaders say is needed to achieve enduring change.

The 2021 CEO Blueprint for Racial Equity: What companies can do to advance racial equity and combat systemic racism in the workplace, communities, and society

July 1, 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic and our long overdue national reckoning on racial injustice have thrust into sharp relief the results of centuries of economic inequality and systemic racism. While the pandemic and its accompanying economic devastation have hurt so many, people of color and low-income communities have been hit exceptionally hard. More than 100 million people in America—half of all people of color and one-quarter of all White people—struggled to make ends meet even before the pandemic and they continue to bear the heaviest toll, even as the economy bounces back.For corporate leaders, this historic moment presents an opportunity to make lasting progress against stated commitments on racial equity and ensure the billions of dollars pledged to communities of color actually lead to equitable outcomes. Our 2021 CEO Blueprint for Racial Equity will guide you beyond diversity and inclusion commitments to the heart of the business opportunity ahead: addressing the intended and unintended impacts of your products, services, operations, policies, and practices on people of color and low-income communities, with key recommendations across the three domains of corporate influence.

Advancing Well-Being by Transcending the Barriers of Whiteness

June 24, 2021

PolicyLink, in partnership with Well Being Trust, developed Advancing Well-Being by Transcending the Barriers of Whiteness to identify "centering whiteness" as a social and institutional framework that prevents meaningful movement toward racial equity, describe specific social and economic inequities that have been exacerbated by this framework, and make clear new narratives that will be necessary for systemic and policy change. This paper, along with the companion Community Dialogue Guide, serve as the starting point for critical dialogues that deepen and build shared understanding across communities.

Racial Justice in Housing Finance: A Series on New Directions

May 19, 2021

The enclosed essays speak from a range of diverse viewpoints to explore how housing finance can be harnessed towards the ends of residential integration, equitable investment, and housing security, rather than purely for profit. Our authors offer ideas across a spectrum of proposed reforms. They describe how aspects of our current housing finance system derive from, or fail to correct for, our deep history of structural racism; they propose concrete steps toward re-engineering our current regulatory structure and housing programs to better advance equity, including addressing the particular harms of racial segregation; and they argue for expanded social housing and other visionary reforms.

Centering Racial Equity in Homeless System Design

April 27, 2021

Between 2017 and 2019, homelessness sharply increased by 43% in Alameda County, California. Housing market failures, homeless system challenges, and long-standing discrimination have produced a crisis in affordable housing and homelessness, which has significantly impacted low-income people and communities of color. The surge in homelessness and its disproportionate racial impacts, especially on African Americans and Native Americans, became the impetus for a revamp of the homeless system modeling process to ensure that it is restructured to employ a racial equity lens. With the goal of producing a homeless system that works better for all to end homelessness in Alameda County, this system modeling process seeks to: 1) Identify and address factors leading to the over-representation of people of color in the population of people experiencing homelessness. 2) Understand how facets of the homeless system benefit or burden people of color and pinpoint opportunities to advance racial equity within the system. 3) Formulate key elements of a model homeless system, including optimal types and quantities of housing units and service programs; and 4) Develop recommendations to more effectively and equitably allocate resources, prioritize investments, and advance proactive, targeted strategies to end and prevent homelessness.

Creating Cultures and Practices for Racial Equity: A Toolbox for Advancing Racial Equity for Arts and Cultural Organizations

April 27, 2021

Creating Cultures and Practices for Racial Equity contains a variety of tools that emerged from Race Forward's Racial Equity in the Arts Innovation Lab to help artists, arts advocates, culture bearers, and cultural workers to imagine, plan, and implement racial equity strategies in arts organizations. Whether an arts or cultural practitioner already working with a racial equity team and plan or just beginning the journey towards organizational transformation, these tools can help guide, focus, and reinvigorate efforts. Using a racial equity tool helps give deliberate attention to racial and social justice. These tools can be used to make strategic and equitable decisions in assessing existing or proposed policies, practices, plans, programs, grantmaking, contracting, budgets, etc.

Journey Toward Racial Equity: Baseline Findings from the Racial Equity Capacity Assessment

March 1, 2021

This report represents the latest in an effort by Philanthropy-Serving Organizations (PSOs) to advance philanthropic practice and impact by centering racial equity. Written by some members of United Philanthropy Forum's Racial Equity Committee together with Community Centered Evaluation & Research, the report is based on findings of the Forum's inaugural Racial Equity Capacity Assessment for PSOs. Nearly three-quarters of Forum members completed the assessment, which provides a baseline to examine PSOs' internal efforts and external programming in advancing racial equity. The Forum also completed the assessment, and is using the results to inform the Forum's internal racial equity work.

Advancing Racial Equity in Emergency Rental Assistance Programs

March 1, 2021

The NYU Furman Center, together with the Housing Initiative at Penn and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, recently co-authored a report describing these "first-generation" COVID rental assistance programs, based on a survey of 220 programs across the country. This brief draws upon the analysis from that survey, along with additional document review and interviews with selected program administrators. Based on these sources, the brief highlights several lessons about strategies states and localities can use to design and implement more equitable emergency rental assistance programs.