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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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"Endless Walk!" by Rayhane saber licensed through Unsplash

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Diversifying Suppliers, Vendors and Business Partners as Part of DEI Strategy: Beacon Capital Partners Case Study

June 28, 2023

This case study is part of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Expanding Equity program, which helps workplaces become more racially equitable places of opportunity. The program supports and inspires companies to take action using four pillars: Attract, Belong, Promote and Influence. Each pillar offers unique opportunities for advancing racial equity, diversity and inclusion in companies. This case study lifts up actions from the Influence pillar, which focuses on advancing racial equity through a company's products, services or relationships externally.At Beacon Capital Partners, having a workplace that prioritizes diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) means being intentional with choosing external business partners who share those same values. The firm recognized that United States' real estate industry as a whole is an overwhelmingly White, male-dominated business. They initially looked at its recruitment practices to expand their DEI efforts. In doing so, they learned that creating a space of inclusion and belonging went beyond recruiting practices and should also include all the firm's functional engagements. The firm works with numerous vendors and suppliers in its work and saw an opportunity to expand business partner diversity by working with firms holding Minority Women Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (MWDBE) certification and increasing its total spend on diverse vendors and suppliers at its properties. This led Beacon Capital to pilot its business partner diversity initiative, which lead to an increase in their total property spend on diverse vendors and suppliers from about 4% of controllable operating expense spending with diverse business partners in the pilot properties in 2017 to around 27% of controllable operating expense spending in 2022.

Using a Skills-Based Hiring Approach as Part of a DEI Strategy - Steelcase Case Study

November 1, 2022

This case study is part of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Expanding Equity program, which helps workplaces become more racially equitable places of opportunity. The program supports and inspires companies to take action using four pillars: Attract, Belong, Promote and Influence. Each pillar offers unique opportunities for advancing racial equity, diversity and inclusion in companies. This case study lifts up actions from the Attract pillar, which focuses on attracting and hiring professionals of color into a company, in turn increasing representation at all levels of the organization. Steelcase took the following actions:Created a deep data analysis system for hiring practices and listened to employees to understand the current state and to identify opportunitiesResearched best practices for skills-based hiringCreated positions within HR specifically for people who specialize in developing new pipelines and sources for diverse talentRemoved barriers to entry, such as industry experience, whenever possibleRevamped job postings to eliminate biased languageShifted away from a "résumé and pedigree" focus to a skills and competency, evidence-based approachDeveloped a playbook on diverse hiring practices for hiring managers and recruitersTo sustain these efforts, the Steelcase global talent team redesigned its talent acquisition strategy and team structure, identified areas of focus for their recruiting practices, partnered across business units, and engaged current employees to involve them in the hiring process. These efforts resulted in a robust, standardized hiring process that uplifts evidence-based hiring while working to eliminate biases.

Prioritizing Racial Equity Within Social and Emotional Learning in Tacoma: One of Six Case Studies of Schools and Out-of-School-Time Program Partners

September 15, 2022

This case study is one of a series detailing how schools and out-of-school-time (OST) programs in six communities have collaborated to build students' social and emotional skills. The communities are participants in Wallace's Partnerships for Social and Emotional Learning Initiative, which has brought together school districts and their OST partners to develop and implement mutually reinforcing social and emotional learning (SEL) activities and instruction across learning settings.The piece features Lister Elementary School in Tacoma and its efforts to build a schoolwide commitment to SEL. It describes how, over time, Lister school leaders and staff members integrated a focus on racial equity and restorative practices into its SEL approach. The school used four key strategies as its work evolved, including gaining and maintaining staff buy-in to the effort, building racial equity and restorative practices into its SEL resources, designing and delivering a range of professional supports to build staff members' SEL and equity capacity, and reframing SEL and equity work as complementary to (rather than competing with) academic priorities.

How Higher Mortgage Interest Rates Can Widen Racial Gaps in Housing Wealth: The Case of Newark, New Jersey

August 30, 2022

Trends in macroeconomic conditions and policy have helped to boost longer-term interest rates, including mortgage rates, over the past year. This has important implications for the wealth gap between white and Black or Hispanic households. The standard narrative is that higher interest rates, especially when combined with higher house prices and lower incomes, reduce homebuying affordability for Black and Hispanic households relative to white households. And this, in turn, implies that these households of color will find that achieving homeownership has become more difficult, thereby widening the racial wealth gap. This report illustrates that under a higher mortgage rate regime, the pace of principal reduction is slower over most of the life of a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. Using data covering purchase loans on one-to-four family mortgages across the city of Newark, NJ, we also show that Black and Hispanic households buying in Newark obtain higher mortgage rates relative to their white peers and therefore pay more in interest for a slower principal reduction. In response, we suggest that more local policymakers assess the benefits of interest-rate buy-downs to improve affordability, close racial wealth gaps in housing, and better insulate historically marginalized communities from macroeconomic shocks.

Advancing DE&I Representation Goals through Formal Incentives: Oshkosh Corporation Case Study

August 1, 2022

This case study is part of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Expanding Equity program, which helps workplaces become more racially equitable places of opportunity. The program supports and inspires companies to take action using four pillars: Attract, Belong, Promote and Influence. Each pillar offers opportunities for advancing racial equity, diversity and inclusion in companies. This case study lifts up actions from the Attract pillar, which focuses on attracting and hiring professionals of color into a company, in turn increasing representation at all levels of the organization. Oshkosh took the following actions:Researched different data points and benchmarks and set one of their racial equity aspirations: to be an organization with the best talent that reflects broader market demographicsTook their research and collaborated with their Total Rewards and Finance teams to link DE&I representation goals to leader compensationEstablished their DE&I representation goals and milestones and tied them to a formal incentive planMobilized their employees to act by using multiple channels (e.g., key leadership meetings, internal DE&I newsletter) to build awareness of these changes

Mary Pauper: A Historical Exploration of Early Care and Education Compensation, Policy, and Solutions

April 4, 2022

The Early Educator Investment Collaborative is committed in our work to recognizing and understanding the historical context in which structural racism continues to present in the early childhood workforce and eliminating the systemic oppression that keeps many early childhood educators living in poverty. In 2021, Child Trends was selected to conduct a literature review and develop a policy and practice report to map the history of systemic racism in the U.S. and how it has influenced early childhood education (ECE) policy and practice, with a particular focus on educator pay and benefits, preparation, and workforce stability.This report articulates a landscape analysis and a set of recommendations for policy, practice, and future research to improve the professional status of early childhood educators. The intent of this work is to build a common understanding of the biggest equity issues impacting early childhood educators—historically and in the present day.

Advocating For Equity in California’s Housing Crisis

August 13, 2021

In California, a statewide network of racial and economic justice organizations are placing the housing needs of low-income communities of color at the center of efforts to advance housing justice.Read the profile to learn more about the experiences and impacts of this work from the perspectives of the community members, grassroots and community organizations, and funder partners involved.

Funders Together to End Homelessness: A Racial Equity Learning Journey

December 10, 2020

Funders Together to End Homelessness began its racial equity journey in 2016. Its case story explains how the PSO named racial equity in its strategic plan and embarked on a learning journey together with its board, staff, and members to normalize the conversation about structural and historic racism and how it contributes to disparities in the homelessness system. The story also describes how Funders Together created a two-year community of practice, called Foundations for Racial Equity (FRE), that has been a critical part of its journey, and how its codified its racial equity work through the creation of its Commitment to Racial Equity. 

Southeastern Council of Foundations: An Experiential Racial Equity Journey

December 10, 2020

In early 2018, the Southeastern Council of Foundations (SECF) along with its board undertook a racial equity learning journey in order to develop an Equity Framework that would describe and define SECF's character, what it stood for, and what its leaders were willing to fight for. The decision to develop the Equity Framework was the culmination of years of work. SECF's case story explains how the organization used data to inform the development of its Equity Framework, created an Equity Task Force to lead the effort of developing a Framework, and engaged board, staff and Task Force members in a racial equity learning journey. 

Toward the Future of Arts Philanthropy: The Disruptive Vision of Memphis Music Initiative

February 28, 2018

In Toward the Future of Arts Philanthropy, you'll find:- A review of the historic landscape and lack of equity in arts funding;- An overview of MMI's disruptive philanthropic approach rooted in equity; and- A discussion of opportunities and challenges in implementing a disruptive philanthropic approach.

Racial Equity: Getting to Results

July 1, 2017

The Government Alliance on Race and Equity announces a new tool, Racial Equity: Getting to Results, developed to assist jurisdictions use a racial equity lens to identify a set of metrics and implement a community process to have greater impact in their work. Racial Equity: Getting to Results connects a racial equity lens to the Results-Based Accountability (RBA) methodology to help empower jurisdictions to make good decisions and advance racial equity. An anti-racist, racial equity-focused RBA starts with the desired end results and works backwards towards the "how" to ensure that Racial Equity Action Plans move toward community results with stakeholder-driven implementation.The RBA framework shows a relationship between whole population level results and community indicators of those desired results to the actions that groups determine will be most effective at producing change in communities. The tool highlights root cause analysis to dig deeply into the sources of racially inequitable outcomes and walks practitioners through best practices of doing this with community stakeholder leadership and offers two short case studies. The tool also identifies critical ways that jurisdictions can disrupt historic, deficit oriented relationships to data.Tools are not the work, but they help us do work. Racial Equity: Getting to Results helps begin the process of using racial equity informed Results-Based Accountability to do more impactful work in your jurisdiction.

Moving Forward on Racial Justice Philanthropy

June 1, 2014

This is the fifth volume of the Critical Issues Forum series, which aims to deepen the discourse around important progressive racial justice issues within philanthropy. As PRE celebrated our 10th anniversary last year and engaged allies within the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors to mark the occasion with us, we heard "Have you seen any progress?" repeatedly and knew it was important to take stock of what many of us have been collectively aiming to move for decades. Through focus groups, webinars and direct interviews, our team has sought to get a strong sense of both funders' and activists' perspectives on progress particularly over the past two decades. We have heard real frustration, especially as the needs are so critical and the level of urgency among activists and communities is so high. However, in spite of these very real concerns, we have also seen clear commitment and depth of understanding in other quarters. We are pleased that through funder case studies and activist essays about structural racism analysis, intersectionality and media justice, we're able to share real progress, even as each piece recognizes there is still much more to be done.