Dear Colleagues,
We have been engaged in a lot of work at the Foundation since my last message related to our journey to advance racial equity, and this message will give you an update on our progress organizationally and programmatically.
As I have said before, I am on my own personal racial equity journey as well. In 2020, I began to acknowledge my own complicity in the systems that harm Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color. My self-reflection and desire to help undo systems of oppression led me to explore actions the Foundation could take.
With this in mind, here are some things we have done to make changes to our processes and improve our mindset for this work.
DEIJ Grants
We provided grants totaling nearly $500,000 to more than 60 organizations in the Chesapeake and Pacific regions to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice within their own organizations.
Community Engagement Program
We launched the Community Engagement Program in the Chesapeake region, with an initial commitment of $2.5 million of new funding dedicated to learning about and meeting community needs of all kinds. You can read more about the program and Kenneth Turner, our newest program director who will be creating the grants portfolio, in this recent announcement.
Internal Exploration of Racial Equity
We challenged ourselves as a staff to seek out and share with each other resources and media (articles, podcasts, books, movies, etc.) that explore race, equity and diversity, so we might expand our understanding and foster a dialogue about these topics together.
We engaged an expert trainer to facilitate staff workshops that helped us better understand principles of racial equity, unconscious bias, and the pervasiveness of white supremacy culture. We discussed concrete ways that the Foundation could include more diverse viewpoints within our culture.
Grantmaking Process
We took what we learned from trainings in participatory and trust-based grantmaking and implemented adaptive ways to gather information about grantee organizations and potential projects. Also, after a bumpy start to our effort to bring community youth into our grants-making process, we are building relationships with youth-serving groups on the Eastern Shore. More on this in a future message.
Demographic Data
After an internal assessment of the demographic data we had been collecting from grantees, we have two clear observations: 1) most of our grantees are not led by or serving Black, Indigenous or other people of color; and 2) the way we collect demographic data has significant limitations.
Using what we learned, we will be changing how we collect data to better understand and ensure our growth in supporting Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color.
Unsolicited Grants
We have always believed it’s our responsibility to create a space where any grantseeker can apply for funding, regardless of their relationship with the Foundation. To reduce barriers ever further, we continuously explore, identify, and implement changes to our unsolicited grants program. Such recent changes include increasing grant dollars out the door and the number of cycles for grants awarded, broadening our outreach to groups that may not be aware of the Foundation, and simplifying the proposal process. We are currently working on ways to improve transparency around grant decisions.
Accountability
Our racial equity journey is ongoing. There will inevitably be missteps, and I want us to be accountable for them when they happen. I promise that we will do a better job of communicating more regularly about our ongoing organizational and programmatic work. I hope that being more transparent, proactive, and consistent in our communication will create greater space for accountability and learning.
I look forward to sharing more details about the program-specific changes I mentioned in a future update. Please be in touch at any time with your reactions, thoughts and ideas. I have appreciated all of the input so far.
Samantha Campbell
President
View Previous June 2024 Message
View March 2018 Message
View 2017 Message
View 2015 Message