Giving Compass' Take:

• The Atlantic calls attention to the 2017 Renewal Awards, which recognizes grassroots nonprofits in the U.S. that are committed to confronting racial disparity. Winners include Con Mi Madre, an org that supports young Latinas in Austin and El Paso, Texas, and the Youth Empowerment Project in New Orleans, which operates 11 different programs, from educational initiatives to mentoring to job readiness.

• The grant money from the Renewal Awards ($20,000 to each of the five winners) is great, but it's worth considering how funders can support these projects and similar ones in the future. Fighting racial inequality will be a constant battle, requiring money, time, and patience.

• For those who want to dig deeper on this topic, The Hechinger Report had an thought-provoking piece on who really benefits from racial disparity research.

What does it take to widen the circle of opportunity in a rapidly diversifying America?

Few questions are more pressing for the country. The Census Bureau recently forecast that racial and ethnic minorities will become a majority of the nation’s under-18 population by 2020, most of the under-30 population by 2027, and a majority of the under-40 population just six years after that. These young people represent the nation’s future—its workers, consumers, taxpayers, and voters. Yet despite gains over the past generation, particularly in educational attainment, huge gaps still separate African American and Latino families from white (and, often, Asian American) families in terms of income, wealth, and college completion.

These local grassroots groups are trying to close the income, wealth, and education gaps between families of color and their white counterparts.

Each of the five winners of the 2017 Renewal Awards, which will be announced Tuesday at a forum in New Orleans, is trying to narrow those gaps. Now in their third year, the awards honor grassroots nonprofit organizations confronting the nation’s toughest challenges. The common insight connecting these groups was perhaps best expressed by Teresa Granillo, the executive director of Con Mi Madre, one of the winning organizations. “As a nation,” she told me, “we cannot move forward if these kids are left behind.”

Read more about closing the racial gap by Ronald Brownstein at The Atlantic