The Hewlett Foundation is publicly releasing a new data platform that describes the racial, ethnic, and gender makeup of its U.S. grantees—a platform developed in partnership with the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP). In this interview, Kevin Bolduc, Vice President of Assessment and Advisory Services, and Della Menhaj, Associate Manager of Assessment and Advisory Services, describe the platform, as well as the data collection and design process with Hewlett’s Grantmaking Operations, Insight, and Learning team, to explain how tools like this can support learning to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Q: Tell us a little bit about how you approached this need and how it’s different from what others in the field have done.

A: From the outset of this work, Hewlett made clear to us that the foundation intended to use grantee demographic information for reflection, learning, and change—and that it was committed to this work for the long term. This values-centered approach freed CEP to think differently in two important ways. First, we could create a more robust process and tool because we could be confident that the resulting infrastructure would be useful over time—not only to Hewlett, but potentially to other funders as well. Second, we could focus on creating an interactive tool for exploration and learning, rather than simply the kind of static report that is the end result of many demographic data collection efforts.

Read the full article about grantee demographic data by Kristen Carriker at Hewlett Foundation.