Giving Compass' Take:

• Here is some guidance on how to implement equity at different stages of the grantmaking process, and some potential obstacles, along with solutions, that you may run into. 

• Why is it important for grantmaking to support equity? How can individual donors also promote equity in charitable giving? 

• Read more about equity in grantmaking.

If you want your organization to better support the organizations closest to communities in need, you’ll need to tackle the structural bias that keeps traditional philanthropy from giving smaller, grassroots, and emerging nonprofits and those led by people of color a chance to compete equitably with mainstream, white-led entities – a major component of Driving Equity in grantmaking.

Of course, this is no small feat: Because structural bias is often embedded in every step of the grantmaking process, combatting it requires work and commitment from everyone involved. For that reason, PEAK has developed two member-exclusive How-To Guides for rethinking the process from start to finish: How to Reduce Bias in Grantmaking Strategy, Community Outreach, and Applications, and How to Reduce Bias in Decision-Making and Grant Awards.

To give you a preview of the guidance contained in these resources, here’s a brief look at some of the obstacles involved and solutions suggested for each stage.

  • Strategy Development Because strategy development usually falls to individuals at the highest levels, and because those individuals are usually the least diverse in any organization, the work of identifying program, issue, or impact areas to fund often fails to include diverse voices or perspectives.
  • Community Outreach There is a vicious cycle that repeats throughout the grantmaking process: Organizations that already have the financial resources and relationships are the first to receive more funding, meaning that new, smaller, or less connected organizations don’t even make the invite list.
  • Applications and the Application Process Because the standard grant application process is lengthy, time-consuming, and onerous, it favors nonprofits that have been given grants consistently: those that already have the infrastructure in place to tackle it. Nonprofits without those resources are at a significant disadvantage.

Read the full article about equity within the grantmaking process by Marc Schultz at PEAK Grantmaking.