Equity and Justice in Philanthropy: Values in Action

About

This training will be held as a “pre-conference institute” as part of the Environmental Grantmakers Association’s 2019 Fall Retreat. While priority is given to EGA Retreat participants, the training is also open to non-participants, based on capacity.

Grantmakers today face incredibly complex decisions that test personal values, organizational alignment and community impact. How do we build “Community, Resiliency and Democracy” at a time when people are suffering great environmental harms, ecosystems are at a tipping point, and our communities are under attack? Today’s philanthropic leaders are confronted with questions about strategy and moral imperative while simultaneously navigating internal practices that often aren’t inclusive of diverse stakeholders or facilitated in ways that increase equity and justice. Yet they are actively thinking about – and practicing – ways to better align grantmaking practice with today’s needs and values.

This Institute will be an opportunity for grantmakers to be in a peer learning space together to explore core values in action in the day-to-day work of grantmaking, including internal Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) processes, and specific practices that support (or undermine) environmental, racial, social, economic, anti-ableism, and gender justice.

This Institute will offer curricula and tools from Justice Funders’ Harmony Initiative, our leadership program that equips grantmaking professionals with the community, skills, and practices to make philanthropy a true force for equity and social justice. Participants will engage in deep learning from and with each other, and orient toward tangible and practical shifts we can make to best respond to these times. We will feature case studies that deal with real organizational and grantmaking dilemmas.

During the Institute, participants will…

• Discuss the nuances of creating values-alignment in grantmaking;
• Identify both transitional and transformational pathways for themselves and their institutions; and
• Define clear action steps for pursuing equity and justice internally and externally.
• Participants will emerge from the day clearer about their own values and grantmaking practice, armed with concrete tools and skills to advance diversity, equity and justice in philanthropy.