Most foundation leaders say they are making racial equity a more explicit consideration in how they conduct their work. That’s one of the key findings from CEP’s recently released report, Foundations Respond to Crisis: Lasting Change?. As examples of how they say they are changing their practices, foundation leaders reported that they are increasingly prioritizing communities most affected by systemic inequities, changing how they identify applicants, providing more funding to organizations supporting Black and Latino communities, and listening more to grantees and communities.

Importantly, foundation leaders themselves were quick to acknowledge they still have a lot of work to do.

One area where foundation leaders have their work cut out for them is rigorously collecting and using demographic data about their boards, staffs, donors, applicants, and grantees.

Demographic data collection is crucial for understanding the impact of philanthropic resources and for assessing the extent to which philanthropic resources are advancing equity.

Yet, most foundation leaders in our recent study said that their foundation does not currently collect demographic data from grantees,  and, relatedly, just over half say that they do not have an approach for determining whether an organization is led by the people from the community it serves. Among those that do have an approach for determining whether an organization is led by people from the community, leaders report considering identity markers from the CEO and the board and, to a slightly lesser degree, senior staff.

This lack of data can translate into uncertainty on the part of foundation leaders about how — and to whom — their grant dollars are being allocated. In their funding practices, for example, a sizeable proportion of foundation leaders reported that they are unsure about the percentage of grant dollars going to organizations led by CEOs of various races and demographic characteristics. Check out the below chart for more detail.

Despite these clear opportunities for better funder practice, there is some room for cautious optimism. About 40 percent of interviewed foundation leaders said that, since the beginning of 2020, they have begun or are increasingly focused on demographic data collection, suggesting some momentum towards better demographic data collection practices.

Read the full article about demographic data by Katarina Malmgren & Naomi Orensten at the Center for Effective Philanthropy.