In recent years, CEP’s analysis of demographic data from its Grantee Perception Report and research datasets found that both Native American nonprofit leaders and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) nonprofit leaders were having less positive experiences with their funders (and that funders were more likely to provide little or no grant dollars to organizations primarily serving these communities). The Bridgespan Group and Echoing Green, among others, have also conducted this kind of analysis, revealing disparities in funding for leaders of color.

A separate CEP analysis of grantees’ gender identity data collected through the Grantee Perception Report found that while men and women respondents provided comparable ratings across various aspects of their engagement with funders (an encouraging finding!), those who identify as nonbinary, gender nonconforming, or who selected multiple gender identities provided lower ratings on a range of topics in our grantee perception surveys.

These analyses form a core belief for me: In order for funders to achieve their missions and make informed decisions, it is important to understand the self-reported demographics of their partners, including grantees, staff, and other stakeholders. Without such information it’s simply not possible to ensure consistently positive experiences or access to funding and other resources, to understand who has power — both internally and externally — and to reflect on demographic changes over time.

Acting on what’s learned also requires this data to be highly usable, as in CEP’s customized demographic data collection and visualization projects. Through these projects, we’ve worked with about a dozen funders to co-design approaches to collecting demographics in ways that reflect their unique context and goals. These projects build on sector-wide approaches, most prominently from Candid, to go deeper, analyzing and visualizing demographic data specific to a funder’s unique context and hypothesis.

For example, a funder may be interested in the demographics of individuals or teams leading research within a university to understand if they are supporting historically underrepresented researchers, especially important if the subjects of that research include those who are themselves underrepresented. Another use case might be for a funder to understand if those on grantee boards or senior leadership teams have lived experience related to those their funding ultimately seeks to serve. I’ve had the pleasure of leading many of these projects and seeing how this collection helps funders deepen their understanding as well as complementing existing DEI  commitments and efforts.

Equally importantly, we’ve worked with funders to analyze and display this data in a robust, interactive system to help deepen understanding and reflection, test hypotheses (i.e., differences in demographics of organizational leadership across program, budget, or grant type), and hone in on next steps.

Read the full article about demographic data collection by Emily Radwin at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.