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Why Join LNE - Leadership for a New Era
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Overview



The first draft of the publication synthesis is being shared for collaborative development. Collaborative learning partners will add new ideas, resources and models; strengthen and correct characterizations of frameworks and research that they or others have offered; and critique or deepen assumptions about ways in which leadership work needs to be approached in order to be more inclusive and contribute to racial equity. This process will continue through mid December. We invite you to join with your comments. For more information about how to use the editing functions of this site please see the FAQs section. The synthesis addresses the following framing questions:

  1. What Change is Needed and What Difference Could it Make?
  2. What are the Implications for How we can Better Design Leadership Strategies to Achieve Racial Equity?
  3. What Changes in Our Evaluation Work Will Support Racial Equity Outcomes?

For more information about this publication please contact Deborah Meehan.

Resources

Instructions: To add links, please find the right content type category below and enter the name of the resource, the URL and a brief description. To upload files please select the "add attachment" option under "more tools". Please keep in mind that this website has the capacity to store up to 40 attachments so we encourage users to post files as links (vs. attachments) when possible. If the file is not currently online, please see the FAQ section for additional instructions. For more information check out the Leadership for a New Era user guide!

Books and Articles

Initiatives

The Roundtable began its work on structural racism in response to a call from leaders in fields such as community revitalization, social policy, anti-poverty, and philanthropy who were concerned about the racial disparities that they were observing in their work and frustrated by their inability to talk about race and racism, much less get a handle on it. It was commonly acknowledged among these leaders that although their work focused on low-income communities of color, they encountered very little discussion about race or racial issues or their effects on these communities and the children, youth, and families who resided in them. In order to directly address this need, the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change developed The Project on Structural Racism and Community Building.

The Expanding Nonprofit Inclusiveness Initiative (ENII) is a project of The Denver Foundation, led by a steering committee of community leaders from throughout the seven-county Metro Denver area. Through its grantmaking work and conversations with leaders in Denver's nonprofit sector, The Denver Foundation discovered a widespread
community interest in developing a deeper understanding of how inclusiveness of diverse voices and experiences enhances and expands the work of nonprofits. The Denver Foundation Board of Trustees established ENII as a vehicle to help the community benefit from an increased knowledge of and commitment to inclusiveness. The mission of ENII is to enhance the effectiveness of Metro Denver's nonprofit organizations by helping nonprofits become more inclusive of people of color. While the ENII steering committee and The Denver Foundation recognize that all forms of inclusiveness are essential, the focus of this initiative is on issues of race and ethnicity.

In 1990, a group of Boston-area funders established the Diversity Initiative. The program, today called the Diversity and Inclusion Initiative (DII),provides technical assistance and funding to nonprofit organizations in the Greater Boston area that are committed to creating greater racial, ethnic and cultural diversity within their staff and boards. In 2001, the program became part of Third Sector New England.

Since the first Diversity and Inclusion Initiative grants were given, the program has held collaborative learning as a core value. Fundamental to the work of diversity and inclusion is an acknowledgment that institutional racism exists within nonprofit organizations. Organizations can be transformed to be more reflective of the populations being served racially and ethnically. And they can develop a greater respect for and appreciation of cultural, gender, ability, class and orientation differences.
The Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE) began as a multiyear project intended to increase the amount and effectiveness of resources aimed at combating institutional and structural racism in communities through capacity building, education, and convening of grantmakers and grantseekers. It is now a project of the Tides Center.

The Diversity in Philanthropy Project is a three-year (2007-2009) voluntary effort by foundation trustees, senior staff and executives committed to increasing field-wide diversity. Their website features a number of case studies including one on Evaluation with a Diversity Lens (see below), and many other useful resources for those interested in expanding diversity, equity, and inclusion in board and staff, grantmaking and contracting.

  • Foundation Coalition
A group of leading California philanthropies, released its Strengthening Nonprofit Minority Leadership and Capacity of Minority-Led and Other Grassroots Community-Based Organizations report outlining their five-month planning process and the initial grantmaking activities comprising their collective pledge to increase diversity funding in that state by some $30 million during the coming 2-3 year period.

Research Projects

The Leadership Learning Community partnered with the Annie E. Casey Foundation in 2004 & 2005 on a research project to draw on the combined experience of more than 100 leadership programs with regard to strategies for increasing the access to and sustainability of leadership positions for people of color in the sector. The first phase of the project led by Deborah Meehan was titled "How to Increase Leadership Opportunities for People of Color." The second phase of the project was titled "Multiple Styles of Leadership: Increasing the Participation of People of Color in the Leadership of the Nonprofit Sector," and was led by Elissa Perry. Download the notes from one of the focus groups and reports from both phases of the work at the link above.

The Leadership Learning Community partnered with the Leadership Team at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Center for Ethical Leadership to conduct a scan to identify promising strategies for supporting and enhancing leadership that can make significant progress on undoing structural racism; and healing, repairing and reconciling communities. This document shares some of the core insights from the scan and highlights a number of national programs that are doing leading edge work in these areas.

The Applied Research Center (ARC) and the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE) developed the Racial Justice Grantmaking Assessment following ARC’s 2004 publication of Short Changed: Foundation Giving in Communities of Color. They piloted the assessment with the Barr Foundation and the Consumer Health Foundation. The results of their research are available in the report Catalytic Change: Lessons Learned from the Racial Justice Grantmaking Assessment. Their findings may be helpful to other funders and grantees to move from a focus on diversity to racial justice.


This Research Center for Leadership in Action report by Angie Chan and Linda Powell Pruitt with Will Allen, Joyce Johnson, Ricardo Martinez, Reggie Moore, Richard Moore, Ai-Jen Poo, and Cidra Sebastien highlights insights from leaders of color committed to social justice who together asked: How do we build, strengthen and sustain movement-building organizations led by people of color? Over the course of eight months, they generated four strategies for leaders of color to maintain the integrity of their work and remain accountable to communities, develop supportive relationships, deepen their understanding of race and educate others, sustain their organizations, and nurture new leaders.

Tools

A web site designed to support people and groups who are working for inclusion, racial equity and social justice. The site includes ideas, strategies and tips, as well as a clearinghouse of resources and links from many sources.

Created for Community Groups and Individuals:
  • Who want to know more about how to do evaluation.
  • Who are working on changing their communities.
  • Who want to be certain that their evaluations take into account issues of racism, power, privilege, and oppression
Foundations have made strides in the development of policy statements and procedures that incorporate diversity into both grant making and organizational practices. The scan by Social Policy Research and sponsored by The California Endowment yielded innovative examples that resulted in this Foundation Diversity Policies and Practices Toolkit. The Toolkit is organized into five categories pertinent to philanthropic leadership in diversity, race, equity and justice: (1) policy statement, (2) governance and workforce, (3) grantmaking, (4) contracting with vendors and consultants and (5) investments.

  • Evaluation With A Diversity Lens: Exploring Its Functions And Utility To Inform Philanthropic Effectiveness Ricardo Millett provides practical advice for funders who want to embark on the practice of evaluation with a diversity lens (EDL) EDL is an approach to program evaluation that emphasizes the importance of incorporating diverse voices (particularly those of intended program beneficiaries) to identify problems and to
    engage in program design, implementation, and data analysis. Click here to read more.



Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.