INCLUSION, DIVERSITY, AND EQUITY IN ENVIRONMENTAL PHILANTHROPY
Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity in Environmental Philanthropy (InDEEP) is a professional development series that engages a network of foundation staff, including senior leaders, committed to integrating racial equity and social justice throughout their environmental philanthropy. We support environmental grantmakers to cultivate opportunities to increase funding for organizations led by people of color, use a justice and equity lens in their grantmaking, and strengthen the capacities of grantee organizations and leaders across the field to create a more diverse and inclusive environmental movement.
OUR MOTIVATION
Dr. Dorceta Taylor’s 2014 report, “The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations,” made clear the need for the environmental sector to take bold action to diversify board and staff composition. Inspired by Dr. Taylor's findings, InDEEP’s founding organizations decided to address these disparities through a dedicated initiative.
CURRENT CLIMATE
Numerous organizations are working to integrate justice and equity in environmental and conservation work and to change the racial and ethnic diversity demographics of the sector. These include Building Equity and Alignment for Impact (BEA-I), D5 Coalition, Green 2.0, and the Green Leadership Trust. InDEEP complements these ongoing efforts in the field while cultivating a unique space for funder-to-funder engagement.
LOOKING AHEAD
InDEEP’s intended outcomes are to instigate a net increase in the amount of grant dollars and contracting opportunities to organizations led by people of color; support the field as it transitions to greater inclusion among long-standing grantees; and enlist informal and formal commitments from foundation staff to dedicate funds to be allocated to groups led by people of color.
Although people of color currently make up 38% of the US population and will reach 53% by 2050, people of color currently hold less than 16% of jobs in the sector and less than 12% of leadership roles among green groups.
- The State of Diversity in Environmental Organizations (Dr. Dorceta Taylor)
“They simply baited us in with the language of equity without making significant infrastructural, cultural, and procedural changes to prioritize and accommodate the [people of color or] the actual work of racial equity. As if anti-racist work were something you could just sprinkle on top.”
Ruth Tyson, former employee, the Union of Concerned Scientists, “Liberal, progressive — and racist? The Sierra Club faces its white-supremacist history”