Rockefeller Professional Advisors (RPA) produced three studies on diversity in philanthropy last year. Meghna Shah, a former Associate at RPA, co-authored the reports, Philanthropy in a Changing Society and Diversity and Inclusion: Lessons Learned from the Field. Meghna also served as Editor of Diversity in Action: Strategies with Impact. We were honored to have the opportunity to ask Meghna several questions about the findings.
Meghna Shah is currently a William J. Clinton Fellow of the American India Foundation. She will be spending the next ten months working on capacity-building projects for Saath, an NGO that creates market linkages for India's urban and rural poor.
1. What were some of your responsibilities as an Associate at RPA?
At RPA, I worked on a diversity portfolio that included a series of publications on diversity in philanthropy, made possible by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, as well as the Cultures of Giving Fund, a Special Project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors made possible by a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The Fund empowers emerging donor communities to lead, develop and grow philanthropic resources for community social change causes. We made grants to culturally-specific and multi-cultural social change funds to increase the impact and effectiveness of individual and collective giving in these communities. The fund invests in the capacity of community organizations to address community needs.
2. You recently worked on a three-part publication project at RPA on diversity. In Philanthropy in a Changing Society: Achieving Effectiveness through Diversity, the first publication, you looked at how diverse the top foundations were in the U.S. What are some of the results?
For Philanthropy in a Changing Society, our goal was evaluate progress and determine future needs. We compared diversity in the field to the general population in 2006, and then looked retrospectively at progress over twenty-five years. Using data from the Council on Foundation and the Foundation Center, we analyzed diversity in staffing, governance and grantmaking to communities of color.
In 2006, overall diversity in foundation staffing lagged behind population diversity. Notably, there was significantly less diversity on the leadership level than among program staff. For example, program officer diversity was 35% in 2006, while just 5.8% of CEOs were from minority groups. Interviews with grant-makers revealed that efforts at increasing diversity in the field have been aimed at recruiting diverse program staff. This makes sense, as program officers are responsible for linking foundation assets to communities. Still, diversity needs the support of leaders in the field.
Though there's been progress since the early 1980s, it has been inconsistent. Most of the gains in staff and board diversity took place in the late 1980s and early 1990s, while in recent years, diversity progress has leveled off and even declined. For example, CEO diversity increased by 156.3% between 1982 and 1994, but increased only 41.5% between 1994 and 2006. Recall, in 2006, diversity of CEOs stood at only 5.8%, so there is still a way to go. RPA asked senior professionals in the field why diversity progress had slowed. Some pointed to the fact that certain foundation CEOs of color had retired in the 1990s, leaving a vacuum in leadership on the issue. They also cited a shift in the political climate in the 1990s, when diversity and race-conscious programming came to be viewed as contradictory in a "color-blind" society.
Finally, Philanthropy in a Changing Society explores grantmaking to diverse communities. Ultimately, the case for diversifying foundation staff rests on the idea that diverse staffing increases the effectiveness of dollars spent in diverse communities.
An examination of the Foundation Center's grants of over $10,000 revealed that just 7.4% of grant dollars, or 10.2% of grants, explicitly targeted minority communities in 2006. But the nation is about 33.8% people of color, and there are distinct pockets of need in these communities. Over 25 years, RPA found a correlation between the growth in grants and dollars to minority communities and the growth in minority representation on staff. There is even a correlation between the leveling off in staff diversity progress and a leveling off in the growth of grantmaking to diverse communities. The field needs more research to determine a causal relationship.
3. Are there many Asian Americans in philanthropy? How do they compare with other groups and do you see any trends?
In 2006, 8.1% of program officers identified as Asian-American. This is almost double the representation of Asian Americans in the population, 4.5%.
Interestingly, we found that representation varied between minority groups. For example, African Americas and Asian Americans are over-represented in foundations, compared to the population. Latinos, who comprise 14.8% of the population were significantly under-represented, making up only 7.3% of foundation staff. Anecdotally, under-representation among Latinos may be due to lack of awareness of philanthropy as a viable career, or a more recent history of intentional recruitment efforts compared to African Americans.
4. Do you see any correlation between having Asian Americans on staff at a foundation and how much the foundation invests in their communities?
As I mentioned above, the RPA research team found a correlation in general between the growth of staff diversity and the growth in grants to minority communities. In our second report, Diversity & Inclusion: Lessons from the Field, we looked at the link between diversity and effectiveness in detail.
Utilizing studies from the corporate sector, RPA found that diversity has a measurable impact on outcomes. Diverse work groups are valuable for their cognitive diversity, their differences in experiences and training. Bringing different people together creates conflict. This conflict is the source of innovation. Thus, diversity contributes to effectiveness. When corporations [and foundations] are able to manage conflict, they can utilize diversity to benefit their markets. Diversity is a reality for Americans, so managing this creative conflict will become increasingly important as time goes on.
5. Since publishing the reports, what would you say were some outcomes or impact? Has anything changed?
We’ve heard from many people that the information presented was surprising or new to them. It's great that we are reaching different segments of the field. We’ve seen an increase in momentum after the release of the reports. Individual foundations, like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, are taking a look at their diversity practices and how to bring the benefits of diverse staff to their grantmaking. Leaders of some of the affinity groups have found the work we’ve done mapping the giving among communities of color and representation in foundation staff and leadership incredibly useful. Some have asked that this research be updated annually as a tool for the field. After the release of Philanthropy in a Changing Society, the Council on Foundations is including a few new charts and graphs in their annual reports on staffing and governance.
The intention behind this research was to inspire action. We’ve gotten the conversation started but we can’t end there. The numbers reveal the progress we’ve made, but they also reveal how much we still have to do. We are at a critical juncture in America, thirty years before we become a majority-minority country. We can take this opportunity to look at improving the effectiveness of our programs through diversity so we will be well-equipped to address the needs of a changing society.
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