Diversity, Inclusion and Equity Tools for Grantmakers

AT THE FORD FOUNDATION, we believe a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is critical to the success of any social justice organization. That’s why we are creating spaces and developing tools for the sector at large to understand and encourage best practices for related issues.

In working with our own program officers, we have learned that there is a great deal of uncertainty even when navigating challenging situations in principled and thoughtful ways. By capturing some of the lessons learned from our teams, we hope to offer guidance to organizations, funders and the philanthropic community as they face similar challenges and help them become more adept in establishing processes and policies for the future.

Bess Rothenberg
Senior Director, Strategy and Learning

These tools are part of a larger effort at Ford to build a diverse, equitable and inclusive organizational culture and will continue to be refined as we learn more as a foundation.

  • Funder’s Guide – The aim of this guide is to help funders build a system of grantmaking based on DEI values.
  • Facilitator’s Guide – This guide is designed to foster discussion and help funders become better equipped to address issues as they arise.
  • Case Studies – In this series, we look at four different challenges faced by our grantees and how our teams worked with them to address them.
You can access all the tools here.