Case Studies
This section features in-depth case studies and short video case studies of leading philanthropic institutions in various areas of foundation grantmaking and governance. These case studies will concretely elevate evolving lessons and perspectives on diversity and effectiveness issues and opportunities within our sector.
Children, Youth & Families Grantmakers: A Case Study
In this web update, we feature an important new case study that we recently commissioned on children, youth and family grantmakers. Completed by former JEHT Foundation project manager Robin Templeton, this work underscores the key diversity promotion strategies and priorities of leading children, youth and family funders. It is essential reading for funders and field advocates whose concerns center around these central focal points of foundation programming and investment.
Diversity in Philanthropy Best Practices Study -- Health Foundations
This report, researched and written by Julie Tugend, former Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of The California Endowment, highlights the considered experiences and views of leading health grant makers across the U.S. concerning some of the key insights they have gleaned about what practices advance or impede diversity in areas ranging from governance and management to grant making and contracting.
Community Economic Development Philanthropy: A Case Study
This report was prepared during the fall/winter of 2008 by Massachusetts-based consultant Christine Robinson, President of Stillwaters Consultation and former Director of Poverty Programs for the Moriah Fund. This case study, the third in our ongoing series, highlights the diversity-enhancing strategies and insights of more than a dozen leading community economic development grantmaking experts from across the United States.
Social Catalysts: A Case Study of 15 Successful Diversity Focused Funds
This extended executive summary focuses on the important emerging work of diversity focused funds. The summary, prepared by John Vogelsang, senior associate at the Support Center for Nonprofit Management of New York and a researcher at Queens College, with support from fellow New York-based researchers Anne Gardon, Barbara Taveras and Rosalind Wilson, highlights lessons gleaned from 15 diversity funds active across the U.S. whose work has been particularly successful. The report underscores both the factors leading to their successes to date as well as their continuing development needs looking to the future.
Evaluation With A Diversity Lens: Exploring Its Functions And Utility To Inform Philanthropic Effectiveness
This latest case study in our ongoing series was principally prepared by Dr. Ricardo A. Millett, a senior consultant to DPP, former CEO of the Woods Fund of Chicago, and long-time Director of Evaluation at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation. He reveals practical insights that can help foundations realize greater effectiveness through increasing inclusivity investments. This study will prove particularly timely and instructive for funders embarking on the practice of evaluation with a diversity lens (EDL), a still evolving practice encouraged by the piece.
Arts & Culture: A Best Practice Case Study
This exploration of best practices, by Lydia D. Bell, draws on the studied observations of nine leading arts and culture funders to ascertain opportunities for encouraging increased diversity, inclusion and equity in society through grant making in the creative fields. Grantmakers in the Arts and its board chair Claire Peeps, executive director of the Los Angeles-based Durfee Foundation, greatly assisted the completion of this report.
How Are Foundations Communicating Their Work on Diversity? A Case Study
This informative case study, by Paul Bachleitner, focuses on communications best practices and related opportunities to expand diversity in philanthropy. The report considers the views of leaders of five prominent foundations in the United States and explores how foundations can start using new media sources and the potential benefit from partnerships with other organizations and community members. In addition to the generosity of the interviewees, the case study was greatly assisted by leaders of the Communications Network, including especially the Network’s director Bruce Trachtenberg and leading members of its board such as Rebecca Arno, vice president of communications at the Denver Foundation, and Vicki Rosenberg, vice president for education, communications and external relations at the Michigan Council of Foundations.
Video Case Studies
Jing Lyman, the founder of Women & Philanthropy, speaks eloquently on the loss of potential that the sector risks when it fails to embrace diversity.
Pacific Gas & Electric Company Vice President for Civic Partnerships Ophelia Basgal discusses differences between approaches to diversity in the corporate sector versus the philanthropic sector.
Philanthropy for Active Civic Engagement Executive Director, Christopher T. Gates, speaks of the imperative for mainstream organizations to take on diversity and inclusion now, to address society’s most intractable ills.
Embracing Diversity at the Baltimore Community Foundation
In this short video case study, Baltimore Community Foundation President & CEO, Tom Wilcox, discusses the “enlightened self-interest” that has led the Baltimore Community Foundation to embrace diversity.
Diversity and Inclusion at Kalamazoo Community Foundation
When the Michigan-based Kalamazoo Community Foundation decided to institute a diversity and inclusion policy on sexual orientation issues related to its grantmaking, it produced concerns among many members of its board and surrounding community. Jack Hopkins, Kalamazoo's CEO, talks about the process of addressing these concerns while maintaining the Foundation's commitment to diversity.