Foundations can be infamous for all that they ask of grantees: giant proposals for puny grants, quarterly or even weekly reports, mountains of metrics—the list goes on.
But one environmental nonprofit’s campaign to get green funders to share data on an issue that many proclaim to care about—diversity—has largely been met with silence.
Over the past four years, Green 2.0 has asked 40 of the nation’s largest green funders—a historically white-dominated group with mostly male leadership—for demographic data about their boards and staff. And for four years, most did not participate. This year, in a bid to get more to open up and share demographic data about grantees for the first time, the group tried a new approach, albeit with some reservations: anonymity.
The results, published this week in Green 2.0’s annual report card on diversity among foundations and nonprofits, show that more funders did participate. But what’s most striking is that so many environmental grantmakers are remaining mum or not tracking their diversity data nearly 18 months since the murder of George Floyd sparked a flurry of promises and solemn proclamations from funders about the importance of racial justice and equity.
“Historically, foundations have been less willing to be transparent,” said Andres Jimenez, executive director of Green 2.0, in an email. “Since this was the first year we looked at this information, we had foundations share their funding practices without their names. We are looking forward to building more participation and full transparency into the process.”
One would think that tracking demographic data on their grantees and sharing it publicly would be among the smallest of first steps foundations could take toward the equitable future they say they support. But most respondents still do not. Of the 37 foundations Green 2.0 directly contacted, 20 foundations responded, nearly twice as many as last year. Yet nearly two-thirds of respondents—13 foundations—reported they do not yet collect demographic data on grantees.
Some are slowly changing their practices. Four of the foundations that do not currently collect diversity and demographic data said they plan to do so in the future. One noted it is discussing how to do so without being “burdensome or onerous.”
The Donors of Color Network runs a similar tracking effort, the Climate Funders Justice Pledge. Isabelle Leighton, the network’s acting executive director, said she frequently hears such worries. “I think it’s a little bit of legitimate concern” about overburdening grantees, she said. But when she talks to nonprofits, particularly her organization’s advisors, “they all feel ready to share their data.”
Leighton traces the slow response in part to the demographics of green funders. “When we first started reaching out to the top 40, we could count on our hand—one hand, not two—how many of the executives and staff were people of color,” she said. “There are always going to be blind spots when it is a white, male-dominated space.”
White-led groups get the most money
Green 2.0 shifted this year from measuring foundations’ internal diversity to measuring the diversity of the organizations they’re funding. But funders’ lack of transparency made that new mission awfully difficult.
Just four foundations shared data on how much of their funding flows to white-led organizations versus people-of-color-led organizations. The lack of participation makes the results on that front anecdotal. Yet they line up with past studies of the field, not to mention a lot of firsthand experience from people in the field.
Green 2.0, like other efforts, found that most funding goes to white-led organizations. Such groups receive 40% more annually than people-of-color-led groups on average, according to the report. White-led groups also received 97% more funding for general operating budgets than people-of-color-led organizations, which, according to the report, received just 0.8% of multi-year operational budget grants. And foundations reported issuing nearly twice as many multi-year grants to white-led organizations as organizations led by people of color.
A 2020 study by Echoing Green and Bridgespan Group focused on Black-led groups found a similar dynamic. On average, Black-led organizations have 24% less revenue and 76% less net assets than their white-led counterparts, based on a study of the pool of applicants for Echoing Green’s prestigious fellowship.
Nonprofits are participating and diversifying
Environmental nonprofits were a whole lot more forthcoming than their funders. Three-quarters of the nonprofits Green 2.0 solicited responded to their survey versus roughly half of the funders who were directly asked.
The act of measuring diversity may be helping to drive change. The responding groups are slowly starting to look more like the American population. People of color now represent roughly 30% of staff, more than 26% of senior staff, and more than 32% of board members on average among the organizations that have participated annually since 2017. Each is the highest percentage Green 2.0 has ever reported.
Among the five foundations that shared their grantee demographics, the report found similar rates. Some 34% of board members and 37% of senior staff at grantees were people of color, while 50% and 55% were white, respectively.
But there’s still a long way to go. On average, people of color account for about 30% of staff of all levels among nonprofit respondents. That’s up from around 20% when Green 2.0 started. Yet people of color represent around 40% of the U.S. population—and more than 50% of today’s youngest generation.
Even some of Green 2.0’s backers don’t participate
Green 2.0 has a long list of backers. They include some of the field’s biggest funders, like the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Walton Family Foundation and Kresge Foundation. There are also smaller but influential institutions like the Libra Foundation, Pisces Foundation and Nathan Cummings Foundation.
Still, only two foundations reported on both the demographics of their grantees and their funding practices for white-led versus people-of-color-led organizations. And only four in total shared data on the latter point. Apparently, even some of Green 2.0’s backers are reluctant either to track this data or participate in their own grantee’s survey.
To be clear, this state of affairs is hardly Green 2.0’s responsibility. And the funders who are supporting its work are contributing more to its advancement than all of those that do not. But the situation seems to reflect where green philanthropy is right now. A few are willing to fund diversity tracking. Still fewer participate. And that has consequences.
During the report’s launch webinar, Johanna Chao Kreilick, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said she uses the report card to hold her organization—and herself—accountable to a goal of reshaping the ranks of what was a “largely white” group.
She did the same when she was a member of the Open Society Foundations’ leadership team and managed its strategy unit. “Back then, I was able to hold up the transparency report card to help that foundation walk its talk around its ethnic and racial commitments,” she said.
With such limited participation, there’s less data to wield to make that case. And there’s still a big gap between funders’ words and reality.
“We’re starting to see the needle creeping in the right direction, but there’s still an enormous amount of work to do,” Kreilick said.