Incorporating Racial Equity and Inclusion into Communication Strategy

Marga Incorporated provides strategic advice and research to philanthropic initiatives and community partnerships. Marga’s Race and Equity in Philanthropy Group (REPG), created in 2006, brings together foundations that are committed to improving their ability to effectively promote racial equity and inclusion in their policies, systems, and practices. Through peer learning, member foundations are able to incorporate new ideas and practices into their institutional efforts, which can lead to transformative change.

REPG has always aimed to influence both its core foundation members as well as the wider philanthropic field. As a result, REPG has been partnering with various Philanthropy Serving Organizations (PSOs) to bring the peer learning exchange framework to clusters of their foundation members through a series of learning exchanges. Consequently, REPG has a growing network of affiliates from the Northeast, Midwest, and Southeast. Most recently, REPG has partnered with the United Philanthropy Forum to launch a pilot that will engage member foundations from four PSOs in a series of three learning exchanges. The initiative is intended to help participants bring new concepts back to their foundations in order to develop or refine their policies, systems, and operations related to racial equity and inclusion. Any foundation seeking to transform its policies and practices around racial equity and inclusion and influence sustained systemic change can benefit from participation in REPG.

REPG’s thirteen member foundations not only connect to learn from each other, but they are also committed to sharing their experiences and lessons learned more broadly with the philanthropic field. This brief, the second in a thematic series, explores the ways foundations are communicating their racial equity, and inclusion perspectives, policies, and practices both internally and externally. Communication is an essential part of advancing a commitment to racial equity and inclusion. Without internal communications to define values and create a shared language it is hard to share a consistent message externally with grantees and partners. And conversely, without externally communicating how a foundation is aligning its internal policies and practices with its values it is hard to lead a charge to advance racial equity externally.

REPG seeks to highlight concrete policies and practices that can be instructive to foundations as they navigate the application of ideas about racial equity and inclusion through practical programs, systems, and operations. The first brief in the series addressed how foundations are prioritizing a commitment to racial equity in their overall strategic priorities. This paper provides concrete examples of how REPG member foundations are strategically communicating their commitment to racial equity and inclusion both internally and externally.

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Source: Marga Inc.