New Effort Aims to Foster Diversity

To the Editor:

The Chronicle’s recent special section on diversity (September 9) provided an important snapshot of efforts to build diverse nonprofits. There’s at least one more piece to the story, and it’s an especially promising one.

Over the last year, a coalition of foundations and philanthropy organizations have joined forces in creating an initiative to increase diversity, inclusion, and equity in philanthropy. The partnership is unprecedented–more than 17 organizations, with connections to thousands of foundations. It heralds rising recognition of the challenges you reported and a new will to do something about them.

We call the effort “D5,” as we’re aiming for big diversity changes in the next five years. By the end of the initiative, we envision these outcomes:

• New foundation CEO, executive-staff, and trustee appointments will more closely reflect U.S. demographic trends.
• Annual funding for diverse communities will increase.
• Foundations within our membership will take meaningful action to address diversity, equity, and inclusion issues in their organizations.
• Philanthropy will have the research capacity to be more transparent about progress on diversity, inclusion, and equity.

D5 is not the first such effort in philanthropy. We join other groups that have long worked to promote a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable sector. Yet even the most seasoned of D5’s leaders—and together we’ve logged well over 100 years in organized philanthropy—sense something different now.

We know philanthropy must speak with a more unified voice on diversity for these efforts to gain real traction. We see a critical mass of donors coming to the table. And we believe the time is right to take a hard look at diversity issues in our sector—and make some serious changes happen.

Stephen B. Heintz
President
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
New York

Robert K. Ross
Chief Executive Officer
The California Endowment
Los Angeles

Sterling K. Speirn
Chief Executive Officer
W.K. Kellogg Foundation