Two ways to operationalize equity in philanthropy
by Lizzy Hazeltine
Racial disparities in philanthropic funding require diligent operational design, testing, redesign, and more assessment. There’s no shortage of places to begin, but when it comes to meaningful follow-through to address inequities, there’s a historical and troubling gap between journalism philanthropy’s commitments and actions.
Recent studies show how essential it is for funders to center racial justice in our work–and what happens when we don’t.
79% of BIPOC-founded news organizations that participated in Tracie Powell and Dr. Meredith Clark’s study stated that current funders are not meeting their primary needs for direct,substantial funding.
73% of funders who support journalism focused on communities of color have increased their funding in the last 5 years. But only half of news organizations primarily serving communities of color have seen increases in their philanthropic funding, according to a study by NORC at the University of Chicago, Media Impact Funders, and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism.
The racial funding gaps exist outside of journalism philanthropy, too. The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy report that only 5.4% of independent foundation giving went to Black communities in 2020.
In the last five years, we’ve been at work alongside other funders who are moving from commitments to actions. We’ve expanded our vision of who can do news and information work. We’ve retooled our measurements of impact and assessment. And we’re continuing to refine how we pursue systems change through news and information.
Operational design and iteration help the Fund more closely match our commitments to our actions. These two shifts to how we think about our vision and measure our impact have changed the outcomes of our grantmaking so others can build on what we’ve started.
#1: Start by expanding your vision of who informs communities.
There are many kinds of trusted messengers in a community, including newsrooms, libraries, churches, direct service organizations, and youth programs. Expanding our focus beyond North Carolina’s largely white-led news organizations, and talking about this vision in our RFPs, expanded who might see an opportunity for themselves in news funding.
At the Fund, we’ve widened our vision of information generators and distributors. As a result, we’re funding messengers who more fully reflect North Carolina and fulfill the essential roles of North Carolina’s news and info ecosystem, while continuing to support transformative leadership in North Carolina’s newsrooms. To ensure organizations can see themselves in our RFP language, we make it clear that we fund newsrooms and community organizations in the first paragraph of our RFP.
In making these changes, we learned to direct more of our focus toward place. When we assessed the geographic spread of our own investment after our first round of grants, we realized we weren’t adequately funding the eastern region of North Carolina. We now distribute more funding to the region, which is home to the counties with the largest proportions of people of color in North Carolina.
#2: Measure what really matters.
Good stewardship demands rigorous measurement, assessment, and evaluation. That rigor needs to be aligned with our ultimate change goals: ensuring useful, trustworthy news and information reaches everyone in NC.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are an incredibly helpful tool to help measure what matters. However, KPIs only work when they’re tied directly to grantmaking priorities. When misapplied, KPIs can be a burden that creates busy work for grant recipients or incentivizes activities that don’t lead to material changes for the organization or their stakeholders. That’s a colossal waste of precious time, and it’s especially costly for small, chronically underfunded organizations.
At the Fund, “measuring what really matters” means ensuring our grantmaking priorities are visible in the criteria and rubrics we’re using to assess performance and award grants. Geography and team diversity are essential at the Fund, so those dimensions are named in our selection tools. At every step of the process, we ensure we’re looking beyond an organization’s unique or novel features to understand how they’re putting their values into action and our mutual alignment.
We’ve also simplified our RFP criteria and communicate our priorities more directly. For example, we now state that we’re focused on equitable and transformative approaches to serving news and information needs, team diversity, marginalized communities, “little-d” democratic goals, and outcomes that will move more than one organization forward. These shifts in our communications approach revealed that there’s not a one-size-fits-all success metric for our grant partners. Many of our partners are particularly strong storytellers–a skill that shines when they’re able to verbally report their accomplishments, which often takes up less capacity than providing a traditional written report. That’s why we now offer quantitative and qualitative ways for grant partners to report their impact in verbal or written reports.
How these shifts have led to tangible results
Combined, these efforts increase funding to the longest disconnected places across the state.
75% of our grant partners are Black and Hispano/Latino led, largely due to our reworked selection process resulting in more funding for more teams led by people of color.
Nearly half of last year’s recipients operate or publish in language(s) other than English. Some work in several languages, ranging from Mam and K’iche, both indigenous to Guatemala, to Karen, spoken by the S’gaw Karen of Myanmar and Thailand.
A large portion of our grant partners are leading the shift to more diverse newsroom leadership in North Carolina, reflecting communities served in the diversity audit by the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media at the University of North Carolina. We’re backing the leaders changing who tells stories about, for, and with North Carolina.
Organizations we make grants to raise significant funding after we make our first grant. For some, we’re the first institutional philanthropy they receive. Additional, diversified philanthropic support matters for leaders of color who don’t receive as much funding as their white peers.
We’ve also seen organizations in our network raise funding together for shared work, often with the purpose of expanding distribution deeper into the communities who are often reported about, but seldom reported for.
Our ongoing commitment
This work is ongoing and requires a commitment to demonstrable progress. Here’s what the next level of operationalizing our commitment will look like at the Fund:
The Fund will strive toward an advisory structure and feedback mechanisms that are as reflective and expansive as our grant partner network.
We’ll simplify our application processes for existing grant partners as we head into an election year.
We’ll provide more on-ramps that make it easier for low-wealth people to flesh out solutions we need.
We’ll reinforce service of working class people, which is essential to supporting a multi-racial democracy.
Building a local news and information ecosystem that is reliable, equitable, and accessible requires funders to reshape journalism philanthropy alongside field leaders. We’ve learned that coalitions are at their best when they have clear foundations in community and operations that make the mission an everyday practice. These are only two examples of how we’ve brought the “who” into sharp focus for our coalition of funders and built a “how” for our grantmaking and network weaving. We’ll continue sharing our internal and field-facing work as it progresses, both in support of fellow funding organizations and to hold ourselves accountable to operationalizing equity in our ecosystem.
About this Series
This is one installment of an ongoing conversation about how building a more equitable local news and information ecosystem advances a future where everyone in NC can thrive. Sign up for our email newsletter to get updates like this delivered directly to your inbox.
Language Access
This post, and others in this series, was originally written in English, our director’s first language. As is our practice, the North Carolina Local News Lab Fund will continue to offer translations of our updates and public writing along with bilingual office hours, interpretation of info sessions and other events to make our thinking and our processes more accessible.