The Annie E. Casey Foundation for decades has worked to embed racial equity and inclusion in its operations and share its journey as a road map to other funders ready to embark on a similar path. Currently leading the charge is President and CEO Lisa Hamilton, who ascended to the helm in 2019 after serving … Continued
Generosity is as old as humanity. In the modern era, giving became professionalized, scientific, and focused on the underlying root causes of societal concerns, and with that, institutions came to control the largesse and create systems that restrict how money is disbursed. Activists and movement leaders have long fought for changes, but it has only … Continued
Grants management professionals are strategically positioned to influence a funder’s racial equity and racial justice funding. But in three decades of working in and with foundations, I have consistently seen a pattern where people serving in these roles are excluded from these conversations as a matter of institutional habit. As a result, there is a … Continued
I know what it feels like to be the “only” in a room. I’ve had a career in which I was, continuously, an “only”—female, Black, from Ohio—including, for a time, serving as the only Black person on PEAK’s board of directors. But by prioritizing diversity, our board has come to reflect the racial and ethnic … Continued
The PEAK community has made one priority clear: Equity must be at the heart of our work. We started 2021 on a journey to commemorate our 25th anniversary—a time to celebrate, reflect, and launch into PEAK’s next chapter. It was also a year where our work was deeply rooted in the Drive Equity Principle for … Continued
Allyship is more than empathy. Allyship means seeing and leveraging the privilege you possess to be an active stakeholder in the interests of those with less privilege and a committed partner in changing the systems that diminish them. It means being self-aware, courageous, and committed to championing others. Conceptually, this might seem overwhelmingly complicated, but … Continued
Welcome to PEAK Year 26 As we embark on our next chapter as an organization, we begin by extending our gratitude to the PEAK community for coming together in remarkable ways in 2021. Cheers for participating in our virtual gatherings, taking on volunteer roles, leaning into difficult conversations, seizing opportunities to champion equity, and finding … Continued
Increasingly, funders are professing commitments to equity and a desire to be more relevant and reflective of a changing world. For many, a commitment to these issues is implicit in the goals and nature of their programs and grantmaking. But assessments of the degree to which funders are in fact addressing disparities, reducing inequitable access … Continued
“We don’t have a diversity problem in this sector,” ABFE CEO Susan Taylor Batten told PEAK’s Satonya Fair in their CEO:CEO conversation last fall. “We have a retention problem.” For its 2014 study The Exit Interview, ABFE found that Black professionals were leaving philanthropy because of the inhospitable cultures at grantmaking organizations. Unfortunately, this is … Continued
There’s power in process, and grants professionals can handily leverage their positions and drive equity throughout all facets of the grantmaking process. But seeing where you can step up and step in to make change happen might not be readily apparent. To explore how grantmakers have re-envisioned themselves as change agents, PEAK Chief Operating Officer … Continued