A More Systematic Approach to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Back in June, as we worked on our strategic plan and the nation convulsed in response to the murder of George Floyd, we realized that we needed both to make a statement that Black Lives Matter and to try to build racial justice in our work in a more thoughtful and systematic way than we had in the past. We continue to feel that our overarching mission of improving the well-being of older adults is already one of justice, as older people regardless of race or ethnicity face ageism and ineffective and inadequate care.

However, we also recognize that the added barriers of poverty, language, and racial or ethnic discrimination can make the challenges of aging even harder for some groups of people.

I think a good analogy might be a foundation committed to improving education for all, feeling that public schools were not preparing children in general as well as possible, while also recognizing that these failures were particularly true for some racial and ethnic groups – e.g., black and Hispanic children. While you want to “raise all boats,” you also want to be sure that the distance between the boats narrows. There are even sound arguments for focusing on those left furthest behind first, before trying to make improvements for all – to redress a history of discrimination and ensure that disparities are reduced.

I take heart in the findings that improvements in health care that increase coordination of care and strengthen systematic processes tend not only to improve outcomes for all, but differentially benefit the more vulnerable.

An example of this result is our work on collaborative care for depression treatment. In usual care, getting good outcomes may require self-advocacy, resources, and “luck” that are particularly challenging for people of color. But when a stronger system of care is implemented, there are fewer ways for patients to fall between the cracks and less dependence on the patient or family to make up for the weaknesses of the system. In any event, we are committed to measuring our outcomes separately across racial and ethnic groups, looking for disparities, learning what works, and changing our approach as we go.

Our Progress So Far

We have made some beginning steps in our internal operations and grantmaking. These include:

• We conducted a basic demographic survey of staff and Board of Directors members and have reported those data on the GuideStar platform We don’t yet have useful benchmark data, but we continue to feel that we are doing well in building and maintaining a diverse board and staff, and given our commitment to transparency, we feel good about this basic step.
• Looking at our operations, we have complied a list of over 100 vendors to the foundation, including information on contract size, contract renewal date, and are beginning to identify vendor ownership, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, etc. Next steps will be continuing to identify relevant information about current vendors and to set a reasonable schedule of re-competition for services. While we value the long-term relationships we have with many, we want to be sure that we are giving new organizations that might not have had a level playing field in the past a fair shot.
• In our general grantmaking, we are excited to have funded several organizations particularly dedicated to serving historically disadvantaged older adults. These include LA Net Community Health Resource Network, for its project using Community Health Workers serving the African American community in Los Angeles, in our COVID Responsive Grantmaking program; and St. Barnabas Senior Services and Via Care Community Health Center, Inc., in our Capacity Building and Innovations program, who are focused on serving the Hispanic/Latinx population.
• We have also conducted the first stage of our Capacity Building and Innovations program focused on organizations serving diverse elders. We received 38 Letters of Intent, six of which were part of the prior, “general” round. Eight of those applicants were selected to advance to full proposal stage to compete for the anticipated single funding slot. In the review process, we confronted questions about the meaning of “serving diverse elders.” Many applicants served clients which included the racial and ethnic diversity of their geography, but otherwise did not necessarily focus on DEI concerns. We came to realize that the heart of the concept we are trying to define is not organizations led by people of color, nor even just serving persons of color, but organizations working explicitly to reduce disparities in outcomes for persons of color. We plan to use this new definition in future rounds and see how it informs our work.
• Finally, while no board/staff training resource seems entirely suited to our situation (a mission, aging, that intersects with, but is not the same as, racial, ethnic, sexual identity equity and inclusion), Candid’s training, Diversity and Inclusion: Walking the Talk, is a self-paced learning that all staff and board members will be taking to help us get the mental tools we need to keep grappling with the issues.

We would love to get feedback on our progress as we go. Suggestions and areas of improvement would be very helpful. You can make comments anonymously on the blog, write us, or in fall 2021 participate in our next Center for Effective Philanthropy grantee survey, which will include more questions on diversity, equity, and inclusion than ever before.