CHANGE Philanthropy 2021 Unity Summit

The Unity Summit will host over 2,000 participants to expand their individual and institutional practice in order to advance equity with an intersectional lens, and with community at the center of our efforts. We seek to create space for all attendees to participate as thought leaders and philanthropic activists.

The 2021 Unity Summit will be held virtually for all participants.

Kindling Chat: Centering Participatory Approaches: Lessons Learned for Grantmaking and Evaluation

Kindling Chats are designed to create space for context building and issue exploration. This session will present a case study of the New York Women’s Foundation’s Fund for Girls and Young Women of Color. The Fund is a collaborative of 21 funders seeking to expand philanthropic investments in young women and transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) youth of color. The first of its kind with this specific focus, the Fund has worked to embed principles of equity and inclusion into its grantmaking work.

In 2019-2020, the Fund conducted a systemic evaluation of its impact. In keeping with the Fund’s value, the evaluation adopted a participatory process, including the creation of a grantee evaluation advisory group and a funder evaluation advisory group, both of which informed the evaluation questions and design. Data interpretation was opened to both funders and grantees through a making-meaning session, and the evaluators embedded both formal and informal elements of evaluation capacity-building into their work.

The session will highlight how to integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion towards liberation into philanthropic practice; amplify racially equitable philanthropic practices that address structural and institutional change; and magnify community priorities of our partners with an intersectional approach. Participants will learn how to embed participatory principles in their work.

This session will feature a conversation between the session panelists, Ijeoma Ezeofor of TCC Group and Kelsey Baker of the New York Women’s Foundation, during which they will discuss the goals of both the Fund and the evaluation and reflect on the lessons learned about participatory grantmaking and participatory evaluation. They will also share their recommendations for those hoping to conduct more participatory grantmaking and evaluation.

Panelists

• Kelsey Baker, Senior Program Officer, The New York Women’s Foundation
• Ijeoma Ezeofor, Consultant, Evaluation & Learning, TCC Group

Click here to read an Executive Summary summarizing the findings of our evaluation of the NYC Fund for Girls & Young Women of Color.