$8.5 million plan aims to promote racial diversity and inclusion

As Rhode Island’s 104-year-old community foundation, and largest funder of the state’s nonprofit organizations, one of the Foundation’s core values is to address the underlying causes of inequity and eliminate disparities. While the Foundation’s grant making, civic leadership, and fundraising efforts have been informed by that value for years, now is the time to focus on it more publicly and with clear commitment and conviction – particularly given the necessary spotlight on racial injustice, and the immediate need to more equitably distribute resources among communities ravaged by COVID-19 and the accompanying economic downturn.

With that, the Foundation is launching an $8.5 million plan, over the next three years, to both lead and strengthen efforts throughout and with the community that are focused on diversity, equity, access, and inclusion; with a first-focus on racial equity. The $8.5 million is on top of the Foundation’s traditional yearly grant making, and will serve to reinforce a longstanding commitment to equity in the organization’s funding and civic leadership efforts.

“The reality is that this work has been under-resourced in Rhode Island, and a community-wide focus on tackling these challenging issues has been lacking. That begins to change with this investment. There’s no doubt about it, to achieve a better future for all Rhode Islanders, we must provide opportunities to eliminate disparities and close achievement gaps,” said Neil D. Steinberg, President & CEO. “Addressing the underlying causes of inequity and working to eliminate disparities is one of our core organizational values, and has been an important part of our work for years. It’s a lens that we use to make decisions about how we allocate discretionary funding and civic leadership resources. Now is the time to commit to listening more, and doing more, and to hold ourselves accountable to this focus.”

The first step in this multi-year, multi-million dollar plan will be to launch the Rhode Island Foundation’s Equity Leadership Initiative, led by Angela Bannerman Ankoma who will serve as a Vice President and Executive Director, as well as a member of the Foundation’s leadership team. Ankoma will work across and within departments at the Foundation to maximize this effort’s impact, and will recruit and steward a community advisory board to assist in developing the Equity Leadership Initiative. One effort of the Equity Leadership Initiative will be to identify, cultivate, mentor, and seek access and opportunity for individuals who identify as Black, Hispanic or Latino, Indigenous, and Asian, from across sectors, to help build a pipeline of future leaders in established positions of influence throughout the state.

“I am pleased to join the Foundation’s team and lead this effort,” said Angela Bannerman Ankoma. “Community foundations were not built to be racial justice organizations; however they have power to address the structures and systems that perpetuate racism and inequity. I am excited to get to work to cultivate the next generation of industry leaders – bank presidents, hospital CEOs, and leaders in academia and K to 12 education, corporate executives, policy makers, judges, and more – who are people of color.”

“Here’s what we know – outcomes are not equal for Rhode Islanders of color, due in large part to racism,” said Dr. Pablo Rodriguez, Medical Director of Community Relations for Care New England. “What we need is cultural change, and community foundations – like the Rhode Island Foundation – can help to lead that by investing in organizations, people, and efforts that will bring about that cultural change. Today’s announcement of the Foundation’s Equity Leadership Initiative and the significant investment of resources is great progress.”

In its current decision-making about discretionary grants and civic leadership efforts the Foundation applies an equity lens. That means investing in local organizations and efforts that are working to ensure that individuals and communities have the resources, respect, and access they need to succeed. For quite some time that has come from the Foundation in the form of things like: grants to assist small predominately Black- and Latino-owned businesses; investments in nonprofit organizations that are led by, support, and serve Rhode Islanders of color; offering community-wide access to free racial equity trainings; encouraging nonprofit partners to diversify their boards of directors and staff teams; funding college scholarships for Black students; providing funding for culturally specific organizations as they work to preserve heritage and educate fellow Rhode Islanders about shared history; and making multi-year, multi-million dollar commitments to improving health, economic, and educational outcomes by focusing on system-wide reforms that stand to benefit those Rhode Islanders who have been left behind, including recently released long-term plans for health and education in Rhode Island. However, we need to do more.

“Eliminating disparities, and providing equitable access to resources and opportunities is a cornerstone of the Rhode Island Foundation,” said Polly Wall, the Foundation’s Board Chair. “And we are demonstrating our commitment to listen more and do more; it’s the right thing to do. While we’re fortunate to have funding resources available to support the community in addressing inequity, we know that we don’t have all the answers in terms of how best to do that. Community conversations will be challenging and also necessary to build greater trust. Listening, learning and responding to community need will be an integral part of allocating the funds we’ve committed in a way that will do the most good, for the most Rhode Islanders.”

To initiate such conversations the Foundation will launch an outreach and engagement effort to listen, and learn from members of Rhode Island’s diverse communities about potential ways to best allocate the resources announced today. This community outreach and engagement effort will launch in the coming weeks.

“Because we know how much place matters in tackling racial inequities and eliminating disparities, this $8.5 million commitment by the Rhode Island Foundation is exactly the type of investment we need right now in Rhode Island,” said Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, Director of the Rhode Island Department of Health. “We have created community-led initiatives like the Health Equity Zones to have an infrastructure ready for funds designed to truly meet needs from the community’s perspective, strengthening quality education, health, economic security, the environment, housing, basic human needs, and so much more.”

Steinberg added, “We are grateful to the thousands of donors, over the last century, who have made this effort possible, and to our Board of Directors and staff who are committed to doing this work as part of the evolution of our internal team, as well as focusing on it externally, with the community. And, we’re humbled by the call to build on, and complement the work our many grantee partners are already doing with an even more significant commitment. We hope other community and corporate leaders, as well as a wide range of donors will be inspired and join us to make the ‘better future’ a reality for all, going forward.”

The Rhode Island Foundation is the largest and most comprehensive funder of nonprofit organizations in Rhode Island. Working with generous and visionary donors, the Foundation raised $47 million and awarded $56 million in grants to organizations addressing the state’s most pressing issues and needs of diverse communities in 2019. Through leadership, fundraising and grant-making activities, often in partnership with individuals and organizations, the Foundation is helping Rhode Island reach its true potential. For more information, visit rifoundation.org.