The foundation began collecting demographic data from grantees in 2018 using a survey administered by Harder + Co. Community Research. This survey asked about the boards, staff, and senior leadership of grantees that were active as of November 2017. The survey was voluntary and received a response rate of nearly two-thirds of U.S. grantees. The report from the 2018 survey analysis from Harder is publicly available on the foundation’s website and program specific analysis was shared with each program team.
As of 2019, the foundation initiated a new process for collecting demographic data in order get a more comprehensive portrait of grantees. Grant dollars are not released to successful applicants until they complete a demographic survey, though the survey includes an option to decline to provide information. Grantees that receive multiple grants or whose grants are renewed need not repeat the survey or update their information more than once every three years. The survey is administered through the Grantmaking, Learning and Operations team and program staff do not have access to the results of any individual organization.
The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) supports the foundation in the ongoing processing and visualization of the survey data. Aggregate results will be reviewed by the president and program directors each year, along with other efforts to ensure a diverse and inclusive grantee pool, as part of the foundation’s annual strategy review process. The public release of this report, summarizing the data across the foundation and its programs, is part of the foundation’s commitment to openness, learning and transparency.
The survey asks grantees to report the demographic characteristics of their boards, heads of organizations, senior staff, and all other staff along categories of race/ethnicity and gender. While acknowledging the wider panoply of demographic traits are important, the foundation is keeping its early attempts at data collection modest to determine how to enlarge the effort.
In these initial efforts, the foundation excluded non-U.S. grantees on the understanding that other countries and cultures may have very different questions and concerns when it comes to DEI. The foundation also excluded university grantees due to the complex hierarchy of departments and programs of these organizations.
Additionally, respondents are asked to indicate whether they collected this information directly or indirectly from board and staff. The full survey instrument is included in the “Downloads” section of this online report.
Race/Ethnicity Demographics
The survey included the following nine race/ethnicity categories/response options:
Respondents were able to count a single board or staff member in any applicable race/ethnicity category.
For the purposes of this tool, “people of color” are defined as all individuals who were identified as belonging to a race/ethnicity category other than White or Unknown, or who declined to state their race/ethnicity.
Gender Demographics
The survey included the following six gender categories/response options:
Respondents were able to count a single board or staff member in any applicable gender category.
Defining Staff:
Organization Level Analysis
Throughout this tool, results are reported for an “Average Grantee Organization.” In order to control for vastly different organization staff sizes and to better understand and compare a “typical” grantee for various portfolios or the whole foundation, the average grantee data allows us to look at the average grantee organization in that group. This calculation averages percentages at the organization-level rather than at the level of individual staff. For instance, if only two organizations had responded to the survey for a portfolio and Organization A was 100% male with 400 staff members and Organization B was 100% female with 100 staff members, the Average Grantee Organization would be 50% male and 50% female rather than 80% male and 20% female.
Calculation of Percentages
The surveys administered in 2018 and 2019 allowed respondents to count a single staff or board member in multiple categories of race and gender to allow for flexibility for staff who identify with multiple races and/or genders. As a result, the total number of staff or board members reported across categories of race/ethnicity or gender may be different than the total number of staff or board members reported elsewhere in the survey.
Therefore, throughout this report, percentages of staff or board members by race/ethnicity categories or gender categories are calculated for each organization based on [the number of staff or board members in a given response category] divided by [the number of staff or board members totaled across all response categories].
Methodologies for denominator calculations are consistent across 2018 and 2019.
Assignment of Responses to Categories
The Hewlett Foundation provided CEP with information to match organizations to the programs and strategies from which they received grants. If a grantee received grants from multiple programs or strategies, they are included in each of the categories of which they are a part. For example, the results for an organization that receives grants from both Education and Performing Arts would be included in the results for both programs.
Comparative Data
Within "Descriptions of the Average Grantee Organization" demographic data is compared to the US population in 2018 as measured by census samples. Source: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045218
