According to the most recent data, 41% of the staff of the Hewlett Foundation’s average grantee organization identify as Black, Indigenous, or with another community of color – in line with the overall U.S. population (41%, according to 2019 U.S. Census). Those numbers drop somewhat in leadership ranks: 36% of board members in the typical grantee organization identify as people of color, compared with 29% of heads of organizations, and 33% of senior staff.

In terms of gender, 62% of staff in the typical organization identify as female, significantly greater than the overall U.S. population (51%); a third identify as male, while 1% identify as non-binary and 1% as transgender. The proportion of women is similar among senior staff (63%), but it drops to slightly greater than half when it comes to heads of organizations (53%), and slightly less than half among boards (47%).

Digging deeper into this top-level data, there is greater diversity among grantees surveyed in 2019 than those surveyed in 2018, but also a great deal of variation across different dimensions, such as grantee organizations of different sizes or in different program areas.

Among the key findings:

• Across the foundation’s grantee organizations, there was an increase in diversity of race and ethnicity between 2018 and 2019, including a 6-point increase in organizations led by people of color. However, there are important differences by budget: the larger the organization’s annual operating budget, the more likely its leadership is to be white and male.
• Across the foundation’s U.S. grantee pool, staff who identify as Black or African American are represented in roughly the same proportion as in the overall population (12% of the typical grantee’s staff, compared with 13% of the overall U.S. population), while staff who identify as Asian or Asian-American staff are somewhat over-represented (11%, compared with 6% in the overall U.S. population) and staff who identify as Hispanic, Latino or Latina are somewhat under-represented (11% again, compared with 18% in the overall population).
• While the typical grantee’s staff tilted female in every program, the likelihood of a woman leading a grantee organization varied widely depending on the program—from a low of 29% and 30% in our Cyber Initiative and U.S. Democracy Program, respectively, to a high of 69% and 76% in Global Development and Population and Serving Bay Area Communities Programs.

Each of the Hewlett Foundation’s program teams spent a great deal of time learning about and from these data to inform the foundation’s work going forward, including various actions it is undertaking in its efforts around diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Learn more about the concrete actions the foundation is taking, including:

• heeding the demands of equity as new grantmaking strategies are developed;
• commissioning data-driven research to guide practices in specific fields;
• expanding networks to connect with new potential grantees and building deeper relationships with grantees serving diverse communities;
• providing capacity-building DEI grants to individual organizations;
• evaluating and adjusting grant practices that can introduce bias;
• supporting field-specific efforts to strengthen leadership and DEI;
• considering the role of grantmaking intermediaries with respect to DEI; and
• shifting its own language and supporting grantee-led efforts to amplify the voices of people of color and women.