Learning how to bend grant application logics towards justice
Download learnings from co-design sessions
Nine months ago -- before the pandemic and before the murder of George Floyd and Chantel Moore sparked a racial reckoning -- our social design organization, InWithForward, entered into partnership with Vancouver Foundation to co-develop and test ways to deepen impact and strengthen equity within systems change grantmaking. An independent evaluation of the foundation’s Systems Change Grants found that, while the supply of and demand for systems change work increased, not all communities equally benefited. Organizations from rural communities and Indigenous communities seemed to fare worse in the process.
We wanted to understand why, and how grantmaking might
be different.
In the Spring of 2020, we observed systems change grantmaking practice: shadowing staff as they read and assessed applications, attending committee meetings where applications were discussed and decided, and interviewing board members, executive leadership and staff. By summer, we compiled our insights into a publicly released report, identifying six barriers and six opportunity areas for change. Some of the opportunity areas were big, like re-imagining community participation in decision-making, and some were small, like revising the written application itself.
With the fall Systems Change Grant cycle three months away, we chose to start with a modest piece of the puzzle, but timely opportunity area: the grant application. The idea was that the application might be a window into dominant logics and biases. By inquiring into what information staff, advisors and community members deem important for determining systemic impact, we might highlight disconnects and redesign the application from the perspectives of equity-denied and equity-seeking communities.
That was the premise under which, this summer, we hosted eleven virtual codesign sessions with community organizations, focusing especially on organizations on the sidelines of Vancouver Foundation: those who have never applied, and those who have unsuccessfully applied, particularly newer, smaller, rural, BIPOC and lived experience-led organizations. Sixty-four folks participated in those eleven codesign sessions. Read what we heard and learned in the report Tweaks and Twists: Learning how to bend the logic of a systems change grant application towards the arc of justice. An early learning was organizations’ need to see Vancouver Foundation modelling reflection, vulnerability, and mistake-making in the pursuit of equity. Vancouver Foundation agreed. This report is shared in that spirit. Read about:
the process and content of the codesign sessions
who engaged, their beliefs and aspirations, their perceived barriers and enablers
features of a desired grantmaking process as one attempt to make sense of what we heard from participants into
changes that have already been made as a result of the codesign sessions, and 8 dominant logics identified to debunk and flip
and how we are re-scoping the work going forward to take on the weighty questions
Every step of the way, we hope to make our insights, ideas and assumptions transparent and contestable. That’s what this website is for. Every step of the way, we will also invite former, current and future grantees into the process.
Reach out to us with questions and thoughts!
