I’m the IT guy.

I am a proud, comic book reading, video game playing, algorithm parsing, pocket protector toting, jargon spewing, cave dwelling, social anxiety having, Star Trek T-shirt wearing*, sci-fi reading, neck beard sporting*, red-blooded American nerd to the bone.

I came to Meyer 12 years ago fresh from a decade of running big systems with lots of blinky lights. I spent a majority of that time working in broadband networking. I also did some independant and corporate consulting and software engineering.

Today, I have the distinct privilege to be the manager of Meyer’s Technology Operations department. I’m a total operations wonk. Wanna talk swimlane charts and process optimization? I’m your guy. What I am not is a program officer.

Other than my term of service here at Meyer, I have no prior background in social justice or the nonprofit world. Despite 12 years at a foundation, in some ways I’m still a bit of a philanthropy newb.

I am also an out, gay man, and I have tried to do my best to help represent the LGBTQ+ community in internal discussions at Meyer.

In March, I had the honor and privilege to attend the Funding Forward conference in New Orleans. This is an annual conference put on by the wonderful folks at Funders for LGBTQ Issues that brings together funders from across the country to share experiences and to learn from each other.

It was also one of the best conferences I’ve had the pleasure of attending in my career. So much so that I felt inspired to blog about it. Despite being a person who has made his career in technology and the Internet, I don’t blog. Ever.

Until now, that is.

 

Lesson One: Funders for LGBTQ Issues is doing amazing work

Funders for LGBTQ Issues, as their mission statement says, works “to increase the scale and impact of philanthropic resources aimed at enhancing the well-being of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer communities; promoting equity; and advancing racial, economic and gender justice.” It is a philanthropy-advancing organization that works with funders via research, convenings, training, support services and collective action to promote equity for LGBTQ+ people.

Funders also puts on one heck of a conference. It was extraordinarily well run and had an impressive panel of experts, both through professional and lived experience, on issues important to LGBTQ+ communities across the board. Their staff were wonderful and welcoming and I could gush about them for several more paragraphs, but I’ll spare you.

One part of Funders’ work that was a focus of this conference is the Out in the South initiative. Nonprofits working the LGBTQ+ space have funding issues across the nation, but in the southern U.S., this problem has been particularly dire. Out in the South is a 5-year initiative to bring these issues into focus and to attempt to improve the funding landscape.

Out in the South is important work, and I encourage you to visit the Funders for LGBTQ Issues website and read about this initiative and take a look at the reports. If you are a foundation and are not contributing data to Funders for LGBTQ Issues, I strongly encourage you to do so. If you are interested, you can submit your grantmaking data at research [at] lgbtfunders.org (research[at]lgbtfunders[dot]org) or contact Funders research and communications associate Andrew Wallace (andrew [at] lgbtfunders.org (andrew[at]lgbtfunders[dot]org)) if you have questions. I’m quite sure Funders will gladly crunch any numbers you send their way.

 

Lesson Two: Great work is happening in the South

Our philanthropic brothers and sisters in the South are working hard to make change happen. They repeatedly reminded us that “the South isn’t what you think it is.” Does the South have some issues in the equity department? You bet. Guess what, so does the rest of the country. They have a lot to teach us about working in difficult political and social climates and meeting people where they are.

Remember, bigotry is hardly a “southern issue.” According to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting database, the only arguably southern state that ranks higher than Oregon (at No. 14) for hate crimes committed per 100,000 population is Kentucky. Hate and bigotry are national issues, not regional ones.

I had the pleasure of meeting and learning from some really amazing people doing philanthropic work in the South. I was awed and humbled by their dedication and determination. They have a lot to teach the field about responding to the day-to-day issues we all work with, and they have developed (unfortunately) deep experience with responding to disasters. From Katrina to Harvey to the Pulse massacre, they have learned a lot of hard lessons and helped countless people on the road to recovery.

 

Lesson Three: LGBTQ+ issues are desperately underfunded

When I started at Meyer in 2006, I was the only out queer person on staff. I’m happy to report that is no longer the case, and I have wonderful LGBTQ+ colleagues at Meyer to help carry the rainbow flag around (Note: we don’t actually carry the flag around ... often).

I’m not going to beat around the bush here. Across nearly every social justice issue you can name, LGBTQ+ are statistically over-represented. Let me give you some examples:

• The incarceration rate per 100,000 adults in the U.S. as of 2016 is 612. For LGBTQ+ people that rate is 1,882.

• The U.S. Census does not (and will not in 2020) track poverty data for LGBTQ+ people, but the folks at the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ+ think tank at the UCLA School of Law, published this report in 2013 that indicates a significant disparity.

• According to a 2011 study by the National Center for Transgender Equality, transgendered and gender non-binary people are four times more likely than the general population to have a household income of less that $10,000 per year. They had twice the unemployment rate as the national average (four times for trans people of color). Nineteen percent reported direct housing discrimination due to their gender identity. Nineteen percent also reported experiencing homelessness at some point in their lives. Of those “the majority of those trying to access a homeless shelter were harassed by shelter staff or residents (55 percent), 29 percent were turned away altogether and 22 percent were sexually assaulted by residents or staff.”

• The Trevor Project’s website states that LGB youths are almost five times as likely to have attempted suicide compared with heterosexual youths. A 2015 study of transgender adults found that 40 percent of respondents had made a suicide attempt.

Unfortunately, I could quote figures like this all day long.

Let’s take a look at the philanthropic response to this. From Giving USA, I found that $58.46 billion in foundation grants were made in 2016. According to our friends at Funders for LGBTQ Issues, $172.8 million (which does not include the $29.5 million donated to the OneOrlando fund in response to the 2016 Pulse Nightclub Massacre), or 0.3 percent, were to fund LGBTQ+ issues.

Meyer did a bit better than that. In calendar 2016, Meyer made $25.3 million in grants, of which $952,000, or 3.75 percent, were for LGBTQ+ issues. In 2017, we did better still at $1.9 million, or 4.4 percent.

When we look at the national numbers compared with the demographics, the picture is a bit grim. The best data available estimate that approximately 4.1 percent of the U.S. population identifies as LGBTQ. For Oregon, this number is 4.9 percent, and it’s 8.8 percent for Portland. Unfortunately, the national grantmaking ratios don’t quite measure up to the demographics.

Please note that the “best data available” for the number of LGBTQ+ people in the United States is from Gallup polls. Although the folks at Gallup do a fine job, these statistics are not nearly as reliable as census data would be. Unfortunately we, that is to say the estimated 13 million LGBTQ+ people in the United States, have been erased from the 2020 census and the American Community Survey. Again, I’ll let you draw your own conclusions. Gary J. Gates, senior research fellow at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the UCLA School of Law, published a 2006 study (which is where the state and city figures above were found) based on the 2005 American Community Survey, which only counted same-sex couples, not LGBTQ+ people. Though his study is excellent, it is only an estimate based on incomplete data.

Since Meyer shifted to focus on dismantling inequities in Oregon six years ago, our foundation has worked to do better on LGBTQ+ support. A few years ago, after a training on transgender issues, Meyer added gender pronouns to our staff and trustee bios online and, last month, to our nametags. We have also made an effort to remove “othering” language from our applications and to expand our due diligence processes to include LGBTQ+ issue-related questions when evaluating groups working on shelter, domestic violence and youth-serving organizations, among others.

Meyer has partnered with funders specifically working with LGBTQ+ populations as an intentional strategy to reach and increase support for LGBTQ+ orgs with whom Meyer may not have had a relationship in the past. Our Equitable Education portfolio recently followed our Building Community team in adding LGBTQ+ people to their priority populations list — a step in the right direction that I applaud. Last year, Meyer for the first time sponsored staff to participate in the Portland PRIDE parade, paying the entry fee and for staff time. They're sponsoring participation again this year.

Our internal staff and trustee demographic survey follows best practices to reflect our sex, gender identity and sexual orientation, alongside questions about race, ethnicity and equity familiarity. Meyer can do better, and we’ll keep trying to learn. Equity is as much a journey as it is a destination.

I would like to call on all funders and nonprofits (ourselves included) to remember that the roughly four in 10 people in this country who are LGBTQ+ are represented across every portfolio and every constituency you serve. We’re not all neatly stuffed into a single silo. We are of every age, sex, education level, income level, marital status, occupation, religion and any other socioeconomic pigeonhole you wish to look in. Do your organization’s programs reflect that? Does your leadership and staff?

 

Lesson Four: You don’t have to be on the program side to have a voice

I’d like to wrap up this novel-length blog post with a call out to my philanthropic colleagues who work outside the program department. You have opinions that matter. You can have a voice in your organization’s mission-related activities. You can effect change in the people you hire, the vendors you engage, the products you buy. Polish up that ol’ equity lens and take a good look at your own department. You might be surprised at what opportunities you find.

You can even go to program-related conferences! If you’re queer, come to Funding Forward next year. They were very welcoming to me as one of the few operations folks who attended. I’ll be there, so find me and we’ll exchange the secret operations handshakes and talk process improvement or something!

Lastly, if you are a LGBTQ+ person working in philanthropy in the Portland area, we have an informal monthly lunch to meet and get to know our peers and discuss issues. If you are interested in joining us, please feel free to contact me via email, and I will gladly add you to our mailing list. Please note that we would like to keep these lunches a safe and welcoming space for those who may not be out. As much as we love, appreciate and honor our allies, it would not be appropriate for them to attend these events. I should also note that this is an informal group that is not directly affiliated with Meyer or any other foundation. It's just us folks.

— Aaron
 

*I don’t actually have a neck beard but I do own a Star Trek T-shirt.

 

Meyer remains a strong supporter of the arts in Oregon, so why are the arts not specifically called out as a goal this year?

Over the past two years, thanks to applicants' feedback and our analysis of the number of grants awarded in relation to the total number of applications received, we learned we needed to be more specific about what we believe will help create a flourishing and equitable Oregon. The information we are sharing through our Annual Funding Opportunity about the Building Community portfolio is our attempt to provide more clarity and specificity about how we are looking to partner with organizations.

In this year's Annual Funding Opportunity, you'll notice a shift in how we are communicating about the portfolio but not in our focus on equity. We will continue to invest in people, organizations and systemic approaches to create lasting, transformational change. Arts and cultural initiatives and the organizations that host them play a crucial role in that change and are an integral part of the larger ecosystem that will guide Oregon toward social, political and economic change.

Meyer values all cultures and all forms of art and recognizes philanthropy has disproportionately funded some over others. For this reason, and in an effort to increase access to funding opportunities for all, Meyer does not restrict the type of organizations that can apply for funding for arts and cultural initiatives. Instead, we hope that arts organizations identify with Meyer's vision and mission and see themselves at the intersection of social justice, arts and culture — that is to say, at the place where creativity, community, history, present struggles, beauty, healing and innovation come together to transform all of us and our relation to each other.

Arts and cultural initiatives can help us imagine and live into new realities. They can illustrate a multi-perspective recollection of history, help create or maintain a sense of belonging, preserve cultural practices, convey social justice messages in ways that provoke action, communicate a desired state and help document change. By expanding and shifting narratives, arts and cultural initiatives can influence and change our collective culture — the beliefs and behaviors that uphold our social structure. As the arts become reflective of the cultural realities of all Oregonians and continue to provide space for learning, healing and celebration, they can help build inclusive communities that are equipped to challenge deeply rooted social inequities and work toward a just society.

Given their potential, organizations seeking to implement arts and cultural initiatives are encouraged to apply under any one of the Building Community portfolio goals. As with all other applicants, we will be looking to partner with organizations that: (1) demonstrate commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion; (2) integrate constituent voice in their planning and (3) connect their work to broader change and anchor solutions in an understanding of why inequities exist. More information on these three baseline criteria can be found here and information on what doesn't fit is also available.

Here are some examples of arts and cultural initiatives that Meyer has funded in the past two years and how they would have fit under the redesigned Building Community goals and outcomes.

Goal 1: Community connection and belonging

Community Connection — Native Arts and Cultures Foundation will fund Oregon-based, artist-led projects on tribal reservations that magnify and address pressing social issues and engage Native and non-Native communities in learning about and addressing issues of contemporary relevance for all. Nationally funded projects of NACF have had significant impact on large systems, including conversations among municipal authorities for binational cooperation along the U.S./Mexico border.

Raised Voices — Oregon Black Pioneers Corporation developed Racing to Change, Oregon's Civil Rights Years, a traveling exhibit to increase understanding of the courage and struggle of black Oregonians during the civil rights movement and today. For Oregon Black Pioneers, community-based planning processes and engaging multi-generational advisory committees are common practices for the creation of projects' visions and goals.

Changed Conditions — With support from a selection committee representative of the area's diversity, Bag and Baggage Productions is commissioning three new adaptations of Shakespeare's "problem plays" by Oregon-based playwrights of color. This is Bag and Baggage's next step to address representation gaps on stage, backstage and in audiences. Some of their previous equity work includes efforts to address gender parity within the company and their programming.

Goal 2: Strong nonprofit leaders and organizations

Organizational Capacity — Phame Academy increased their capacity to implement PHAME Forward, a multi-year project to support adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) in achieving their fullest potential. Their approach also supports the arts community in becoming more inclusive of people with IDD in order to build more equitable economic outcomes and arts opportunities.

Operationalized Equity — As part of their efforts to develop responsive exhibits and programs, the High Desert Museum will institutionalize community-informed practices; its Diversity Committee will have leadership representation from all departments, board members and a volunteer representative; and they will put in place a policy outlining guidelines and expectations for continued growth in diversity, equity and inclusion for every department.

Goal 3: Civic engagement and systems change

Policy and Systems Change — Advance Gender Equity in the Arts plays an active advocacy role within the arts community to advance intersectional equity and women's safety. Their incentivizing approach encourages theatre companies to engage in equity work to institutionalize safety policies and equitable practices to address age and gender disparities in the arts. AGE seeks to create sector-wide impact.

Innovation — Graham Street Productions developed The Architecture of Internment: The Build Up to Wartime Incarceration, a traveling exhibit exploring how ordinary Oregonians pushed for internment of Japanese Americans. Using art as a tool and a collaborative grass-roots distribution model, Graham Street engaged communities across Oregon in conversations not only about the state's history of inequality but also about current issues and sentiments that can influence and have spurred damaging policies.

There are multiple arts and cultural initiatives that can help advance equity. We are excited to hear from organizations about the impact you think arts and cultures can have on building thriving and just communities in Oregon.

For more information on this year's Annual Funding Opportunities and to keep the conversation on the topic going, join me for a virtual information session for arts and cultural initiatives at 10 a.m. Friday, April 6.

— Nancy

Loading...

Graham Street Productions developed The Architecture of Internment: The Build Up to Wartime Incarceration, a traveling exhibit exploring how ordinary Oregonians pushed for internment of Japanese Americans. Visitors shared their reactions on this banner.

Building and preserving affordable housing is a key goal at Meyer, and for the past two years, the Housing Opportunities portfolio has invested about $2 million in affordable multifamily projects around the state. As part of that process, we ask all applicants: What is your goal on this project for minority-owned, women-owned or emerging small business participation? This has become increasingly important as housing organizations grow capacity and strategically align to meet local, city, state and regional goals around equity in contracting contributing to equitable outcomes for contractors and subcontractors.

Why is equity in contracting important to Meyer?

• Our mission is to contribute to an equitable and flourishing Oregon, and we see equity in contracting as an important prong in that mission.
• As a community we have not collectively been successful in establishing and meeting goals that lead to long-term impacts for the success of all contractors.
• Meyer and its nonprofit partners have struggled to identify and find resources that help organizations to connect with contractors and subcontractors in all parts of the state.
• Meyer recognizes there are barriers at the systems level that our nonprofit partners could address head-on as a part of operationalizing equity in their work.

What is Meyer looking for in question responses? We are looking to see:

• How the applicant views equity in contracting and what its connection is internally within organizational strategies and practices. Does the organization generally approach equity in contracting for its projects or just for the project in the grant proposal?
• How the organization and their business partners identify real strategies that impact aspects of bidding and working with contractors and subcontractors.
• Clear goals with outcomes that address a clear strategy.
  • What is your goal, what are the details, and what is driving it?
  • Does your goal relate to any other equity strategies in your organization?
  • What is the diversity of the overall workforce (i.e., all people involved in the project)? Are there training and workforce development opportunities for communities facing disparities in this project?

In this construction market, we understand that many developers have challenges to secure any contractors or subs, let alone those contractors that are less represented in the trades by gender, race or other factors. At the same time, we want to partner with organizations that are continuing to push themselves to develop the relationships, expertise and structures that move toward greater equity in contracting.

Because Meyer is a statewide funder, we also understand that the contractor base may look very different in Ontario and Albany. Although COBID (Certification Office for Business Inclusion and Diversity) or SDVBE (Service-Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise) and other certifications can increase capacity to compete for public projects, Meyer takes a more flexible view around equity certifications.

If you are planning to submit a capital grant request in the Annual Funding Opportunity and want to discuss equity in contracting issues, feel free to reach out to housing staff by emailing questions [at] mmt.org (questions[at]mmt[dot]org)

Need more information on MWESB, COBID and SDVBE Certification? Visit these resources:

• Business Oregon
• Metropolitan Contractor Improvement Project
• Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs
• Business Express - State of Oregon
• City of Portland Equity in contracting
• Metro Equity in Contracting 2016-17 Annual Report
   

— Jody

When thinking about how to advance equity, Meyer believes that the voices of people most impacted by a given program or service should be heard and understood. Responses to complex social, economic and political issues created and carried out without meaningful participation run the risk of being irrelevant, inappropriate or even counterproductive.

Although the idea of raising up community voices is not new, we have been learning that putting it into practice requires commitment and a willingness to experiment. Many of Meyer's grantees take this idea to heart and are intentional about learning from those they serve and then acting on this information. Some create formal mechanisms, like surveys, for regularly collecting feedback. Others try to create an organizational culture that places a high value on learning from those they serve and integrating this knowledge at all levels of the organization.

Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with two of our grantees, Verde and the Oregon Community Health Worker Association (ORCHWA), that are raising up community voices. Although they describe this work as an ongoing process, what they shared gave me an appreciation for the importance of raising up community voices and how this happens.

VERDE

Verde was created out of a desire to build environmental wealth through social enterprise, community engagement and advocacy. From its start in 2005, Verde was intentional about designing programs that were responsive to people of color and people living on low incomes. As Deputy Director Tony DeFalco described it, they did this to ensure that "programs were relevant and that benefits of environmental sustainability could be realized by those traditionally left out."

Verde's first paid employee was a community outreach worker, which highlighted the importance of investing in relationships and building trust. Before installing its first bioswale (a drainage system that handles stormwater naturally) in the neighborhood, DeFalco explained that "the outreach worker engaged the community in a dialogue about the environmental and economic benefits of bioswales, including potential jobs for community members." Through direct community engagement and in related ways (e.g., conducting surveys of community needs), Verde prioritizes regular and ongoing communication and relationship building.

Verde has also made long-term investments in the community, like the Living Cully project, which started eight years ago. A neighborhood representing the most diverse census tract in Oregon, Cully has long lacked basic infrastructure, facilities and services. A collaborative, Living Cully strives to create a thriving neighborhood where investments in areas like housing and employment are designed to benefit the people who call Cully home.

Another way Verde focuses on long-term benefits is an annual training program called "Lideres Verdes" (Green Leaders). Lideres Verdes aims to build the capacity of community members to become advocates and offers participants 100 hours of paid training, transportation and childcare. Of the 25 participants who have gone through the program during the past five years, 18 still live in the neighborhood and are involved in community activities, including serving on Verde's board.

With investments in projects like Living Cully and Lideres Verdes, community members increasingly take ownership of issues and know that their insights can create change. DeFalco notes that as a result, "The work can take us to places we didn't always anticipate. With the election of Donald Trump, for example, Verde pivoted and addressed the immigration and racial hatred issues facing our community directly." Although it needs to be responsive to community-identified priorities, Verde also has to figure out how these might connect back to its mission. As part of its commitment to raising up community voice, Verde has had to be adaptable and open to being influenced by those it serves.

The Oregon Community Health Worker Association

The Oregon Community Health Worker Association (ORCHWA) is a statewide professional association that seeks to support and advocate for community health workers in Oregon.

Community health workers are frontline public health workers who have the trust and deep understanding of the communities they serve. This trusting relationship enables community health workers to serve as a liaison between health/social services and the community to facilitate access to services and improve the quality and cultural competence of service delivery.

ORCHWA provides training and networking opportunities for community health workers, educates public health and health system professionals about the value they provide and addresses relevant policy issues.

The association has created a culture that values the "lived experience" of its members. Some of this has been done through the creation of policies and procedures. ORCHWA's bylaws, for example, specify that at least 80 percent of its board must be community health workers. As part of its hiring process, ORCHWA does not have formal education requirements (e.g., a bachelor's degree) and an emphasis is placed on candidates who have significant experience in community-based work. In addition and similar to Verde, ORCHWA tries to remove barriers to participation by providing food, transportation support or childcare for key meetings or events.

More than policies, the association is conscious of the ways in which community health workers feel power and ownership of the organization and the work. This consciousness is a constant. As Executive Director Alise Marie Sanchez explained, "How we talk about our work and how we make it relatable is ongoing. You can't be effective if you can't relate to those you serve."

This consciousness is not without challenges. Compared with traditional, dominant-culture organizations, Sanchez notes that process at ORCHWA might be perceived as requiring more time. As so many board and staff are shaped by the realities of doing this work on the ground, stepping back and taking in a broader, "30,000-foot view can also sometimes be hard," she said.

Another dimension to ORCHWA's work and often a challenge, is helping health systems and institutions see the value of community health workers. Sanchez pointed out that in an area like medicine, "People have been told for a long time what an 'expert' looks like and what experience they should have." ORCHWA has been working to expand the understanding of community health workers expertise and also to expand their influence in the system. A collaborative project called "Warriors of Wellness" (WOW) moves in this direction by creating a model for health-systems providers to contract with community-based community health workers services to improve health in communities of color and decrease health disparities. Service providers in the WOW Collaborative will receive funding for a full-time community health worker supervision and associated program costs. Working with the community health workers, the providers will be better able to bridge the gap between these key communities and their services.

In both Verde and ORCHWA, community voice is a value that has been integrated into a combination of specific policies and programs and in other ways that influence the culture of the organization. On one side, this relates to helping community members be powerful self advocates who feel recognized for their skills and experiences. On the other side, this involves helping dominant-culture systems and institutions shift toward hearing from the community and ensuring that they have a meaningful role in the decisions that impact them. As Meyer begins this new year of funding focused on, among other things, creating equitable outcomes for traditionally marginalized communities, we look forward to learning how other groups place a value on community voice. Let us know what this looks like in your work!

— Dahnesh

From increasing personal awareness to transformation to changes in the way we do business, there are myriad ways to work on diversity, equity and inclusion in our organizations. Often, there is a lot of "undoing" that needs to occur to address and change policies and strategies that have not resulted in equitable outcomes. We recognize that facing and digging into this work can be overwhelming — a kind of "where to start?" situation.

Believe it or not, there's a tool that can help.

The Diversity, Equity and Inclusion DEI Spectrum Tool

Meyer created the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Spectrum Tool to help organizations assess where they are on their DEI journey and to identify potential areas for future work. It is also intended to provide shared language to help Meyer staff and nonprofits talk together about what DEI currently looks like in an applicant's organization and opportunities for growth. The tool describes organizational characteristics at different points along a DEI continuum for 12 different dimensions of DEI work:

1. DEI Vision — The organization can envision a DEI future and uses this vision to guide its DEI work.
2. Commitment — An organization has institutionalized its commitment to DEI.
3. Leadership — Organizational leaders recognize the importance of DEI and prioritize, resource and lead the effort.
4. Policies — The organization has DEI policies and an organizational plan with clear goals, objectives and indicators of progress and success.
5. Infrastructure — The organization has committed resources and structures (i.e., an equity committee) to support the DEI transformation.
6. Training — An organization fosters ongoing DEI learning and growth for its staff, management and board.
7. Diversity — The organization has policies and strategies for strengthening and maintaining diversity; staff and board are representative of the community they serve; effective retention strategies are implemented.
8. Data — The organization routinely collects and analyzes disaggregated data for all programmatic and operational work and uses the information in planning and decision-making.
9. Community — Mutually beneficial, accountable and equitable partnerships exist with diverse organizations and leaders from communities experiencing disparities.
10. Decisions — An organization's decisions are systematically guided by equity considerations.
11. Accountability — An organization has developed mechanisms to create and maintain accountability to its constituents.
12. Inclusion — The organization values and reflects the voice, contributions and interests of its diverse staff and constituencies and has created systems, policies and practices to maintain this organizational culture.

What went into creating the tool?

To develop the tool, Meyer convened a small committee of staff members who reviewed numerous assessments, some quite elaborate and others fairly simple.

"Our goal was to create a multi-dimensional tool that reflects the complex ways that diversity, equity and inclusion are expressed in organizations," said Kris Smock, a consultant who worked with us on the tool.

For the points on the spectrum (e.g., "Not Yet Started" or "Well on the Way") we worked to minimize a sense of value judgment, which can be implicit when doing assessments. Our goal is to talk with, not judge, organizations about where they are in the spectrum as a baseline for growth and to recognize where their current strengths and opportunities lie.

Why did Meyer create it?

Meyer's own journey toward diversity, equity and inclusion required us to understand and assess the areas where improvements were and continue to be needed. We ask all our grantees to do the same: to explore equity within the context of their organizations and make progress on integrating equity in their work, partnerships, outreach, policies, staff and boards.

Additionally, because of Meyer's own commitment to DEI, Meyer applicants are more competitive when they can demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion in their applications.

How does Meyer use the tool in the grant review process?

Diversity, equity and inclusion is complex, and every organization's DEI journey is unique. During the due diligence process, Meyer staff use the tool to explore with organizations where the organization is on its DEI journey, focusing on five points along the DEI continuum: "Not Yet Started," "Ready to Start," "Launched," "Well on the Way" and "Exemplary/ Leading." Although many organizations' DEI progress won't fit neatly into just one stage, the DEI Spectrum Tool provides guideposts for considering where an organization is in relation to each "stage."

Does Meyer fund organizations across the entire DEI continuum?

The short answer is "yes." However, it is our experience that organizations actively engaged in DEI are often better aligned with Meyer's vision of a flourishing and equitable Oregon. Simply put, organizations that have "Not Yet Started" their DEI journey are unlikely to receive funding.

Across all four Meyer portfolios, the majority of funded organizations would generally fall into the "Ready to Start" or "Launched," offering a clear sense of where organizations sit along the DEI spectrum and where there's opportunity to advance DEI in the future.

How can organizations use the tool?

Although there's no one right approach, we suggest that organizations ask themselves where they think they are on the spectrum in each of the 12 areas listed in the tool. You might ask each individual board and staff member to do this exercise on their own and then host conversations at a follow-up staff and board meeting to share your thoughts. You might also want to gather input from your members or constituents to get their take.

Don't be surprised when you discover that individuals on your team have different perspectives on where you land in certain areas or when your constituents point to something that you had not yet considered. Don't shy away from this complexity. Instead, dig in and use it as an opportunity to deepen your collective understanding of DEI and how it relates to your organization's mission and how you operate.

As part of using the tool to generate organizational conversations about where you think your organization lands along the DEI spectrum in different areas, you may also use it to help prioritize efforts to move forward. Finally, you could revisit the tool regularly, maybe once a year, to help your organization track its DEI progress over time.

Where to start?

As we've learned from Meyer's own equity journey, it's difficult to tackle all of the 12 areas listed in the tool at once and with the same intensity. One suggestion is to consider what areas you are already having some success in and build upon them by going deeper in those areas. Another suggestion is to look at where you see gaps. If you notice a big gap in one area, for example staff diversity, and you have made some attempts to address this, you may need to set some learning goals to figure out how other organizations have been successful and why your approach has not yet worked. Set short- and long-term benchmarks and track them along with your other organizational goals.

How can we expect our progress to play out over time?

Again, there's no one answer to this question, but if your experience is anything like Meyer's, you'll find that progress is slower at first and speeds up over time, with many opportunities for learning along the way. At the same time, as your organization's equity analysis deepens, you will discover entire blind spots that you didn't recognize at the beginning of your journey. When you make these discoveries, you may suddenly realize that you are not as far along as you thought in a particular area, and you may place your organization back a step on the spectrum. Don't despair when this happens, instead realize that the path to equity is not one way.

Big organizational changes — staff or leadership changes or a funding challenge — have the potential to disrupt or slow progress, however, the more mission-critical DEI becomes to your work, the less likely it will be that big organizational changes will derail your progress.

— Jill, Carol and Matt

Members of Meyer’s Housing Opportunities team recently sat down with Portland filmmaker Cornelius Swart, who has directed and narrated two documentaries about the drastic housing changes Portland has undergone over the past two decades. Swart’s latest film, Priced Out, offers context for the cycle of blight, gentrification and revitalization that has especially hit African American neighborhoods in North and Northeast Portland.

Their conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

---

Lauren Waudé:

What would you want someone who’s new to Portland, moving into North and Northeast Portland neighborhoods, to know about housing here?

 

Cornelius Swart:

I think knowing the history is probably the most important thing. I think if people had a sense of the history, had a sense of the pain, the root shock, the feeling of invisibility that many residents feel, I believe that they would interact with people differently.

What we most consistently hear from folks who have lived in the neighborhood for a long time, is that as these communities changed, that sense of community has evaporated. It’s been replaced by maybe a big city mentality, in which no one interacts with anybody, or just outright hostility to their presence in the neighborhood. There’s a feeling of being invisible, and that feeling of invisibility can be hurtful.

 

Lauren Waudé:

That was one of most heartbreaking elements in that film, hearing Abriana Williams talk about how kids don’t want to play with her son, and how people don’t look at her. That was really a powerful moment to see.

 

Theresa Deibele:

It really was for me, too.

 

Lauren Waudé:

In the beginning of the film you introduce yourself as a gentrifier. Why? Is there power behind acknowledging that space?

 

Cornelius Swart:

Yeah, I think it’s just important to talk real, have real honest, just call a duck a duck, and not be afraid of what that means or how it could implicate you. I think ultimately, what kind of gentrifier I am will be up for the audience to determine at the end of the film.

I’m not a house flipper. I’m not a developer. I’m not an investor. But those distinctions are not clear to the audience at the beginning of the film.

 

Theresa Deibele:

So in your research and your interviews, how have you seen people navigate those distinctions? Where can people buy and feel like they aren’t gentrifying and displacing or is that impossible to do?

 

Cornelius Swart:

Right. Yeah, I mean, I would say that when we talk to people in Albina, black folks especially, we’ve never talked to anybody who said, “People shouldn’t buy houses.” Nor did we ever talk to anybody who said, “People shouldn’t sell their house.”

I think where it comes to is how the individual treats other people once they’re there. How they engage with community organizations, institutions, businesses and other residents. Are you coming into the neighborhood to be a part of the neighborhood, or are you here for some other purpose? Investing, flipping.

Are you here and talking with your neighbors even though they may look, act, or seem different than you? Where are your expectations at? People need to…I mean, do you have suburban expectations, like, “Don’t park in front of my house!” “Turn your music down after seven o’clock at night!” “Your lawn should look like my lawn!” I think that’s really where people are having a problem.

It’s really not about the presence of white people on my block. I haven’t heard that one, as much as, “These particular people are treating me this way.” That’s where the problem comes in. It’s being motivated by the market, but the pain that people talk to us about is really, “You came in and now you’re treating me like this.”

 

Lauren Waudé:

Meyer supports organizations that have implemented housing preference policy that you mentioned in the film. That’s a preference for people who have roots in North and Northeast Portland to return there. How important do you think it is to invest in community as well as housing itself? Can you have one without the other?

 

Cornelius Swart:

So what I’ve heard about the housing preference is, it’s been mixed. Optimism and cynicism alike.

I’ve heard people say, “Well, they haven’t put enough money into it,” or, “It hasn’t really impacted anybody.” There are other people who, like Steven Green, who’s quoted in the film, say, “It’s not about where people live, it’s about how they’re doing wherever they live.” So there’s certainly people who have said goodbye to the neighborhoods, so to speak. Not Steven, but I’ve talked to other people who are like, “It’s never going to be the same.” That’s either a bad thing, or it’s fine.

I do think it’s important to invest in affordable subsidized housing so people have a choice, whether collectively, folks choose to come back, or want to, whatever, it’s up to them. Housing choice is what it’s all about, and that’s about making the mixed income communities a priority. But housing choice is language that was used a lot while doing the first film, NorthEast Passage, and now it’s kind of disappeared from city discourse, during the second filming over the last ten, fifteen years. We just don’t hear it anymore.

 

Theresa Deibele:

So it feels pretty clear that Nikki Williams in the movie, the film, feels differently about gentrification between NorthEast Passage and Priced Out. How did you find audiences react differently in that period?

 

Cornelius Swart:

When the first film came out in 2002, everyone knew Albina was a black community, it was not a surprise. Everyone always gets behind Nikki, right? They can always relate. The first film is about trying to improve a neighborhood that is dangerous and not healthy for anyone. Nikki is fighting for that.

I think the early reactions I’m seeing to Priced Out have been from people who didn’t know anything about the history, didn’t make the connection between the history of displacement in the neighborhood, and their presence in the neighborhood today.

So I think people are more upset, they’re feeling more moved by the history, as opposed to, the first time people were like, “Oh yeah Nikki, she’s just really nails it. She’s just really strong, and I appreciate her struggle.” Now people who are watching the film see themselves in the story. And they’re having, different reactions, you know: guilt, upset, frustration, anger. Now, it’s like, “It’s not over there anymore, it’s implicating me and I don’t know what to do.”

So the biggest thing is people always say, “What can I do?” The first time, with NorthEast Passage, that wasn’t an issue, it was more like, “Oh, yeah. I hope the changes keep happening.”

Theresa Deibele:

Many documentarians, my sense is, they choose subjects outside of their own time, or place, or experience, and yet in this story, North/Northeast gentrification also affected you as a person living in the neighborhood, albeit in different ways than your African American neighbors. So what changes do you experience reporting and documenting the issue and being a part of the community at the same time?

Cornelius Swart:

It has made me more aware. I don’t know if I had forgotten, but I’m more aware of my interactions with folks now. I go out of my way to greet people and just talk with people a little bit more, just shoot the breeze with folks. I’m excited about running into a stranger now.

I do feel a greater sense of joy, interacting with my neighbors, when I’m like, “Let’s just try to put a smile on someone’s face today.” So that’s been a nice part.

Lauren Waudé:

So speaking of neighborhoods, I was really surprised at what a strong role that neighborhood associations had played in the past with like stopping development. So what role do you see them having as we’re moving forward, or what do you think they could do as we look at development in the future?

 

Cornelius Swart:

I think neighborhood associations are a great tool, especially when they’re engaged on community organizing, and community building levels. At the land use level, and the reason why they exist is really for land use, like local home rule, or home influence, on land use stuff. That’s a more complicated thing and I think that’s where reform helps, and I know the city is struggling with that.

I would love to see neighborhood associations having, not a grading system, but you could look at an association and say, “Okay, this is the membership in a neighborhood that’s seventy percent renters, and a hundred percent of the board are homeowners.”

I always thought that when a neighborhood association goes to the city council and says, “This is what we want, this is what the community wants,” the council should be able to say, “Okay, but you’re all homeowners, representing a majority renter community. So I understand where your point of view is coming from, I appreciate it and I’m going to take it into consideration.” Rather than, at times, like in the 90’s, the government would jump up and say : “Oh, the community has spoken.”

As a reporter, when I ran a community newspaper, to reporters, I would always say, “Don’t just go off of what the neighborhood association says. Go to the schools, go to the churches, and canvas those communities, too.” Because often the churches and the schools have a broader representation of who’s actually in the neighborhood.

Lauren Waudé:

At what point do you think development becomes displacement? I mean, it might not become a point, but what could developers do to preserve the communities that they build in?
 

Cornelius Swart:

It depends on the developer, and the scale of development.

You obviously have the inclusionary zoning, a statute now that, according to Joe Cartwright, has killed off all permits for a certain class of buildings entirely. But I think the impulse is correct. Let developers do what they do in the marketplace, but have a systematized carve-out for folks who are not their customers so that the market can function in some way, and some social benefit can be transferred from market activity towards people who are not included in that activity.

In housing, new housing always goes to the wealthiest person it can go to. That’s just the way the market functions. I think you see a lot of conversation about, “Why can’t developers build for working class people? What’s wrong?” Traditionally, new housing was subsidized after WWII, through freeways, 30-year mortgages. It was made possible by industrial suburban tract house building techniques. And of course, it was exclusively for white folks.

The market does not produce housing for working class people unless the market is subsidized, or regulations favor it. So you do need to create a market incentive, in order to reach someone other than whoever’s going to create the biggest profit margin. But I am very hopeful on things like Land Trust. I don’t think there’s enough being done on Land Trust. I’m glad to see there’s conversation around affordable, subsidized, commercial homes.

Just getting rid of Measure 50 alone might adjust the marketplace organically. I don’t know why the libertarians and the progressives can’t get together and be like, “We both don’t like this policy.”

One group doesn’t like it because it distorts the marketplace, the other doesn’t like it because it creates all these social and equity problems. Why can’t they just agree to reset, the way opponents came together against the Columbia River crossing? The transit people didn’t like it because it was too much freeway, and the freeway people didn’t like it because there was too much transit. So they were able to join in their hate.

I don’t see why you couldn’t do the same thing with Measure 50.

 

Lauren Waudé:

One of the most moving moments was seeing all the names on the screen of people who had been displaced. Where did that come from? What’s the source material for those names?

 

Cornelius Swart:

Oh those came from the city department, the housing bureau. They had all the names.

 

Lauren Waudé:

Why was that important?

 

Cornelius Swart:

So that was a dramatic moment that I envisioned off of seeing another film which was called, The Fog of War, in which they show the names of the equivalent cities that would have been destroyed if the American firebombing campaign in Japan had been done on the United States rather than Japan. There’s like fifteen seconds where it goes, “Cleveland, Cincinnati, Saint Louis, New York, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Santa Fe, Albuquerque” — it’s just a frightening, horrifying — you’re like, “Oh, I get it now. The scale.”

I wanted to create that kind of a sense of seeing the scale, rather than just talking about the scale. I was like, “How do you make that connection? Visually.”

 

Theresa Deibele:

For me, it wasn’t just scale, it was people, and the families behind it.

 

Cornelius Swart:

Exactly.

 

Lauren Waudé:

Are there other screening opportunities in the works in Portland at the moment?

 

Cornelius Swart:

At this point, now that we’ve premiered, our part is to recoup cost, because production is expensive, even though everyone’s pretty much a volunteer, or volunteering. So we’re trying to get a theatrical screening, because we don’t receive any of the ticket sales from the festival showings. It’s being shown around the country, in Grand Rapids, Mich., Tulsa, Okla., Pittsburgh, Penn.

 

And in January and February, there are free community level screenings with Q&As planned in North Portland, Southeast Portland and Beaverton.

 

Lauren Waudé:

Thank you, Cornelius.
 

Get your tickets to local screenings of Priced Out, here. And stream Swart’s first film, NorthEast Passage, here.

Audiences packed the McMenamins’ Kennedy School theater in Northeast Portland on Dec. 12 and took part in a heated Q&A after the screening. "We had a great discussion," Swart said. "I start the film saying, ‘I’m a gentrifier.’ Even though this is a film a

Abraham Franco frequently finds himself walking under the shade of forests that exist today because of his handiwork decades ago.

A veteran worker in Oregon’s reforestation industry, the 60-year-old Salem resident has planted millions of trees in Oregon’s woods and wetlands.

“I remember the units I worked on more than 20 years ago,” he says. “The forest, I remember when it was a twig.”

As a crewmember for his nephew’s company, R. Franco Restoration, Franco spends many of his workdays along the Willamette River and its tributaries, planting trees and shrubs on the streambanks in an effort to restore the basin’s natural ecosystem and improve the river’s health.

Dozens of people do this work, but Franco’s deep experience gives him an outsized reputation among his colleagues. They refer to him as an elder statesman of the industry, praising both his work ethic and his conservation ethos.

Franco demurs. He insists he’s just doing his job.

Franco got his start in the Cascade timberlands, replanting stands of Douglas fir after logging companies harvested the lumber. When his nephew, Rosario Franco, grew old enough to work, Abraham became his mentor.

Years later, Rosario would open one of the Willamette Basin’s most prominent restoration companies, and Abraham would become one of his first employees.

“I taught him how to plant in the mountains,” Abraham says, “and he showed me how to plant down here.”

After spending the first part of his career planting trees that would eventually be felled for lumber, Franco savors the permanence of restoration planting. Nearly 30 years in the business have given him firsthand knowledge of why his work matters. These trees, he knows, will remain in place for generations to clean the water, shade it from the sun’s heat and provide habitat for fish and wildlife.

The work is rewarding but difficult. Wielding a shovel all day, sometimes in soil dense with clay or mottled with rocks, can wear on muscles and joints. Prime planting season also happens to align with the Northwest’s cold, rainy, windy winters.  

Franco shrugs at those challenges. On a recent rainy day, he outpaced men in their twenties as the crew planted rows of willow on an Aumsville farm.

“You get used to whatever weather comes,” he said. “You’ve gotta go and do the job.”

As he worked, Franco reflected on what this place used to be. Where invasive blackberries and ivy used to thrive, the streambanks now host a nascent native woodland that will only grow healthier with time.

“I don’t know if I’ll be around when this one becomes a forest,” Franco said as he dug into his satchel for another sapling, “but that idea motivates me every day.”

— Kelly

After nearly 30 years in the restoration business, 60-year-old Abraham Franco frequently finds himself walking under the shade of thick forests he planted as twigs.

This year, Meyer’s Equitable Education portfolio commissioned a literature review highlighting 11 dimensions of educational equity. Each of the 11 “chapters” serves as a resource for deepening educators’ and community-based organizations’ grounding in what research tells us about educational equity. Chapter 2, entitled “Teachers of Color in Classrooms and the Impact on Students of Color,” highlights the lack of racial diversity within Oregon’s K-12 teacher workforce — and why it matters.

Attached here is a virtual copy of the second chapter, which draws correlations between that lack of racial diversity and Oregon’s achievement gap for students of color, and suggests that increasing the number of teachers of color in classrooms across the state is imperative to reducing the achievement gap.

Meyer supports this work: 2017 grantee Portland State University’s Graduate School of Education Leadership for Equity and Diversity (LEAD) program plans to recruit, prepare and support educators of color through relationships with community-based organizations. This chapter also suggests providing teachers with cultural competency training based on behaviors of teachers of color, ensuring a heightened awareness of their own biases, could elevate academic achievement for students of color. Another education portfolio grantee, KairosPDX, a culturally based education nonprofit founded and directed by three women of color, will soon be training teachers across the state in equity, inclusion and trauma-informed practices to eliminate the achievement gap for our most vulnerable students.

The issue has long been identified as an area for increased support.

In a report released in 2004, “Assessment of Diversity in America’s Teaching Force: A Call to Action,” the National Collaborative on Diversity in the Teaching Force stated: “Additional research is needed, but time is passing quickly and action is vital. We cannot continue to wait as more children of color fail to reach their potential and as fewer teachers of color join and remain in the education community.” Thirteen years later, the call reverberates as academic achievement gaps widen for students of color as compared with their white peers.

As a teacher of color working in a school with a predominantly non-white student population, I often heard exasperated white teachers refer to ”these kids” when referencing students of color. That statement always made me simultaneously cringe and ache, feeling inherently connected to the students given my own background. It expressed, seemingly without the speaker’s knowledge, that they felt the minority kids they were teaching were different from them — other, less civilized than the “good” kids. The statement “these kids” was often followed by “don’t have any respect,” “behave like animals” or “just aren’t getting it.” I would think to myself, “These teachers have B.A. and master’s degrees, right? They are ‘highly qualified’... right?” But having those credentials in no way guarantees that a white teacher will have the cultural competency skills needed to effectively reach students of color, skills often inherent for teachers of color.

When No Child Left Behind was instituted in 2001, it demanded that all children be educated by a “highly qualified” teacher, but it defined this without a racial or cultural competency lens. Although the intention of eliminating achievement disparities was good, policy-makers didn’t take into account the needs of students, especially students of color. A growing body of evidence makes clear that students of color or underrepresented students do better when they see themselves in those leading their educational experience.

Almost 90 percent of Oregon’s K-12 public education teachers are white, while almost 40 percent are students of color. Consequently, this means in Oregon students of color often go their whole school experience without seeing someone educating them that matches their racial background. Tyler White, a high school student in Portland, recently wrote a guest column describing his experience as a black student with mostly white teachers and the struggles he’s encountered because of this disconnect. Tyler White is not the only student of color feeling the effects of nonreflective teachers. National Public Radio’s article “If Your Teacher Looks Like You, You May Do Better In School” spotlights recent research echoing White’s experiences.

Meyer’s Equitable Education portfolio knows growing and retaining the pool of teachers of color in Oregon is essential to addressing inequitable outcomes experienced by our most vulnerable students — vulnerable to systemic racism, to teacher biases, to unjust disciplinary actions, to inequitable access to advanced educational experiences (e.g. TAG and Advance Placement courses) and surveillance. We aim to promote the success of all Oregon’s students by bringing awareness to issues affecting equitable access to educational attainment and advancement to college and career with the goal of realizing a flourishing and equitable Oregon.

— Bekah

Teacher Andreina Velasco instructs young students at Earl Boyles Elementary School's Early Works program, an initiative launched by the Children's Institute in partnership with Meyer and other funders.

In late 2016, Meyer’s Equitable Education portfolio commissioned a literature review highlighting 11 dimensions of educational equity. The purpose was to provide up-to-date information on issues that emerged as important in the statewide equitable education survey conducted by Meyer in early 2016. Each of the 11 “chapters” is a resource to deepen educators’ and community-based organizations’ grounding in the research-based insights on educational equity. Although there is variation across the chapters based on the resources available in the field, each chapter is a response to the field as a whole and has unique sections. We believe this is an important resource for advocates, educators and potential and current Meyer grantees. Meyer’s Equitable Education portfolio aims to promote the success of all Oregon’s students; we hope this series is a resource for the task.

Attached here is a virtual copy of the third chapter, which highlights the importance of ethnic studies implementation and offers a “deep dive” into the academic and “gray” literature, emphasizing how it engages students of color and increases their academic success as evidenced by research.

This topic is of particular importance in Oregon as Gov. Kate Brown recently signed House Bill 2845, which directs the Oregon Department of Education to convene advisory groups to develop ethnic-studies standards into existing statewide social-studies curriculum. A similar bill, Senate Bill 13, which will develop curriculum for Oregon K-12 schools on tribal history and sovereignty, written from the Native American perspective, was also signed by Brown. Through a grant from Meyer, Western States Center coordinated a coalition of tribal and education advocates to inform Oregonians on the importance and benefits of such a curriculum. On both accounts, this bipartisan legislation fills a much-needed, and often overlooked, gap in Oregon’s public education system.

— Matt

Eurocentric curricula can lead students of color to disengage from academic learning, contributing to academic achievement gaps between African American, American Indian/Alaska Native and Latino students and their white and Asian American peers

The research is compelling: Social media is a powerful tool for nonprofits.

Last year, M+R partnered with NTEN (a local nonprofit based in Portland and former Meyer grantee) on the 11th Benchmarks Study of nonprofit digital advocacy, fundraising, social and advertising. The study followed the social media trends of 133 U.S. nonprofits and found that social media platforms have taken center stage in the work of nonprofits and are now essential to reaching vast audiences. Additionally, the study reported:  

• For every dollar nonprofits raised online, they spent 4 cents on digital ads

• Online revenue for nonprofits grew by 14 percent over 2015 totals, with monthly giving growing at a rate of 23 percent;

• The average email donation was $87 for one-time donors and $23 for monthly sustainers; and

• Between 2015 and 2016, numbers of nonprofits’ fans grew by 23 percent on Facebook, 50 percent on Twitter, and their followers doubled on Instagram.

The overall trend was hopeful: Nonprofits use social media to reach more people more often and in more places, resulting in increased donations.

As Meyer’s social media specialist — and as someone who is constantly looking for new ways to amplify our grantees’ impact online — I see first-hand the importance social media can play in advancing the work of nonprofits. So I created a half-day training program to provide our grantees practical tips for developing strategic messaging on social media.

I wanted our grantees to have social media tools to help with organizing, time management and communicating advocacy. Those  strategies are helping our partners to increase their presence and engage their audiences across social media channels such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

To better understand how Meyer could support our grantees as a funder, I surveyed current and former grantees to understand how they use social media, how they manage it and ultimately how Meyer can support grantees to build organizational capacity around social media and digital communications.

The responses were enlightening.

About 90 percent of the responders felt most comfortable using Facebook, the most important social media platform for engaging with supporters and building a credible online presence with or without a website. Two-thirds of those said they wanted to improve their mastery of the platform.

About half of the social media survey respondents wanted to use Twitter — the character-limited social media tool favored by pop stars and the president — more effectively, and about the same percent — 47 percent — needed training to increase their engagement on Instagram, the social media tool designed for images.

The survey identified that our grantees wanted support and training on social media best practices, effective time management, tracking metrics and how to advocate effectively on social media. Additionally, our grantees described their most significant challenges on social media as inconsistency in messaging, too little time and uncertainty about which social media platform to use.

One respondent said, “with less than 2.0 FTW, how do we decide which of the many social media options we utilize? I can barely post to FB once a month.” Another asked for insights in “helping management understand that social media can be a powerful tool for building advocacy.”

And a third wrote, “Training is the most important to us at this stage. Social media is new to us and we want to continue this but don't know enough about FB and how it works. We have two staff that post to our orgs account but they also have full-time jobs so this is not ideal. Our agency is small and this is challenging for us.”

The feedback helped us to tailor training specific to the needs of our grantees and launch a pilot series of social media classes in August 2017.

The four-hour sessions included training on how to set social media goals, develop strategies and navigate an array of tools that can lessen the burden of managing a nonprofit’s social media.

Laura Nash, communications manager at Northwest Health Foundation, led a section on how to communicate advocacy on social media. Attendees got hands-on Twitter exercises and opportunities to learn from their peers. And I used local case studies to model ways that nonprofits can use social media to reach their organizational goals and engage internal and external stakeholders.

Feedback from the trainings went into the creation of this social media recipe booklet, a tool I designed to help nonprofits get started on social media and to provide quick tips on how to use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

After the training, our grantees said they felt more comfortable and empowered to begin using social media at their nonprofit. They said they had a much better understanding of how social media can advance their organization's goals — whether those goals are to raise $5,000 to support a campaign or to recruit 50 volunteers for a capital campaign.

Meyer grantees who attended the sessions followed up to seek additional training for their staffs and boards. Stay tuned: We are exploring ways Meyer can provide broader support for digital communications to our nonprofit partners.

If you’re a Meyer grantee or partner with questions about the trainings — or another funder curious about ways you can support your grantees on social — don’t hesitate to darion [at] mmt.org (contact me).

— Darion