LFW uses an equity analysis in evaluating grant applications and making award decisions. The following categories are evaluated during this analysis:
Racial equity in the civil legal system is essential to LFW’s vision of “justice for all.” As a foundation, we play a unique role in advancing this work forward. The system of philanthropy and grantmaking has power to resource communities or deepen inequities with their decisions. This is why LFW is committed to applying a race equity lens to all of our practices, grant analysis, and allocation of resources. We have been building our race equity analysis over several years and are committed to long-term improvements —and we realize we still have a lot of work to do.
Some areas we have focused on so far include: increasing investments in communities impacted most by systemic racism; analyzing demographics of poverty populations to shed light on funding disparities; creating channels for increased community input, including by those directly impacted by poverty and oppression; supporting compensation equity; and building a Race Equity Grant program guided by community member input.
Actions we’ve taken in the last year include:
Does 50% or more of your senior leadership identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color)? We define senior leadership as those with decision making power over the actions and budget of your organization.
With this new data, we can see that 58% of LFW’s 2021 funds went to BIPOC-led organizations:
When we analyze by grant type, it is clear that the percentage varies considerably across the opportunities. For example, the COVID-19 Emergency Eviction Defense Grants offered in partnership with the Office of Civil Legal Aid did not fund any BIPOC-led organizations. We plan to continue to track this data each year and use the information to ensure our funding strategies align with our commitments to anti-racism, equity, and inclusion.
Our next goal is to increase transparency around our decision-making processes for grants. For example, in evaluating 2022-2023 Partnership Grant applications, LFW’s board considered the two-year scope of awards and employed several layers of equity analysis, including:
For Partnership Grants, the board aims to provide stable funding for the statewide network of civil legal aid providers and maximize systemic impact. The funding for these grants is tied to our limited resources, including state-funding, and considers previous awards, other funding sources, Alliance goals, statewide legal aid coverage, and the impact of decisions on all programs.
A similar analysis is applied to all grant review processes. We are working to improve and refine this work in collaboration with our Alliance partners and to be more transparent about our methods.
These are some of the key resources that continue to inform our grantmaking practices:
State Plan for the Coordinated Delivery of Civil Legal Aid to Low-Income People
Washington Race Equity & Justice Initiative (REJI)
Grantmaking with a Racial Justice Lens
Trust-Based Philanthropy Project
Vu Le and RVC Seattle’s Equitable Grantmaking Continuum
BIPOC ED Coalition of Washington State