E is for Equity: Distinguishing Equity from Diversity, Inclusion and Equality
From its start as a staffed, private, independent foundation, Sewall has sought to be diverse, equitable, and inclusive, by bringing together people of different backgrounds to advance the foundation’s mission and values. As with most of the philanthropic sector in the US, the foundation started with an all-white staff and board. In 2015 we hired the first BIPOC (Black-Indigenous-People of Color) staff member; currently, one-third of our staff identifies as BIPOC. By 2018, three of our nine board members were BIPOC; and currently we are developing internal data collection structures that will allow us to track what proportion of our resources go to support BIPOC-led efforts and organizations. These quantifiable shifts represent our work on diversity, and steps towards our commitment to equity and inclusion. As we’ve grown, so has our understanding and application of equity.
Equity is deeply contextual and can be challenging to define. As a staff, we developed a working definition of equity that allows us to operationalize equity to the best of our current abilities. We understand equity to be processes that correct unjust conditions and structures, that heal and create conditions for fair access to power, resources, and opportunities. With this high-level definition, we recognize that equity is intersectional; it is about how power operates within a given system or space. We also recognize that as contexts change, our understanding of equity changes. But no matter what the context, equity is always about challenging supremacist assumptions and structures.
Conversations about equity within organizations are often overshadowed by broader, less effective DEI efforts - diversity, equity, and inclusion. These three concepts are related but different. Diversity means difference and inclusion simply means, meaningful participation. Organizations often stop at diversity and inclusion because adding different individuals to an existing group result in a visible and quantifiable “change;” but that “change” is insignificant in addressing unjust conditions and structures and does not require changes to power dynamics and unfair access to resources and opportunities within systems. Focusing only on diversity, intentionally or not, can be merely performative (check-the-box) and tokenistic. Diversity and inclusion without equity can cause great harm.
What is the role of diversity and inclusion in Sewall’s equity journey? Research has shown that diversity in groups can lead to heightened creativity, innovation, and productivity. There is strength in diverse experiences, perspectives, and skills. Our staff team at Sewall is diverse across many dimensions and including these differences in how we work enriches Sewall’s ability to carry out our mission.
But we have learned that only including people of different backgrounds without attention to equity can bring about friction, challenges, and harm. Diversity offers potential only if we pay attention, with an equity lens, to how we include (and exclude) groups of people, types of knowledge and skills, and ways of being and working together.
Sewall staff has changed our structure to distribute power and leadership in a manner that is emergent and helps us realize the benefits of our diversity in a more intentionally equitable and inclusive way. Our staff is organized into 8 overlapping pods. Each staff member has a leadership role in at least one pod and belongs to multiple pods. This “pod structure” allows for more inclusion of all staff voices, perspectives and experiences and invites participation beyond what traditional organizational roles often allow. For example, the purpose of our equity pod is to develop, review, and update the foundation’s internal and external equity plan and guide its ongoing implementation. The pod does this by supporting shifts in staff structures, roles, and processes, to deepen equity in operations and programs. This year, the equity pod is focused on supporting each pod, team, and focus area to deepen equity, increase collaboration, and further learning about emergent, adaptive approaches.
Beyond participation (inclusion), equity addresses the how of things. Equity assesses and challenges how power operates to move towards a culture that is rooted in fairness and justice. The fullness of diversity, inclusion and equity is realized when an organization commits to transformation, both internally (in its culture and operations) and externally (in its programs and communications).
But what about equality?
In simplest terms, equality is about sameness, usually understood in the moment; equity is about correcting conditions to ensure justice and fairness over time. What feels fair (or unfair) in the moment is subjective and often does not account for inequities experienced historically or systemically by one group or another.
In the U.S., equality is a core cultural value. Thinking they are practicing equity, organizations often mistakenly equate equality (sameness) with fairness and justice, by treating everyone the same instead of considering how historical and systemic inequities are influencing their decisions about personnel, programs, policies, and procedures.
Moving from equality to equity takes intentional and coordinated practice, and willingness to learn by doing. This shift requires making the invisible visible, and the implicit explicit. This means naming the biases, assumptions and blind spots in our organizational and societal culture, and continually assessing what we keep, change, or get rid of in order to deepen equity in our work.
At Sewall, we are exploring tools and developing practices that allow us to put our commitment to equity into practice, by co-creating a culture that communicates our values in everything we do. We recognize that resources, power and opportunities have not been distributed equally or fairly and we consider how the intentional privileging of some groups (White, male, wealthy, cis-gendered) and intentional exclusion and exploitation of other groups (BIPOC, female, LGBTQ, low-wealth, differently abled) over time, have led to inequitable conditions in Maine communities today.
If you’re not familiar with the concept of targeted universalism, we highly recommend this short video (3 minutes). It does a good job of differentiating between equity and equality, and it also provides some concrete examples. Targeted universalism considers historical factors and current conditions and implements targeted approaches to achieve universal goals.
If 2020 taught us anything, it is that our lives and futures are bound and interconnected, and the only way forward is together. As we develop and apply new tools and practices, we will share them with you. It is our intention that the changes we are making at Sewall and the lessons we are learning will serve others in their equity journey. In this blog, we want to share our Equity Action Guide—a tool developed by our equity pod for use across the organization to help us apply an equity lens to all we do. If this tool seems helpful to you, we invite you to use it.