Foundations Show Little Progress in Making Their Staff More Diverse

“Stubborn disparities” in staffing based on race, age, gender, sexual orientation, and disability status remain entrenched at foundations despite leaders’ promises to build organizations that are diverse and inclusive, according to a new report by the Council on Foundations.

The report found that many indicators of diversity had barely budged over the past several years.

People of color account for 27.3 percent of all full-time staff positions, up slightly from 2016. Since that year, the percentage of people of color serving as chief executive remained the same, at 10.3 percent, reflecting a professional work force “largely in stasis,” according to the report.

In a letter accompanying the report, Kathleen Enright, the council’s president, referred to efforts to diversify grant makers’ staffing and leadership that the council began in earnest in 2010, when it joined the D5 Coalition, a group committed to increasing diversity in foundation work forces.

“We all knew it would be a long journey to real and lasting progress,” she wrote. “The 2020 Grantmaker Salary and Benefits Report reveals that we still have miles (and miles) to go.”

The survey found that 11.3 percent of foundation employees are Black, 6.9 percent are Hispanic, and 5.2 percent are Asian.

There was also little change in the proportion of women in the foundation work force. Since 2016, women have held about 77 percent of foundation jobs and 58 percent of leadership roles. The median annual salary for women in leadership roles was $181,000, compared with $216,000 for their male counterparts.

Of the 703 foundations that included data on staff members with disabilities, 7 percent reported employees with disabilities.

Ninety percent of the grant makers reported giving raises in 2019; the median salary increase was 3.5 percent. About 70 percent indicated they expected to, or already had, given raises in 2020.

The survey provides data on 8,794 full-time foundation staff at 804 grant makers. More than half of the organizations that responded are private foundations, and more than one-third are community foundations.

The survey reflects foundation pay and staffing as of February 1, before both the coronavirus pandemic and racial-justice uprisings associated with the killing of George Floyd. Key findings of the report are available here for free.