Can philanthropy help create greater racial equity and social justice?

Good question. And, what would be some benchmarks of progress? These are the two questions we pursued, with support from the Ford Foundation.

We knew there were no easy criteria of success, no simple measures of equity or justice. And, we learned, it’s hard to have a good conversation about this without touching some sensitive nerves.

To keep our inquiry grounded, we started with the notion of “gaps” or “disparities.” Many studies conducted in the areas of education, or health, or justice show different outcomes, on average, for different racial and ethnic groups. In brief, our public systems of education, health, or justice do better for Whites, on average. Our private markets for mortgages or business loans or risk protection also favor Whites as a group. These differences between group averages are called disparities or gaps – as in “the achievement gap” or “health disparities.”