The Biden administration has pledged to make equity a priority. On the day he was sworn into office, President Biden signed an executive order to “allocate resources to address the historic failure to invest sufficiently, justly, and equally in underserved communities.”
This White House team — the most racially and culturally diverse in history — provides a rare opportunity to significantly address structural racism in this country. But the administration’s ability to meaningfully promote equitable policies, particularly on issues related to the pandemic, including health, housing, and employment, depends on having research and data that put equity at their center.
Foundations that fund research have a vital role to play in this endeavor. That starts with acknowledging what we’ve done wrong. For too long, the funding criteria, proposal processes, and research methods many of our organizations require have made it harder for grantees to produce data that tells a complete story about the needs and opportunities in communities harmed most by structural racism.
Changing our beliefs about what constitutes effective research requires an honest examination of who is conducting that research, the methods they use, and the type of data they collect. Without such changes, all our statements of support and dedicated funds for racial equity will have minimal long-term effect — and those who have the power to make policy will continue to rely on information that may itself perpetuate inequity.
To ensure equity is at the center of all research we support, philanthropic organizations should move to consider:
Who is conducting the research. We know that research is stronger and more beneficial to the communities it serves when it’s conducted by a diverse cadre of researchers and community partners — especially those from historically underrepresented and oppressed backgrounds. A diverse research team can ensure that the methods used are culturally appropriate and inclusive of the historical and cultural contexts essential to understanding and addressing inequities.
Unfortunately, most research that informs racial-equity policy is conducted by individuals who are white and privileged with similar lived experiences as the largely white foundation boards and staff that support them. Several prominent scientific journals do not even track the race or ethnicity of their contributors. Of those that do, more than 80 percent identify as white.
This lack of representation results in fewer connections with diverse communities and less funding for nonprofit organizations led by people of color compared with white-led groups. In turn, fewer programs are developed, piloted, and evaluated that serve culturally or racially diverse populations. Elected officials end up making policy and investment decisions based on the information available to them — most of which focuses on programs in predominantly white communities.
To change that pattern, we should start by making efforts to diversify our own boards and staffs an urgent priority. And we need to insist that the organizations we fund do the same. Funding proposals at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, where we work, increasingly require grantee applicants to embrace principles of equitable evaluation, including a focus on structural factors that create inequity and research methods that are culturally appropriate. We ask grantees to develop solutions with leaders and advocates in the communities most affected by structural racism.
Methods used to conduct the research. Foundations typically decide what research to fund based on so-called best practices and evidence-based evaluation methods. While these methods for conducting and reviewing research are considered standard, most are grounded in white-dominant culture and originate from academic institutions that have a history of exclusion. As a result, they perpetuate inequities by rendering communities and experiences outside of this elite bubble invisible.
Several resources are now available that offer a roadmap for more equitable research and broader definitions of standards, such as the Greenlining Institute’s “Making Racial Equity Real in Research” report and Child Trends “How to Embed a Racial and Ethnic Equity Perspective in Research.”
Greenlining’s report also debunks a misconception in the field that conducting equitable or inclusive research means sacrificing excellence. In fact, Greenlining found that research provides more accurate insights about challenges and likely solutions when the experiences of people in affected communities are incorporated into the design, data collection, and analysis.
How data is broken down among racial groups. Due to the factors discussed above, race and ethnicity data is either not collected at all or is gathered and interpreted by people who take a narrow view of what constitutes effective research and outcomes. As a result, the information that is available on race and ethnicity is lumped into broad categories that mask the unique needs of a particular population and hide the strengths and assets of a given community.
In other words, decisions are being made that affect people’s lives and well-being without complete information.
Investments in research must ensure that data are collected, analyzed, and reported across and within specific racial groups. The demand for this type of disaggregated data has grown louder as government leaders and health0care officials seek to understand and respond to the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on people of color.
Only with accurate data can we ensure that resources and interventions are laser-focused to help address widening health, economic, and social disparities. With political leaders in place who share our commitment to equity, let’s make sure the research they’re relying on is helping, not hampering, those efforts.
