U.S.-based environmental NGOs are employing more people of color, but foundations continue to disproportionately fund more white-led organizations than those led by people of color, a report from Green 2.0 finds.

Based on data provided by twenty foundations and sixty-seven nonprofits, the fifth edition of the Green 2.0 NGO & Foundation Transparency Report Card (157 pages) found that the mean average share of people of color on full-time staff rose to 29.8 percent, from 26.3 percent in the 2020 report. Sixty percent of all full-time staff identified as white, 10.8 percent as Black/African American, 10 percent as Hispanic/Latinx/Chicanx, 7 percent as Asian American, and 4 percent as multiple races/ethnicities. As of the end of 2020, 25.3 percent of CEOs and executive directors were people of color, including 10.4 percent identifying as Asian American, 7.5 percent as Black/African American, 4.5 percent as multiple races/ethnicities, and 3 percent as Hispanic/Latinx/Chicanx. The shares of senior staff and board members of color increased significantly between 2018 and 2020, to just below and just above 30 percent, respectively.

The study also found that, of the twenty foundations that provided data, nine collected no demographic data of the boards and senior staff of their grantee organizations; only two reported both demographic data on their grantees and their funding practices for white-led compared with POC-led organizations; and four were in the process of beginning to collect such data. The analysis found that, on average, foundations are funding white-led organizations nearly 40 percent more annually than POC-led organizations; with one exception (which was not identified), the foundations awarding the largest grants — grants of at least $100,000 — disproportionately funded white-led over POC-led organizations. Funders reported awarding, on average, 13.5 multiyear general operating grants to POC-led organizations and 26.7 grants to white-led groups. And while all twenty foundations reported awarding both general operating and programmatic grants to POC-led grantees, only two reported awarding capacity-building grants to POC-led organizations.

“Every year we want to make sure that NGOs and foundations that are pledging to prioritize diversity and inclusion are holding true to those promises. It is not enough to tout diversity with no follow-through in this day and age when organizations are reckoning with their failure to support staff of color,” said Green 2.0 executive director Andrés Jimenez. “We are pleased with the upward trend of people of color in NGO staff positions, but we have to work together to push past the 30 percent threshold. The only way these patterns of disparity at both NGOs and foundations will change is for more transparency in the sector.”

(Photo credit: GettyImages/gmast3r)