The Meyer Memorial Trust in Portland, Oregon, has announced that it is putting some of its grantmaking activities on hiatus as it shifts its focus to address systemic inequities in the state.

The trust, the largest private general funder in Oregon, will suspend its Responsive Grants and Grassroots Grants programs from mid-March into the fall while it engages with its partners to determine how best to address barriers to equity and reorganizes its grantmaking into four priority funding areas — education, affordable housing, the environment, and maintaining a vibrant nonprofit sector. Community grants, program-related investments, and other assets will be bundled within those four areas, which already account for a majority of the trust's grantmaking. The trust also plans to take equity into consideration at every level of its operations, from internal policies to vendor and grantee selection to peer discussions.

"It was the pursuit of equity that prompted us to ask ourselves more pointed questions," Doug Stamm, the trust's CEO, explained in blog post. "What if we make a priority of identifying and addressing systemic problems that are barriers to the outcomes we seek to achieve in those areas? How might we refocus what we do to make a greater impact?"

The trust also will end its grantmaking in Clark County, Washington, but will dedicate $1.5 million to the  Community Foundation for Southwest Washington, which works in Clark County. While MMT, which has awarded 8,407 grants totaling nearly $658 million since 1982, will continue to support nonprofits working in the arts, culture, and the humanities, health and human services, public affairs and advocacy, and social benefit, it will challenge grantees to demonstrate progress in integrating equity into their work, partnerships, outreach, policies, and staff and boards.

The consolidation of the trust's grantmaking will have three immediate benefits, Stamm said. "MMT and our nonprofit partners will be more effective at making systems level change. Together, we will better understand what is working and what is not. And it will help us maximize what our funds can do."