Telling the Stories of Equity and Anti-Racism in Healthcare
Seattle Children's
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Lessons Learned from Putting Grantees First
Overview
The Edward W. Hazen Foundation was a private foundation established in 1925, committed to supporting young people and parents in communities of color in dismantling structural inequities based on race and class. In 2019, the Foundation’s board of directors decided to pour all its financial resources into the communities they served by 2025—and sunset the Foundation.
Challenge
In response to the uprisings after George Floyd’s murder and the COVID-19 pandemic, Hazen engaged in deep conversations with its grantees to better meet their needs. This led Hazen to transform its application procedure, refine its outreach strategies, and prioritize the needs of its grantees over its own. This was an iterative and tailored approach that allowed Hazen to become more proactive and adaptive to the evolving challenges faced by grassroots organizations at the frontlines of social change.
While the Foundation made significant strides in its own practices, grantees still noted deeply entrenched systemic barriers to building and sustaining relationships with other funders. As Hazen neared its sunset, it aimed to create a shift among philanthropic leaders towards a deeper and more equitable engagement with grassroots organizations. Hazen asked its grantee partners to share how funder practices hindered and supported their work. Their insights would be compiled into a report that would serve as Hazen’s final message to the philanthropic sector.
Work
Minerva Strategies began with conceptualizing the report and identifying key messages and target audiences. We structured the report to clearly communicate the urgent need for funders to redress the ways in which philanthropy exacerbates existing inequities. We also created a plan to disseminate the findings broadly, ensuring the impact of Hazen’s partnership with grantees would inspire transformative practices even after its closure. Over the course of nine months, our team:
- Collaborated with our client and researchers to design a comprehensive insight-gathering strategy. The three-pronged approach included an open-ended questionnaire, focus group discussions, and one-on-one interviews with grassroots leaders across the country.
- Implemented a robust project management system to track progress, grantee engagement, and the design process. This allowed us to make timely adjustments to meet critical deadlines and respond to our client’s communications needs.
- Supported focus group discussions, synthesized survey results, reviewed anecdotal findings from one-on-one interviews, and compiled grantee quotes to support the report’s thematic structure.
- Drafted the report to highlight key findings and actionable recommendations, weaving together quantitative data, qualitative insights, and grantee experiences to underscore the urgent need for funders to reevaluate their funding practices.
- Collaborated closely with graphic designers and content reviewers to ensure the report’s framing, visuals, and layouts effectively conveyed the complex data and narratives.
- Coordinated with Grantmakers for Effective Organizers (GEO) to host the report and amplify its findings across its network.
- Executed a dissemination plan that included outreach to philanthropic leaders to engage with and amplify the report, strategic media pitching, and a digital media campaign.
The Hazen Foundation's lessons learned were well-received by peers.
Result
“Reevaluating Practice: Reimagining Philanthropy” was published in April 2024 on GEO’s website. The report was met with praise from many philanthropic leaders who remarked that it provided actionable insights that challenged traditional funding paradigms and sparked discussions on how funders could reform their philanthropic practices. The report’s findings were published in an article by Nonprofit Quarterly, which featured Hazen President Lori Bezahler.
"The Minerva team approached this work as true collaborators and embraced Hazen's intention to have a final message that was about the grantees experience, rather than the foundation. They brought care and respect to their interactions with these grassroots organizations and together we produced a report that reflects our values and offers practical guidance to those seeking to be more effective and equity-focused grantmakers."
Lori Bezahler
President of the Edward W. Hazen Foundation