Summary of DiS Advisory Panel Meeting #2
Agenda Items:
Funding deep dive: The Panel discussed how Diversity in Sustainability (DiS) should approach funders and what is expected from DiS-funder relationships.
Survey Launch and Outreach: The DiS team provided an overview of the survey to the Panel and asked for feedback.
1. Funding Context & Concerns
The DiS team gave an overview of the approach that they plan to take as an organization for funding. In general, we are seeking diversified sources of funding in order to be resilient over time, including membership, corporate sponsorship, grants and foundation/charitable funding, recognizing each has its set of benefits and challenges. The panel then provided suggestions for other types of funding.
Charitable funding
We are interested in working with a non-profit with charitable status that could work as a financial flow-through model, and also partner with an international charity that helps issue tax receipts in other foreign jurisdictions. Various city foundations such as the Calgary Foundation and the Toronto Foundation were also suggested as partners.
Corporate funding
We received feedback from some corporations that think DiS was not asking for enough funding from them.
Fee for service consulting
We could consider a proprietary advisory model for best practices in EDI, but also keep in mind that it is the quickest way to distract us from our original mandate. One panel member suggested that it’s important to clarify a shift over time in funding in our organization’s principles.
Government funding
Another panel member suggested looking at government grants, but that may present a substantial administrative burden.
Youth caucus concerns
Our youth caucus raised concerns about partnering with corporate funders due to a misalignment of values, for example, banks who might fund fossil fuels or companies that use harmful chemicals in their products. They believe that while these companies have established EDI and sustainability goals, these commitments do not neutralize the environmental harm caused by their business model, which could discredit the work being done by DiS.
They want us to think about the metrics used to assess companies and to assess the company’s business models.
A youth panel member mentioned that if organizations partnered with companies or brands with a negative reputation, they would be less likely to partner with those organizations.
Responses on concerns
Other panel members felt that working with only the “best” corporations is limiting for a few reasons:
Limits ability to form global partnerships
Constrains funding considerably
Corporate funding usually means less funding restrictions and typically larger amounts
Excludes our work and influence within these companies, where help may be most needed
The most virtuous companies in EDI and sustainability should not bear the cost of social and environmental repair. Instead, those we consider to be ‘the worst actors’ should partner with DiS to not only foot the bill for this remediation, but also to adopt DiS’ principles that can improve their work going forward.
Other sources of funding, including governments and foundations – are also very fraught.
Other panel members suggested we think about whether we are an organization focused on accountability or incrementalism, or another way to look at it is an engagement or activist approach?
Activism: look to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), who take a highly principled approach with no corporate funding. This ensures complete independence, but limits the ability to do things that might help in partnership with for example, pharma companies, such as providing access to patented medicine.
Engagement: look to WWF as an example – they have screens but ultimately accept money from large companies such as Coca Cola and Walmart. It comes down to how much they are challenging the big actors and what the balance is in accepting money from them but also making sure they do good work.
DiS needs to think about how much we want to challenge the status quo, particularly when environmental and race problems stem from the industrial capitalist model, which was born at the same time and was driving the colonialism that took place in modern times. As long as we ultimately place the narrow pursuit of economic profit above other values, there will definitely be the exploitation and subjugation of other people and forms of life. However, to take it to the other extreme – we don’t want to become socialist or communist, but we do want to support a world where a sense of community, connectedness, quality of life (separate from economic growth and personal financial gain) is central. We need to rebalance.
Another panel member suggested we consider other instruments like blind trusts to deal with corporate donors in a way that preserves the integrity of the mandate. We must also recognize that there are more efforts going on behind the curtains of these corporations than what can be easily seen publicly, especially since corporate foundations can be separate from their companies and may specifically fund efforts to counteract the unsustainable actions of the corporations.
What are the three most promising avenues that we should pursue, in a way that aligns with our values?
The group agreed that there is not one answer.
Have to help bad actors improve with expertise, which DiS has.
We should also consider the type of sponsorship - for example if a company wanted to make drastic changes our working model or program, compared to simply adding a logo to independent research. These would require different levels of vetting or due diligence.
Suggest that DiS creates more granular set of funding guidelines and due diligence, and think about basic criteria such as a benchmark for diverse hiring or percentage of people of colour (POC) in leadership roles.
Many in the group agree that with proper due diligence and we get more experience under our belts, we can be selective in who we receive our funding from, but for now, we cannot be too exclusive – it is too early in the process.
How do we ensure that companies are not only being performative in their partnership with us?
First, companies that we engage with must have diverse hiring practices. While it is the aim of this group and our survey moving forward to encourage greater diversity, the Panel recommends that we partner only with companies that meet a benchmark for diversity in their executive group or hires, with a commitment to continued improvement. The major issue here is not that we cannot engage these corporations, but a concern that their funding may diminish our efforts to promote diversity, equity and inclusion as their funding will inevitably sway us to support their image and goals rather
than ours.
Moving forward, the Panel also recommends that the theory of change of DiS and our work is well-defined so that potential funders have a very clear idea of the change we want to make, and who we want to make it with. This is needed primarily to filter out funders based on the compatibility of our goals and level of commitment. Similarly, the funders with which we engage should have performance metrics by which they evaluate EDI and sustainability commitments, even though they do not necessarily have EDI or sustainability in their titles.
Are there specific actions require from funders?
It is important to recognize that the privilege of the DiS-funder relationship goes both ways, and funding comes with strings. With that in mind, to encourage an opportunity for growth on both sides, the Panel has four recommendations for funding organizations to ensure that all parties are on the same page about the purpose of our organizations:
Commitment to universal values and mission of DiS
Commitment to creating JEDI-focused action plans within their own organizations
Commitment to measuring and disclosing progress on JEDI commitments
Commitment to DiS coalition actions and supporting our advocacy
2. Sustainability Survey
DiS presented the initial findings from the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Sustainability Survey to the Advisory Panel. Some feedback from the panel included:
Put recommendations up front for organizations and note key things we can change, short term and long term.
Emphasize the privileged nature of the profession and the fact that this sets it up to fail.
Pull out findings that are more relevant for smaller or larger organizations.
Dig into specific sub-industries to understand where their challenges are, since corporate responsibility makes up a lot of the responses.
Tap into sustainability organizations focused on POC that can offer counterpoints in the survey, for example