New Cultural Awareness Project: Making Connections,

Widening Our View

Because our Grant Review Teams (GRT) don’t yet reflect the diversity of the communities ninety-nine girlfriends serves, a few of our member-leaders formed the Cultural Awareness Project to develop content for training modules that GRT members experience at two key points during our grantmaking process: right before they read Letters of Interest (LOIs) and right before they read full proposals and set up site visits with each semifinalist. The modules address aspects of cultural inclusivity so that our majority-white teams have a better understanding of bias and of cultural differences, helping build their awareness of how these might influence face-to-face interactions and grantmaking decisions. 

To this end, Nancy Davis, Cleo Tung, Sara Daley, Holly Vaughn-Edmonds, Melissa Lowery, Irene Foster, Michelle Hynes, and Tammy Wilhoite worked together to create anti-bias curriculum for the LOI session and the site visit workshop. The team loved working and learning together, and making this contribution to ninety-nine girlfriends’ role in the community. As Tammy said “member diversity is really important and it’s equally important that we don’t wait to do this work until we have a more diverse group of women involved. We are so grateful that this awesome group of women stepped up to do this important work.” 

The curriculum was well received and the GRTs have done a wonderful job applying their learning to the important work of reviewing LOIs and full proposals. Sara, a GRT lead, commented on the impact: “Addressing inequity in our grantmaking process is absolutely essential, and is another example of ninety nine girlfriends’ passion for learning – I think it is fundamentally who we are. It’s a privilege to witness the thoughtfulness and dedication of our team members and leadership, and to learn so much from the non-profits and program participants whom we serve.”

We thank this incredible team for the months of work they put into the project and for helping us each to recognize our biases and work to minimize them in the interest of fairness and equity. We’re always learning! 

Visit our website to see the semifinalists who emerged from the selection process. Join us at Meet the Finalists to learn more about the projects the GRTs selected this year!