The Delaware Community Foundation (DCF), since its inception in 1986, has been dedicated to improving the lives of Delawareans.  Despite efforts to increase and strategically disburse funding to reduce inequities, the needle has not moved.  Delaware is marked by significant and troubling inequities.  They are evident across all measures:  education, employment, health, housing, safety, and justice.  The racial disparities are glaring.  Given this landscape, the DCF recharged its commitment and created the Community Equity Project fellowship.

Knowing that factors associated with inequities and the path forward varies greatly across the state, the DCF decided to pilot its Community Equity Project fellowship process in Wilmington, Delaware’s largest city, building on the recent work of Prosperity Now.  Prosperity Now, a national leader in addressing financial inequities, completed its Racial Wealth Divide in Wilmington publication in March 2019.  This is the landscape of the City of Wilmington where we started our focused, intentional journey toward equity.

Knowing the terrain ahead was treacherous and the roadblocks deeply rooted, the DCF sought a partner to help design the journey, and collaborated with Social Contract, a local, trusted consulting group.  Social Contract was well known and had strong relationships with individuals and organizations working in the equity space.  Together, the DCF and Social Contract developed a process to engage equity leaders, sent out an invitation to apply, convened an interview team, conducted round robin interviews, and selected a cohort with a diversity of perspectives, backgrounds, and expertise related to equity.

The interview team included thought leaders, stakeholders, and change agents.

The Delaware Community Foundation (DCF), in partnership with Social Contract, is pleased to convene the Community Equity Project (CEP). The CEP will bring together a cohort of up to 10 leaders with experience addressing equity issues. This cohort will establish consensus with the community and each other on a shared vision and roadmap for increasing equity in Wilmington.  

A focus on equity is crucial to building opportunity for all. The promise of prosperity is at the core of the country’s founding and yet, there is much evidence showing us that for far too many people, the American Dream is just that — a dream. There is a growing opportunity gap – an ever-increasing imbalance in the opportunities people have to succeed. The reality is that many Delawareans start with so few opportunities and face so many challenges that they have little to no chance of achieving educational and economic success, no matter how hard they work. 

 
The DCF is addressing this social inequity by creating a new opportunity for community leaders who are passionate about the issue of equity.  The group will dialogue together and, building in insights from the broader community, the cohort will ultimately define a shared vision and set of priorities capable of moving the needle on equity in our community. 

What does our community mean when we say increase equity?  Where should funders focus their attention? What are the most promising equity strategies that will move the needle in Delaware? How can we collaborate to activate and scale these winning strategies?  
 

In 2019, rather than making modest grants to projects focused on equity, the DCF will direct a portion of its discretionary dollars to supporting this cohort who will come together and build shared answers to these questions.  Through this new approach, the DCF will look to the perspective and expertise of the community, rather than trying to define how to address equity on its own. The learnings from this project will inform the DCF’s overall strategy and future grantmaking to most meaningfully move the needle on equity. 

Through this experience, the cohort will learn each other’s perspective and history, listen and learn from lived experience and local voices, and ultimately define what we hope to be true here in Wilmington and best practices or innovative strategies that might get us there. 

“This is equity: just and fair inclusion into a society in which all can participate, prosper, and reach their full potential. (The Equity Manifesto, PolicyLink) 

The CEP will offer a dynamic, collaborative learning experience for a small group of leaders focused on equity. The cohort will engage the community to establish a clear picture of what a more equitable Wilmington looks like, feels like, and will require of all of us.  

Throughout the experience, the leaders will build a shared vision of what is possible, then in partnership with the community they will design actionable strategies related to that vision. They will develop an implementation plan and budget for how to make their vision a reality.  Ultimately, our hope is this cohort will serve as the catalyst for ongoing, sustainable change in Wilmington, and this work will help inform DCF’s longer-term strategy related to building equitable communities.  

The Community Equity Project is designed for established or emerging leaders that are actively addressing issues of equity in Wilmington. The experience is best suited for stakeholders with expertise in tackling social inequity, and hungry for deeper collaboration to maximize our collective ability to drive progress in this area.  We will seek a balance across different approaches to addressing equity, and will consider the depth and complexity of experiences and perspectives applicants bring to the mix.  

A committee of Delaware leaders with relevant expertise will review applications, participate in candidate interviews, and provide recommendations to the DCF using an agreed upon criteria for judging the merits of each candidate. The review committee includes: 

Social Contract facilitated a process of team building, discovery, and design.  Over five months, the Community Equity Fellows, as they became known, shared insights, challenged assumptions, and examined data.  They engaged in conversation with local and national experts as well as tested ideas and sought input from their networks.  They entered the fellowship with diverse lived experiences and extensive knowledge from various disciplines and expertise.  Yet, they shared a common starting point:  equity cannot be pursued through the current structure and processes.  The Community Equity Fellows acknowledged that inequity is the result of and perpetuated across four primary levels:  policy, organizational, community, and individual.  The fellows worked in smaller groups, or discovery teams, to examine issues of inequity and to explore critical elements and effective examples of efforts to move toward equity at each level. 

The work of the fellows is summarized in four additional briefs.

Although the Community Equity Project fellowship has ended, the fellows continue to work toward equity in a variety of ways.  They reconvene to check in, share ideas, discuss current issues, and brainstorm on ways to continue to promote and work toward equity.  The DCF continues to rely on the fellows for guidance in its equity work.  Social Contract conducted feedback interviews with the fellows and clearly the experience was satisfying.  The report summarizes the feedback in a list of key takeaways:

The fellows would recommend that their colleagues participate in a similar fellowship and that other foundations offer a community equity fellowship.  And, in their own words, the fellows benefitted from the experience.