What is the DEI Coalition?

Beds and Luton Community Foundation is proud to be leading the foundation sector nationally, in transforming the way we distribute funding to ensure it is equitable, transparent and representative.

We believe it is imperative for philanthropy to become more diverse, inclusive, and equitable in its practices for three main reasons:

• Advance the common good. Those of us in philanthropy have dedicated ourselves to promoting the common good. Advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in our organisations and grantmaking helps us live up to our values.
• Increase effectiveness. Diverse perspectives within foundations can help build better relationships with grantees, improve team problem-solving, and leadto better outcomes.
• Enhance impact. Our constituencies, from the communities we serve to our partners in business and government, are becoming increasingly diverse. We need to understand and reflect this rich variety of perspectives in order to achieve greater impact.

Our CEO, Fozia Irfan recently completed a Masters in Grantmaking, Philanthropy and Grantmaking with her dissertation focussed on the topic of addressing inequality. She is now leading a national movement to implement DEI frameworks in foundations in the UK through a unique ‘DEI’ coalition.

What the DEI Coalition will be doing:

• Encouraging the sharing of DEI best practice and resources with staff, together with advice and guidance.
• Enabling staff to develop expertise in a specialist area, with the support of others thereby increasing the chances of success of implementation.
• Enabling foundations to use a DEI lens in developing grantmaking priorities or finetuning program areas.
• Encouraging genuine cultivation and maintenance of strong relationships with grantees and community partners.
• Developing a supportive organisational and inclusive culture that leads to effective grantmaking, more inclusive systems and better representation.

What the DEI Coalition will mean for the wider sector:

• Creating a collaborative momentum which advances the work collectively rather than relying on individual efforts.
• In the long term, building up a central bank of guidance, advice, and resources for other foundations in the sector to use.
• Setting a precedent and sending a signal to other foundations as to the importance of this work in making us more effective grantmakers and providing tangible UK examples of implementation demonstrating success and mistakes.

We are excited at the prospect of our foundation implementing this groundbreaking work and will be posting regular updates as to progress.
For further information please contact Fozia Irfan at fozia.irfan@blcf.org.uk