The grantmaker’s guide to using technology as a tool for equity

Grantmakers have a duty to ensure that their grantmaking practices—from the pre-award phase to the post-award phase—are as equitable as their missions themselves.

Unfortunately, inequity can easily creep into the nonprofit industry. In fact, research shows that nonprofit organisations led by minorities typically receive less money than their counterparts. In this way, philanthropy ends up reinforcing the exact inequity that it’s often trying to remedy.

While there’s no magic solution to overcoming this and building equity, diversity and inclusion into your grantmaking, there’s a lot that grantmaking foundations can do. One of the best ways is by using technology for equity and inclusion.

In this article, we’ll cover exactly what equity is in grantmaking and how any organisation can leverage technology for more equitable processes and funding.

What is equity in grantmaking?

Equity is the practice of ensuring equal access, opportunity and advancement for all individuals by considering their individual needs and challenges.

Despite how important this is, many grantmaking foundations focus on equality, not equity. Equality refers to treating everyone the same, regardless of their starting point or needs. It offers a one-size-fits-all approach without recognising the systematic barriers that some groups face.

For example, a grant program focused on equality might provide the same level of funding to all organisations, while an equity-based approach would recognise that small, grassroots organisations may need more support in order to succeed just as a larger, well-resourced organisation might.

In essence, equitable grantmaking requires grantmakers to understand and address the unique challenges and barriers faced by marginalised groups in order to create equal outcomes.

Best technologies for driving equity in grantmaking

Technology development for equity can help democratise access to resources, increase transparency and accountability, reduce barriers to entry and help grantmakers scale their impact.

While there are lots of tools foundations can use, some of the best include:

Accessible grant applications

With the right technology, like Good Grants, grantmakers can create grant applications that address a variety of needs and circumstances. With built-in accessibility features, conditional logic to ask for additional information and more, organisations can create grant applications that are customised to specific applicants and populations.

With Good Grants, foundations can use accessibility features like:

Flexible colour options: Good Grants is designed to provide sufficient colour contrast for program participants. Plus, for specific needs, organisations can adjust default colours as needed to match branding and accessibility requirements.

Readability: Good Grants uses consistent fonts throughout the application, ensuring that every feature is easy to read.

Video captions: Caption files can be easily added to all uploaded video media to support hearing-impaired users.

Inclusive language options: Good Grants supports more than 30 natively translated languages so that non-English-speaking applicants can participate on equal footing.

Opportunity promotion tools

Often, the organisations that need the most assistance aren’t made aware of certain grant opportunities. To remedy this, grantmakers should leverage technology to widen their pool of potential applicants.

With Good Grants, organisations can take advantage of multiple promotion methods to reach as many potential applicants as possible, including through:

Partnerships: Provide your sponsors or partners with high-value visibility options in the application process and emails, placing them front and centre for applicants, reviewers and, optionally, the public.

Social sharing: Use the integrated social sharing buttons to easily promote and share your messages and opportunities on all popular social networks.

Personalised invites: Send personalised invitations to known applicants or grantees directly from the platform. This is ideal for soliciting applications for closed opportunity grants or requesting supplementary information from participants.

Sophisticated review features

Grant reviews, like any kind of human review, can involve inherent biases — unintentional or not. But, equitable and fair funding, however, requires the most objective assessments possible.

Good Grants offers a diverse range of review tools that allow grantmakers to make responsible and equitable decisions, like:

Customisable scoring criteria: Grantmakers can set up scoring frameworks that ensure all applicants are judged according to objective and equitable criteria that align with the grant’s specific values and goals.

Crowd voting review mode: With Good Grants, organisations can invite their peers, the public or a select group of reviewers to log in and vote on their favourite grant applications.

Decision score matrix: Examine scoring in detail, application by application, with a matrix view of all reviewers and a breakdown of their scoring input.

Recuse reviewers and reviewer abstention: Proactively block reviewers from specific applications based on a known conflict of interest or facilitate voluntary abstention — all toward decision outcomes with integrity.

Award and post-award tools

Grant reporting is another part of the grantmaking process that often requires the use of technology in order to make it as equitable as possible. With Good Grants, organisations can democratise their grant reporting process with:

Robust data and analytics: With Good Grants, organisations can track funding across demographics, geography, and organisational types. This data helps ensure funds are being allocated equitably and identifies areas for improvement.

Participatory grantmaking support: Good Grants allows multiple reviewers and stakeholders to participate in the decision-making process, enabling community-driven or participatory grantmaking models that ensure diverse voices are considered when awarding funds.

Make grantmaking equitable with Good Grants

The right technology can allow grantmaking organisations to ensure they’re meeting the needs of every organisation they’re funding — whether they’re large-scale or small grassroots initiatives.

With Good Grants, grantmakers can ensure that every part of the grantmaking process is as equitable as possible, from the grant application process to the post award phase.