Equity Statement

At Trellis Foundation, we recognize the historic, pervasive, systemic effects of centuries of racial discrimination in this country. While our mission encompasses all students experiencing barriers to education and economic opportunity, we recognize the specific effects that racism continues to have on students of color.

Thus, we commit to the following principles in our grantmaking allocations and processes:

• Data disaggregation is key to identifying disparities and addressing the causes.
• While some programmatic solutions may be universally effective, the imperative to achieve equity of outcomes may require targeted and differentiated programming.
• Intersectionality of barriers means further targeting of supports may be needed for key populations, such as justice-impacted individuals and youth who are disconnected from education and the workforce.
• Communities of color should be represented on all levels of the work, including in leadership positions of community-based organizations, institutions of higher education, and foundations.
• Organizations led by professionals of color provide an important, unique perspective in this work and should be supported. If the organization is new or has fewer resources for capacity-building, funders may need to revise grant processes to allow for that capacity-building.
• System processes, including those in education and grantmaking, are based in cultural assumptions and structures. Widescale change requires an awareness of the existing cultural biases.
• As we examine our grantmaking processes and allocations in light of these principles, we will develop metrics to track our process performance and our grant portfolio composition.