The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro was founded in 1983 with inclusiveness as one of our core values.
Our purpose is to improve the community and the lives of all its residents. We are governed by a 30+ member board that celebrates the diversity of Greensboro, so our decisions and recommendations are made truly for the benefit of all. We also bring people of diverse backgrounds together to discuss challenges affecting the community as a whole and help champion new initiatives to solve them.
To formally recognize our work in diversity, equity and inclusion, in 2018, CFGG adopted a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) statement, as follows:
“Our communities are diverse. They include people of all ages and abilities, creeds and religions, cultures, ethnicities, gender identities, national origins, races, sexual orientations, and socioeconomic backgrounds. To pursue our mission, we will embrace our diversity, create opportunities for equity, commit ourselves to fairness, and promote inclusion of all people.”
Looking forward, we believe it is important to be intentional on our journey to be the champion of all people in our community and to “walk the walk” – both internally and externally – as stated above.
We, therefore, dedicate ourselves to the following guiding principles:
Internal Approach
- We are committed to continue building a diverse, inclusive, and representative organization
- We will measure the diversity of our board, volunteers serving on our committees, and leadership within our strategic initiatives to reflect the diversity of our community
- We will share our learnings and evolution openly with the community
- We are committed to a diverse and representative staff
- We will hire all open positions from a diverse pool of candidates, and will measure the diversity of our staff and management annually to reflect the diversity of our community
- We will hire a Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- We will provide racial equity trainings and professional development opportunities for all staff annually
- We are committed to working with a diversity of vendors with a focus on those who are local
- We will perform an internal analysis of our vendors to ensure equitable opportunities for all
- We will give preference to local vendors over national ones and track annually
- We will include vendors who are representative of the diversity of our community, including women-owned business enterprises (MWBE) and historically underutilized businesses (HUB)
External Approach
- We are committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of our work
- We will measure the diversity of donors engaged in our work to ensure that diverse voices are represented in the philanthropic leadership of our community
- We will measure the diversity of grantees we support and track their respective impact on equity and inclusion
- We will communicate the results of our efforts through all appropriate channels, with an emphasis on storytelling
- We are committed to invest significant resources into initiatives that will address racial equity issues in our community
- We will invest $250,000 in the Black Investments in Greensboro Equity Fund and continue our involvement with the Expanding Community Giving initiative
- We will invest in convenings and projects that address issues of diversity and inclusion