Edmonton Community Foundation Equity Tool

In late 2017, Edmonton Community Foundation undertook an equity audit of the Community Grants and ECF Awards & Bursaries programs. Our intent was to ensure that they are reflective of the needs of the communities we serve and are as accessible as possible to all members within our community.  As such, we identified three goals for the audit:

  1. Identify information that should be tracked about applicants to better inform future decision-making;
  2. Identify barriers for more marginalized communities in terms of accessing ECF grants, and provide recommendations and action steps to remove these barriers;
  3. Identify learning opportunities for staff, volunteers, and grantees.

To conduct the audit, we engaged CRC Consulting, Pride Centre of Edmonton, and Naheyawin. They worked together to craft a series of questions for ECF staff and volunteers as well as community organizations and past applicants.

The equity audit was one piece of a larger journey we are undertaking to explore what equity means for a community foundation and has led, most notably, to the recent adoption of our equity statement.

One of the key principles we carry on this journey is that of transparency. To that end, we are happy to share the audit tool developed by our consulting team. While the tool is specific to ECF’s context, we hope it will have value for others who are on a similar journey. You can find the audit tool here.

Have questions, comments, or feedback about the equity audit or our equity process more broadly? Get in touch! Email equity@ecfoundation.org.