Commitment to Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

The most vibrant economy is one in which everyone can contribute. Supporting the success of immigrants, refugees, and underrepresented talent creates more diverse, innovative, and productive workplaces and communities.

To build more inclusive economies and communities, we must center equity, diversity, inclusion, and racial justice in our work, both internally and externally. This means that we must first acknowledge the historical roots of racism and discrimination that our systems and societies were built on. Today, in the very workforce, education, and immigration systems that our funding focuses on, structural racism and inequity persist, preventing many immigrants, refugees, and Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities from accessing opportunities.

Immigrants and refugees often face bigotry and xenophobia, which can exacerbate the structural barriers they may experience because of their race, ethnicity, gender, culture, religion, citizenship, and other identities. Our work must have an intersectional lens, as multiple identities interconnect and can compound the effects of inequity and bias.

A core goal of the Fund is to support proximate leaders – leaders who come from the communities they serve and have direct experience or knowledge of the issues they seek to address – and organizations led and staffed by people with lived experience from the immigrant, refugee and BIPOC communities they serve.

In 2021, we started collecting baseline demographic data related to race, ethnicity, gender and immigrant identity from applicants and partners. This year, in 2024, we are continuing to leverage this data to inform our practice, while also committing to being intentional, clear, and transparent about our data collection. We continue to focus on improving economic mobility for immigrants and refugees with an intentional integration of justice and equity considerations in the solutions we fund, as well as focus on backing proximate leaders. In 2024, we aim to ensure that 65 percent of the Fund’s total dollars awarded to immigrant-led, women-led and/or BIPOC-led organizations.

We seek to shift power to proximate leaders, organizations and communities and ensure that they have the flexible resources and support they need. In 2024, we will continue to deepen our participatory practices, launching new participatory grantmaking initiatives in both Canada and the United States. To shift power and decision making, our 2024 goal is to award 40 percent of total dollars to organizations by using participatory practices.

We will also build on our efforts to provide flexibility through offering long-term, general operating support funding. We also seek to provide “support beyond the check” to our partners, offering capacity strengthening supports and bringing partners together to learn and share. In 2023, we awarded 40 capacity strengthening grants to partners, totaling USD $700,000, and brought partners together for in-person convenings in San Francisco, Toronto, and Washington, DC. In 2024, we will expand our support through technical assistance, partner convenings, capacity strengthening opportunities, and uplifting of partner voices.

In 2024, we are committing to developing a JEDI framework in RFPs and funding agreements. The Fund recognizes the enduring presence and resilience of Indigenous People on Turtle Island. In 2024, we commit to bringing an indigenous lens to our work focused on supporting immigrants and refugees.

We are committed to ensuring our team includes diverse voices and lived experience. As the Fund has grown, we have expanded the lived and learned experience represented on our team and will continue to do so, working closely with WES’ director of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, who was hired in 2022, and is leading efforts to capture this data across WES. Further, we seek to foster an inclusive culture and invest in our people’s learning, development, and advancement. In 2022, the Fund brought on an external partner, Just Strategies, to both support our own equity, diversity, and inclusion journey, and to refine our approach and further develop actions towards equity in our grantmaking.