Glossary

• Accessibility: the design, construction, and maintenance of information and structures so that all people, including those with disabilities, can fully and independently use them (informed by Executive Order on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce)

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• Diversity: the differences in human characteristics, identities, and worldviews, including race, gender, age, LGBTQ2IA+, religion, ethnicity, ability and disability, geographic location, language, socio-economic status, and more

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• Foundation: a philanthropic organization, grantmaker, intermediary, funder, or donor institution whose objective is to make grants

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• Community: (community of people impacted): a group of people who are impacted by the foundation’s goals and funding and have lived experience around a certain issue. For simplicity’s sake, we use the word “community” throughout this tool to refer to a group of people connected in some way – through geography, identity, experience, or circumstance – and that a funder is trying to affect with its grants.

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• Equity: fair and just treatment, access, opportunity, and advancement for all people, while striving to identify and eliminate imbalances or barriers that particularly impact marginalized and underrepresented peoples (informed by UC Berkeley Strategic Plan for Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity, 2009)

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• Governance: the board of directors, board of trustees, or steering committee of a foundation

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• Grantee: organization receiving funding

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• Leadership: the executive or co-executive director(s), chief executive officer(s), or top management team of a foundation

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• Participatory Grantmaking: a specific component of participatory philanthropy that shifts decision-making about grant funding to non-funders, often people who are impacted by the foundation’s grants and who have lived experience of the issue the foundation seeks to address (informed by Participatory Grantmaking Community)

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• Staff: foundation employees who are not in leadership roles

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• Inclusion: activities that meaningfully involve people who are traditionally not included in philanthropy, particularly philanthropic decision-making

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• Lived Experience: personal expertise about an issue of injustice not gained through formal education or training but through encounters, events, and experiences that result in relevant perspectives, knowledge, and networks that can inform philanthropy (informed by Porticus’s working definition)

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• Participatory Philanthropy: philanthropy that uses a range of activities, like strategy or evaluation, to engage stakeholders or non-donors across the grantmaking cycle (informed by Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society)

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• Trust-based Philanthropy: philanthropy rooted in a set of values and practices that seek to address power and create equity in philanthropy (informed by Trust-Based Philanthropy Project)