Diversity, equity, and inclusion: progress in 2024

• Learn about our commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)
• See other updates on DEI including data gathered about Esmée's team and funding

On this page

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• Pillar 1: Invests time and resources in understanding and defining diversity, equity and inclusion
• Pillar 2: Produces and reviews strategies that will implement DEI practices
• Pillar 3: Collects, tracks and publishes DEI data on its own practices and performance
• Pillar 4: Has a diverse Board of Trustees and staff team, both in terms of demographics and experience
• Pillar 5: Reflects and implements DEI practices in its funding activities
• Pillar 6: Expresses its DEI commitment, policies and practices publicly
• Pillar 7: Makes itself accountable to those it serves and supports
• Pillar 8: Uses its own power to advocate for and advance DEI practices
• Pillar 9: Collaborates with others to promote and implement DEI practices
• Actions planned for 2025

Pillar 1: Invests time and resources in understanding and defining diversity, equity and inclusion

• We held our annual DEI training for staff and Trustees; and are planning further, more strategy-focused, training for the funding team in 2025.
• We started our membership of the Ten Years’ Time Community of Practice, a three-year holistic programme of support and development for funders and charities on their journey towards racial justice. The programme has been designed in response to insights from clients wanting to embed equitable practices, anti-racism, and racial and economic justice.

Pillar 2: Produces and reviews strategies that will implement DEI practices

• In our second year of offering Access Payments towards accessibility-related support for applicants, we approved four payments.
• We undertook a listening exercise with grantees under our Racial Justice priority to understand how as best support racial justice organisations, and will be publishing the findings and recommendations in early 2025.

Pillar 3: Collects, tracks and publishes DEI data on its own practices and performance

• We ran our fifth annual survey of trustees and staff to track diversity progress in terms of gender, ethnicity, disability, age, and sexual orientation. In 2023, we expanded the survey to include socioeconomic background and added questions about salary to help us understand pay gap data. The survey shows our gender pay gap is 17.4%; ethnicity pay gap is 17.8%; and our disability pay gap is 7.7%. This is due to the Foundation having fewer men in the staff team, and the majority of them being in senior roles. The findings also reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of different teams – for example, our resources team in the most diverse and has more junior roles; and our funding and senior management teams are the least diverse. Actions we are taking to help us address our pay gap include:
  • Focusing on professional development opportunities to put staff in a strong position when vacancies become available and looking at other opportunities for staff in junior and mid-level roles to develop their careers internally, including when vacancies arise.
  • Working only with recruitment partners who can demonstrate a very strong record on diversity, ensuring we have diverse shortlists and selection panels, and looking where there may be other barriers in our recruitment practice or process, which may disadvantage candidates.
  • Continuing to monitor and report on our pay gap, annually.
• We shared our third annual report of who our funding is reaching, which is based on data gathered from DEI monitoring forms (using the DEI Data Standard) submitted by applicants and organisations funded in 2024. The report covers the following population groups: population groups in the analysis includes: communities experiencing racial inequity, disabled people, people who are educationally or economically disadvantaged, LGBT+ people, migrants, and women and girls. There is also an overview of grants awarded by geographic location.
• We commissioned a review of the DEI Data Standard, with other funders, which will be completed in early 2025.
• One of our commitments is to fund more organisations led by and for communities experiencing racial inequity. Based on data we gathered using the DEI Data Standard about our funding in 2024, we made 52 grants totalling £7.8m to organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity, including 11 organisations funded through our New Connections programme. 25% of organisations we funded who submitted DEI data said they are led by communities experiencing racial inequity. This is an increase from 2023 when it was 19%.
• The total amount awarded to organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity was 20.3%, which is a small decrease when compared to 2023, where it was 23.1%. This is partly due to two £1.5m grants we made in 2023 and 11 New Connections grants of £70,000 made in 2024. New Connections is an initiative to find and fund organisations who do not meet our usual governance criteria, and which prioritised organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity. Organisations were awarded a total of £70,000 to support their core costs as well as their participation in a two-year Peer Learning Network.
• Some information about our funding to organisations led by communities experiencing racial inequity is below. You can find details of all our funding on 360Giving.
  • Most of the grants are towards our funding priorities in A Fairer Future and include Level Up, Migrants Organise, and Coffee Afrik.
  • In Our Natural World, examples of our funding include All the Elements, who work with leaders improving diversity across conservation, environment, sustainability, and sport; and Land in Our Names, a Black and People of Colour-led grassroots collective working for land justice through reparations.
  • In Creative, Confident Communities, examples of our funding include Anti Racist Cumbria, who are working to make Cumbria the first actively anti-racist county in the UK; and Grapevine, who support communities across Coventry and Warwickshire to take collective action and create their futures.

Pillar 4: Has a diverse Board of Trustees and staff team, both in terms of demographics and experience

• We set up advisory panels for our work in A Fairer Future and Creative, Confident Communities, which include experts by experience. As with our advisory panel for Our Natural World, panel members will help us to deliver our strategy by giving high-level, expert, strategic advice, sharing their insight and reflections on our work, and identifying new opportunities to achieve our goals.
• Our Trustees have commissioned an independent Board effectiveness review in 2025 which will include issues relating to DEI.
• We work with recruiters with a stated commitment to DEI and set expectations in our briefs for representation on longlists and shortlists.
• We held two well-being sessions for Esmée staff from communities experiencing racial inequity.

Pillar 5: Reflects and implements DEI practices in its funding activities

• We funded 20 organisations which are led by and supporting communities experiencing racial inequity or migrants, through our New Connections programme (9 grants were made in 2023 and 11 in 2024). We also published a blog sharing reflections from the development of the programme.
• We launched the Youth-led Creativity programme in February co-designed with our Involving Young People Collective, which focuses on work led by and for young people who are underrepresented in arts and culture. To improve accessibility, we developed EasyRead guidance, and trialled audio and video applications for the first time. In September, we made 10 grants based on the joint recommendations of our young consultants and Esmée staff.
• We will use learning from initiatives such as New Connections, Youth-Led Creativity as well as external initiatives to review how we understand and define impact, as well as our expectations for organisations – particularly for community-led organisations, and the implications for us.
• Through Funding Plus, we offered additional support, without the need of an application, to some of the organisations we fund – this included:
  • Support to organisations who work with communities affected by the far-right riots so they can take quick actions to support their communities.
  • A £5,000 wellbeing grant to 50 organisations we fund to support their staff, volunteers, and Trustees. Organisations were identified from our learning data and our funding relationships.

Pillar 6: Expresses its DEI commitment, policies and practices publicly

• We started developing an approach for assessing the DEI commitments of applicants and organisations we fund, which we will share in 2025.
• We report on progress on DEI in the Annual Report and on our website.
• We are a signatory to the RACE Report, a transparency initiative to speed up diversity and inclusion within the environment sector. Read a blog with our reflections about the 2024 findings and our plans.

Pillar 7: Makes itself accountable to those it serves and supports

• We carried out our second survey of applicants and funded organisations with nfpResearch which gathered and shared data transparently on perceptions of barriers to Esmée support, and our work on DEI.
• We set up a peer network for organisations with staff with lived experience of the issues they are trying to tackle, which was run by Peer Power and Emily Sun. We will be sharing learning and insights from this in 2025.
• We held webinars and used BSL interpretation as standard to be more transparent and open to challenge.

Pillar 8: Uses its own power to advocate for and advance DEI practices

• We are working with Ocean and Coastal Futures to accelerate change in the UK marine sector. We also funded a bursary for people from underrepresented communities to attend the Coastal Futures conference for a second year.
• We are working with partners to co-design a leadership programme for People of Colour in the environment sector.
• We are reviewing the DEI support grantees have commissioned through Funding Plus since 2020 and will share findings internally and externally in 2025.
• We supported a funder roundtable to share emerging practice on trans inclusive funding.
• We are supporting an action research project with Locality members to understand the role of place-based community organisations within racial justice and develop anti-racist practice in the community sector.

Pillar 9: Collaborates with others to promote and implement DEI practices

• We are a Member of Funders for Race Equality Alliance (FREA) and actively work with other funders to advance DEI together.
• We are committed to learning from funders delivering ring-fenced funds such as Baobab Foundation.

Actions planned for 2025

• We will be reviewing how we make funding decisions and developing a decision-making framework that is practical, equitable, clear, consistent and accessible to all users – including applicants.
• We will use learning from internal initiatives such as New Connections and Youth-Led Creativity to consider what actions we can take forward into our main funding practice.
• We will reflect on reports – those we commissioned such as the Racial Justice listening exercise and review of DEI support through Funding Plus, as well as external reports in the sector – to help us identify and prioritise further actions to take.
• We will review our funding data in terms of DEI to help us understand our progress in terms of our DEI commitments including giving more long-term funding and support to organisations working to advance racial justice.