DIVERSITY, EQUItY & INCLUSION

Anne Arundel Women Giving Together is deeply committed to understanding, and working to help ameliorate, racial inequities in our community.

• Our Racial Equity Study Group (RESG), now in its third year and composed of 50+ members, meets monthly to discuss a range of social justice, diversity and racial equity issues.
• In early 2021, the RESG supported our Grants Committee in establishing a new $20,000 grants category to address the causes, not just the effects, of racial discrimination. That award was made in May.
• A consultant on unconscious bias was engaged to work with grant reviewers and AAWGT leadership in January and a second program was offered to our general membership in May.
  
• A Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee was created to conduct an audit of AAWGT’s policies and procedures with the goal of implementing an action plan to address these issues as AAWGT invests, informs, and inspires.
  

We will continue to update members and the general public on these and other initiatives on a regular basis.

Research shows that members of giving circles:

• Give more and give in more strategic ways than other donors

• Are highly engaged in their communities

• Give to a greater number of organizations

• Have an even greater impact in difficult economic times because members pool their donations and are able to make larger grants.