An Oven Mitt for Hot Issues: Using Data to Talk About Equity
December 18, 2024
Rochester Area Community Foundation’s long track record in equity work was recently recognized by the leading national support organization for community foundations, CFLeads. One case study within a series entitled Community Foundations as Leaders of Place-Based Equity Work focuses on what makes Rochester Area Community Foundation’s equity work meaningful and enduring.
Key ingredients in the Foundation’s ongoing equity journey:
Building buy-in from a diverse board of directors
Cultivating relationships with nonprofits that know their communities
Focusing on specific groups of people rather than abstract problems
Learning alongside other organizations with a similar vision
Establishing a culture of learning and innovation
The report lifts up the Foundation’s use of data as a tool to combat inequities across the eight-county region. In polarizing times, Community Foundation President & CEO Simeon Banister believes that leading with data can help spark more productive conversations. “Data can be like an oven mitt for hot issues,” says Simeon. “It can help people acknowledge that we have an issue with racial equity in this community.”
“Data can be like an oven mitt for hot issues. It can help people acknowledge that we have an issue with racial equity in this community.”
Simeon Banister, Community Foundation President & CEO
Here are a few ways the Foundation is using data to guide positive community change:
The Foundation supported a 2021 survey which found that 52% of respondents believed that the standard of living gap between Black and white residents has gotten larger over the past ten years. This kind of data drives home the need to address racial equity, which is why Fostering Racial and Ethnic Understanding and Equity is one of the Foundation’s grantmaking focus areas.
ACT Rochester recently published a blog post offering resources on how to engage with data — and emotions — related to crime and public safety. ACT Rochester, an initiative of the Community Foundation, highlights the confusion people feel when data shows a decline in crime while residents feel less safe than ever in downtown Rochester and encourages readers to dig deeper to understand the disconnect.
Only 10% of the businesses in the Rochester metro area are minority-owned. If that number achieved parity with the demographics in Rochester, minority-owned businesses would rise to 21%, create nearly 45,000 new jobs, and generate almost $2 billion in new income (Living Cities Closing the Gaps Network: Homeownership and Business Stats and Growth City of Rochester Needs Assessment, 2022). This data helped define the need for the Rochester Procurement Equity Project, an initiative of the Community Foundation that aims to transform the purchasing practices of our region’s employers to benefit local Black- and Brown-owned businesses.
