Tax-Exempt Approaches to Decision-Making Informed by Race : Terminology, Definitions, Risk and Focus on Racial Equity and Justice

This paper focuses on presenting a spectrum of relevant approaches for charities, foundations, and others seeking to become more intentional about incorporating race into their programmatic (as opposed to employment, investment, or other operational) decision-making. Having a common nomenclature and understanding of how to characterize the types of racial equity and justice approaches and outcomes can facilitate those discussions and decisions internally and with others. This paper does not seek to provide answers; but rather; presents a suggested framework, including approaches, terminology, definitions, and practices to help advance those discussions. The approaches are as follows: race-neutral, race-aware, race-conscious, and race-based. In addition to discussing definitions and practices within each approach, this paper also presents considerations about their risk of potential exposure (e.g., § 1981 and/or Title VI), potential mitigation strategies, and degrees of perceived intentionality about pursuing racial equity and justice. Those considerations are highly imperfect, are not to any scale, and are for illustrative purposes only. Moreover, they do not consider the many other factors that affect exposure, nor do they purport to be translatable for analyzing reputational risks/benefits, which also are unique to an organization and its circumstances