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2025 Foundations of Racial Equity

Foundations of Racial Equity (FRE) provides training for philanthropic practitioners to understand how anti-Black racism and white supremacy influence the field of the practice of philanthropy and provides opportunities for action in your organizations.

FRE is a five-part virtual cohort program that blends faculty-led content sessions with a peer-learning model. The FRE Series was created by NCG in 2020 to fill a much-needed gap in the sector. In its fifth year, its impact and continued need have evolved it into this year’s national offering, presented in partnership with Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, Northern California Grantmakers, and Southern California Grantmakers evolve.

Each session is a 3-hour faculty-led session held on Thursdays from 1:00 – 4:00 pm ET for a total of five sessions. Following each session, there will be an integration hour. Integration Hours are 1-hour lightly facilitated peer-learning spaces between each faculty-led session, where participants can reflect on and apply key themes from earlier sessions to discuss how FRE topics relate to current internal and sector-wide cultural shifts, especially in the face of rapid organizational changes.

Start Date: October 2, 2025
End Date: December 9, 2025

Registration is open now until Thursday, September 25 or once we reach capacity, whichever comes first.

Registration Fees

  • Member Pricing: $900
  • Non-Member Pricing: $1,200

Group discounts are available. Please contact us PRIOR to registration.

Note: Use the “+” tab below to expand additional information about the series.

The guiding purpose of Foundations of Racial Equity (FRE) program series is to provide training for philanthropic practitioners to understand how anti-Black racism and white supremacy influence the field of philanthropy and our practices and to provide opportunities for action in your organizations based on what you learn here. We cannot shift systems or our organizations without understanding how we got here, nor without looking at ourselves, at our relationships and at our organizations themselves.

In order to undo systems of oppression, we need to understand the foundations of systemic anti-Black racism and white supremacy in our country. We are all living in a culture that centers on whiteness as the standard mode of operation, fallaciously claiming that proximity to whiteness, and away from Blackness, is the measure of humanity. Each of us can understand the role we have to play in our fight towards racial equity and justice by centering systemic anti-Black racism within an intersectional framework through which we understand the social, economic, historical, and cultural dimensions of human life.

Anti-Black racism and white supremacy are embedded in philanthropy and in our institutions, often invisible to the majority of us, even as we work with intention towards equity and justice. As change agents within philanthropy, we are stretching to become our best selves, rise to the moment, and progress toward racial equity. We are moving through the discomfort that comes along with sustainable change, for on the other side of discomfort… is liberation.

The Foundations of Racial Equity series is a space for GEO, NCG, and SCG members (and member-eligible organizations) to be in fellowship on the path to racial justice. All are welcome here, advocates and aspirants alike. Wherever you are on your journey, we invite you to consider how this series will support you in making progress on your anti-racism journey.

We acknowledge and recognize that members exist on a spectrum. Some are already well along in their racial equity journey, and others are just beginning. In this training series, we’ll provide participants with opportunities to explore the foundations of racial equity, and the ways systemic anti-Black racism most commonly plays out in philanthropy. You should join this series if:

  • You are beginning your learning journey with your awareness of the impacts of systemic anti-Black racism and white supremacy in institutional philanthropy.
  • You want to bolster your anti-racism efforts with content that gives you a foundational and holistic understanding of how racism shows up in philanthropy, and how to make progress towards racial equity in your institution.
  • Your foundation does not squarely see racial equity as your target work but understands its importance.
  • You want to act on racial equity and don’t know where to start.

Please note that all functional areas within organizations are welcome, including full teams and trustees.

Cohort learning offers a space where all forms of sectoral and community knowledge are embraced and valued. As a participant in the series, we’d like you to engage with both structured faculty-facilitated content sessions and peer-centered “integration hours.” These are 1-hour lightly facilitated sessions between each faculty-facilitated FRE session. The purpose is to help participants reflect on and apply key themes from earlier sessions and create a peer-driven environment for discussing how FRE topics relate to current internal and sector-wide cultural shifts, especially in the face of rapid organizational changes. The space encourages real-time dialogue and shared learning, helping attendees connect insights to their own contexts and return to their organizations with practical tools and understanding.

Faculty-Led Session: Thursday, October 2, 2025 – 1:00 pm ET (3-hour session)

Organization: Liberation in a Generation

Integration Hour: Tuesday, October 7 – 2:00 pm ET (1-hour session)

In the introductory module of the Foundations of Racial Equity Series, we explore racial capitalism, which describes the current economic system of extracting social and economic value from a person of a different racial identity. Racial capitalism is based on the theft, exclusion and exploitation of the land, labor, and capital of people of color. Philanthropy—as a social, political, and economic strategy of society’s wealthiest people, mostly white men, and institutions that “do good” while moving wealth without tax exposure—upholds racial capitalism.

Faculty-Led Session: Thursday, October 16 – 1:00 pm ET (3-hour session)

Organization: Race Forward

Integration Hour: Friday, October 17 – 2:00 pm ET (1-hour session)

In order to undo systems of oppression, it is crucial to understand the foundations of systemic racism in our country. This second module to the Foundations of Racial Equity Series will offer opportunities to explore the historical, cultural, and political roots of race and racism in the U.S. Race Forward faculty will help participants understand the origins and applications of racial hierarchies, the four interconnected levels of racism – individual, interpersonal, institutional and structural – and how to begin recognizing and addressing structural racism in the philanthropic field, using practical applications. Trainers will also help participants explore and understand intersectionality as a form of praxis that helps us to understand and collectively address the common threads between racism and other inequalities.

Faculty-Led Session: Thursday, November 6 – 1:00 pm ET (3-hour session)

Organization: ABFE, a Philanthropic Partnership for Black Communities

Integration Hour: Wednesday, November 12 – 2:00 pm ET (1-hour session)

In the third session, ABFE faculty will guide participants through an introduction to ABFE’s framework for advancing racial equity through policies and practices. The training will focus on the incorporation of a structural lens to the work of grantmaking, and an introduction to the use of core tools to advance racial equity. The tools will cover the following topics: 1) Data disaggregation and disparity point analysis, 2) Racial equity impact analysis and 3) Effective communication.

 

Faculty-Led Session: Thursday, November 20 – 1:00 pm ET (3-hour session)

Organization: Spiral Path Consulting

Integration Hour: Friday, November 21 – 2:00 pm ET (1-hour session)

This fourth module of the Foundations of Racial Equity Series focuses on the importance of healing justice as a strategy, framework and way of being within philanthropic institutions. The session will focus on internal organizational practices and external opportunities for philanthropy to resource healing justice strategies.

Faculty-Led Session: Thursday, December 4 – 1:00 pm ET (3-hour session)

Organization: Team Dynamics

Integration Hour: Tuesday, December 9 – 2:00 pm ET (90-minute session)

In the fifth session of the Foundations of Racial Equity Series, we will deepen our understanding of where and how identity-based assumptions and inequities are often baked into organizational policies and norms.

In this highly experiential session, participants will engage in conversation and activities to practice noticing and linking patterns around identity to policies and practices that could be greatly improved to be more expansive and inclusive. We will cover topics like organizational culture (the unwritten rules), how human resources can play a helpful role, and how financial decisions like vendor choice, where your operating capital goals, and how you prioritize your investments and partnerships all have potential equity layers, opportunities and implications.

We will cover topics like organizational culture (the unwritten rules), how human resources can play a helpful role, and how financial decisions like vendor choice, where your operating capital goals, and how you prioritize your investments and partnerships all have potential equity layers, opportunities and implications.

Series Closing:

The closing Integration Hour on December 9 will be extended to feature a call back to the content on Healing Justice, facilitated by Marisol Jiménez. This session aims to support participants in planning for the necessary resources and restoration practices, empowering them to advance critical race equity work in an increasingly chaotic system.

In 2025, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO), Northern California Grantmakers (NCG), and Southern California Grantmakers (SCG) evolve are working in partnership to deliver this series of programming.

 

Registration Fees Per Participant
Member Price: $900
Nonmember Price: $1,200

Group Discount Info
We are offering organizations a group discount of three for the price of two and five for the price of four. Larger groups may be accommodated upon request. If you would like to take advantage of these rates, please email afia@geofunders.org PRIOR to registration.

Refund Policy
All registrations are non-refundable. No requests for refunds will be granted for no shows. Participants may choose to transfer their registration to a colleague or peer with the same membership level. Transfers must be requested by September 18, 2025. No refunds will be issued for transferred registrations.

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