Three Ways to Make Participatory Grantmaking Truly Participatory and Equitable

Participatory grantmaking is still not the norm in philanthropy. Informing a fund through lived expertise is a rarity, but it shouldn’t be. If you think about it, who can better address existing barriers and disparities than the people who have experienced them? We urge the philanthropic sector to create more participatory grantmaking opportunities, as Ascend at the Aspen Institute and Imaginable Futures did for us through the Parent-Powered Solutions Fund — where we engaged in grantmaking as parent advisors — recognizing that those opportunities move us toward more equitable investments in children and families.

But centering diverse perspectives and lived expertise in philanthropy is just a starting point.

We learned this over the last year and a half as we created, led and evaluated the Parent-Powered Solutions Fund to support the success of the more than 4 million student parents across the country. We are two of 11 parent advisors with Ascend at the Aspen Institute’s Postsecondary Success for Parents (PSP) initiative — current and former student parents juggling raising a family, working and studying in a postsecondary pathway like a college or workforce development program.

Our goal was to select organizations and institutions dedicated to student parent success that reflected the full diversity of student parents, and this required us to collectively recognize the intersectionality and multiple, marginalized identities that student parents often possess.

We hope that funders, foundations and nonprofits can build on our experience to create more participatory grantmaking opportunities. Here are three meaningful strategies that will build a stronger pathway for future grantmakers.

1. Implement a strong DEI and intersectionality framework from the beginning.

It’s important to acknowledge that bringing a diverse group of people together does not mean that they will automatically have a shared understanding of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) principles. Equity is nuanced and deserves a deep dive to help grantmakers better understand disparities and honor intersectionality. Work with participatory grantmakers to support their understanding of DEI and intersectionality before they start evaluating applications by offering trainings or workshops with DEI facilitators.

When our cohort of Ascend Parent Advisors met for the first time back in August 2022, we sat in a circle of chairs sharing our individual stories and learned about the many barriers to success student parents can face. Listening to the varied experiences of our fellow student parents — including single fathers, residents of rural counties and students at tribal colleges — all so different from our own, was deeply moving. And although we are both Latina mothers, our experiences as an undergrad solo parent in California and a single parent pursuing a Ph.D. in Texas are understandably different.

We knew we were all committed to student parent success, but during the fund’s deliberation process, we learned we didn’t have a shared understanding of intersectionality and how widely it shapes student parents’ experiences. After all, 2 in 5 Black women and more than 1 in 5 Black, Indigenous, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander men in college today are student parents.

Our hearts dropped when we realized that our initial efforts weren’t reflecting the diverse experiences of student parents. Through challenging conversations, we realized that it wasn’t that our group’s values differed, but that we weren’t all aware of the intersectionality and disparities that exist among student parents. Once we raised this and shared our perspectives, our group’s overall awareness was broadened.

2. Provide individual check-ins with grantmakers.

Participatory grantmaking is empowering, but difficult conversations like the ones we had can also take an emotional toll. In addition to group discussions, create a safe space for participatory grantmakers to express their thoughts, questions and concerns one on one throughout the process.

It took a lot of emotional labor to navigate our group’s important DEI and intersectionality discussions, particularly because we took our responsibility as grantmakers seriously. We were entrusted with uplifting organizations — and the student parents they serve — that often couldn’t easily advocate for themselves in the postsecondary world. Having our own leadership and expertise respected in this grantmaking process mattered, and that meant we sometimes needed a dedicated space to speak our thoughts before sharing them in wider group conversations.

We’re thankful for the Ascend staff, who listened to and addressed our concerns as they came up. Because of this, we recommend that individual check-ins be a part of any participatory grantmaking process, allowing grantmakers the opportunity to, for example, meet with an organization’s dedicated staff member who can serve as a listening ear.

3. Recognize the value of qualitative feedback.

People aren’t simply numbers, and some aspects of the grantmaking process can’t be evaluated through a quantitative lens alone. In addition to quantitative scoring of applications, ensure that grantmakers are aware of and feel comfortable discussing other factors that impact the applications under review.

We received 144 applications to our RFP, and narrowing them down was more overwhelming than anticipated. We initially only used a quantitative scoring method to narrow down applications, but we were disillusioned with the results, which tended to favor organizations that didn't necessarily reflect the diverse experiences of student parents. We were aware that larger organizations and institutions could likely afford more staff and more easily put together an application — but we didn’t want to overlook less-resourced organizations making a difference.

Our group slowly realized that we couldn’t simply reduce organizations to a score. Nuance was needed: Where were applicants located? What student parent populations were they serving? We wanted the final grantees to be a true representation of what we were hoping to achieve with the fund, and DEI requires a multifaceted lens that weighs quantitative and qualitative information.

When our cohort of Ascend Parent Advisors made our final selections, we brought not just the collective power of our lived experiences and inherent diversity, but also a new, greater understanding that intersectionality means student parents with multiple identities may experience unique barriers to postsecondary success — and may need tailored supports.

We are grateful to have been exposed through this process to more student parent experiences and for the opportunity to advocate for those underrepresented in this field. Today, we celebrate the 2023-24 Parent-Powered Solutions Fund Partners — six organizations and institutions from states as varied as Hawaii and New Jersey that are innovatively advancing postsecondary success for student parents from different backgrounds, including incarcerated parents and survivors of trauma. We’re proud of the role we played in their selection, and we can’t wait to see what they’ll accomplish.

Maria Isabel Ramos Martinez is pursuing her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley and is an Ascend Parent Advisor with Ascend at the Aspen Institute.

Kimberly Salazar is a research assistant at the Urban Institute and an Ascend Parent Advisor with Ascend at the Aspen Institute. She graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 2023.

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