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), formed in 2019, has grown to more than 70 members who meet monthly to discuss a range of social justice, diversity, and racial equity issues.
• Working with the Grants Committee, our revised grant application and review process and our strong commitment to trust based philanthropy now lead to more equitable approaches in working with greater equity for our community.
• We brought in a consultant to help our leadership and the membership at large learn about unconscious bias and apply what we learned to our Education programs, Membership outreach and all events.
  
• A Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility committee was spun off to review AAWGT’s policies and procedures with the goal of addressing these issues as AAWGT continues our mission to Invest, Inform, and Inspire.
  

Our monthly meetings include discussions with community representatives on a variety of subjects, field trips, sharing information from other giving circles and philanthropic organizations, and news and information about events that members share at each meeting. A report on each meeting is presented to the Steering Committee each month. All meetings are open to all members and new members join each time.

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.