This film features Wendy K. White Eagle, founder and CEO of a capital investment company that invests in and develops businesses with a primary interface in Native American communities. A member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, Wendy has life-long experience in philanthropy, although it was only recently that she began to describe herself as a “philanthropist.” She says, “It has always been a part of my life…knowing there’s an intersection, an interdependence between people and that we had a responsibility to take care of each other.” We spoke with Wendy about what influences her philanthropy and how she works to create impact. More »

The third film profile in our series features, Carmen Castellano of San Jose, California. When Carmen and her husband Alcario won $141 million in the California lottery in 2001, they founded the Castellano Family Foundation which is dedicated to the cultivation and enrichment of community, family, social change, empathy, and integrity through support of organizations promoting Latino arts and culture, Latino leadership, and the educational pursuits of Latino students.

Carmen and Alcario had long been active philanthropists in their community, giving time, talent, and treasure, but this windfall allowed them to take their philanthropy to a new level.  Carmen has been a keynote speaker, plenary panelist, and workshop presenter at numerous local, state and national conferences and convenings. She promotes the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion in philanthropy and pushes audiences to move beyond a limited view of who is a philanthropist. She says, “The reason I go public is I want to show the brown face of philanthropy.”

Today, D5 joined GuideStar—an organization that collects data on the programs, finances and impact of more than 1.8 million IRS-recognized nonprofits—in launching a new program to help set standards for how data about diversity within the nonprofit sector is collected.

D5 developed the standards with a wide range of partners to advance transparent and uniform data collection about staff, board, and volunteer demographics in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors, enabling more informed decisions about philanthropy. More »

This film features Maria Bechily, a philanthropist based in Chicago which has been her home since she left Cuba as a refugee in 1961. Maria is the founder of one of the first public relations and marketing agencies to target Hispanics in Chicago. She is also a former board member of the Chicago Community Trust, and the co-founder of Nuestro Futuro, an identity-focused fund at the Chicago Community Trust. Despite her deep and long-standing commitment to giving back to the community, Maria says, “To this day, I feel humbled… when I’m called a philanthropist.”

The Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers and D5 are co-sponsoring a four-part webinar series to support regional associations and their members as they work to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in philanthropy.

The first webinar, Regional Associations Advancing Issues at the Core of All Philanthropy, took place on September 24 and the recording and slides are available here.

Upcoming webinars in the series are: More »