WORKING TOWARD EQUITY

Waters Meet Action Fund’s work of political advocacy and organizing is guided by the Equity Healing Framework.

Health equity defined

We embrace a definition of health equity adapted from work by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation:

Health equity means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. This requires removing obstacles to health such as poverty, discrimination, and their consequences, including powerlessness and lack of access to good jobs with fair pay, quality education and housing, safe environments, and health care. Our commitment to health equity requires us to recognize the specific histories, cultures, and circumstances of the communities we serve, and to engage the strength, supports, and successes that exist within each of those communities.

A community-driven approach

Communities can more freely move toward balance and abundance if the work we support is:

Community driven

Centers historically disadvantaged communities, especially BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color), 2SLGBTQIA+, disabled, rural, and low-income communities

Enhances the use of these communities’ cultures

Is led by trusted folks who are a part of the communities served

Removes barriers (power, money, information) to communities’ authorities

Transitioning to more equitable philanthropy

Waters Meet Action Fund and our sister foundation Waters Meet began with a focus on what we funded and advocated rather than how. This attitude allowed us to operate with a presumption that controlling and dispensing financial resources made us experts, and that hewing to program areas was the only relevant measure of whether we were effective as a funding organization.

Over months of deep conversation, reflection, and refinement, drawing on input and insights from those we serve, our Board, community members, and our own serious reflections, we have identified a new approach to our work that focuses on the how, recentering power in traditionally marginalized communities.

Building Connections

Connect to see and be seen in ways that change us.

Listening Deeply

Hold space for communities to imagine the lives they want together.

Increasing Momentum

Link moments of possibility with community action.

Transforming Barriers

Hold power responsible as communities rise up.

Lifting Up Opportunities

Reflect communities’ strength as they do their work.

Using data to learn what communities need

Philanthropic organizations frequently use data collected from their initiatives and programs to validate outcomes and success. A more equitable approach for the communities we work with is using data to help and support those who do the work.

Measuring for Learning

Supporting self-evaluation

so that primary actors (particularly those with lived experience) can be the drivers of the entire measurement lifecycle, from design to data collection to analysis.

Surfacing invisible value

with a focus on documenting the quality of relationships and experiences emanating from individuals and communities.

Shortening feedback loops

to measure in real-time, with discoveries quickly available to primary actors who are positioned as problem-solvers.

Measuring for meaning

with measuring integrated across processes and programs, not merely as “bookends” to count narrowly defined “outcomes” of funding.