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Diversity and Inclusion

The Chesapeake Bay Trust has a mission to promote the public awareness and participation of all local residents in the restoration and protection of our region’s natural resources through its grant-making. In order to achieve its mission and fully perform as an organization, the Trust commits to:

  • Fostering the inclusion of individuals and groups from diverse backgrounds including, but not limited to, age, gender, race, creed, ethnicity, national origin, religious beliefs, physical abilities, sexual orientation, military service, citizenship, and socioeconomic status in all of the endeavors of the Trust.
  • Expanding the dialogue between communities that lead to new collaborations and identify co-benefits of environmental and community projects.
  • Partnership with new grantees, donors, vendors, and others to seek new ways to restore and protect our natural resources.
  • Learning and sharing best practices that increase the engagement of all local residents in the ongoing effort to restore our natural resources and our communities.
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The grant award from the Trust’s Watershed Assistance Grant Program allowed our organization to build excitement in our community of Forest Park for green spaces. The residents now have the enthusiasm to become better environmental stewards. The process of sustaining the environmental stewardship sentiment is contingent upon many factors, not the least of which is visible investment in neighborhoods.

Laurence CampbellPresident WBC Community Development Corporation, Baltimore, Maryland
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The Family Tree Adoption Program planted trees and engaged citizens in Riverdale, Bladensburg, Landover, Glendale, Hyattsville, and Mount Rainier. The Prince George’s Stormwater Stewardship grant program funding allowed us to extend our nonprofit’s reach and learn more about tree planting and the maintenance needed to keep trees healthy. We will build on this work and continue to engage citizens with a recent award to Global Health Education Projects, Inc.

Romuladus E. Azuine, Ph.D.Executive Director, Global Health Education Projects, Inc.

The Trust’s Diversity and Inclusion Initiative

In order to meet these goals, the Trust’s Diversity and Inclusion Initiative was launched in 2008. Our efforts to engage people across the region – from urban to suburban to rural to agriculture communities – are overseen by our Diversity and Inclusion Committee, a subcommittee of our Board of Trustees along with 10 outside diversity experts.

We take the following steps to ensure engagement with all communities:

  • Maintain a tracking system to quantify demographics of our grantees and the audiences they serve.
  • Require all grant program Technical Review Committees to include members from various communities.
  • Hire “connector” groups to relay what our grant opportunities can do for communities across the region.
  • Include language on all of our grant program Requests for Proposals (RFPs) encouraging all applicants to apply.
  • Follow a procurement policy for our non-grant work which requires outreach to MBE/WBE/DBE firms.
  • Provide incentives for seasoned grantees to serve as mentors to new applicants.
  • Restructure grant programs as appropriate to ensure that we continue to serve all communities across the region from urban to suburban to rural to agriculture communities. For example, we transformed our Community Engagement Mini-Grant Program to only be accessible to new applicants. We also changed the language of this opportunity to prioritize community improvements.

Next Steps

We recognize that this work is ongoing and ever evolving to successfully increase overall engagement of people across the region. While we do not have target percentages or specific goals, we have a general goal of ensuring that our grants serve the demographics of our region.

In 2015, our Diversity and Inclusion Committee identified three under-engaged audiences the Trust should engage more in grant-making:

  • communities of color,
  • faith-based communities, and
  • human health sector.

Our position is that all residents benefit from healthy natural resources, and, in turn, all residents have the opportunity to benefit natural resources. For these two reasons, the Trust will continue to reach out to a wide range of audiences.

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