Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Funder Spotlight: Sonia Jagtiani, Program Associate, Western Balkans and Peacebuilding at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund
By Sonia Jagtiani
Peace and Security Funders Group
As the daughter of Indian immigrants, granddaughter of refugees from present-day Pakistan, and as someone who was displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, displacement has played a central role in my life. These experiences have led me to grapple with how my own family’s search for justice and equity are obstructed by the pervasive structures of white supremacy, patriarchy, and colonialism ingrained within society. I’ve increasingly understood that we must intentionally confront these harmful systems for genuine social change.
After working with grassroot groups in Greece and the Middle East, I joined the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) in 2018. Since then, I’ve continued to come to terms with the structural barriers present within society, but also within organizations, even those committed to social justice like the RBF. Historically, social change organizations, despite their missions, have undervalued lived experience — that is, individuals who understand in a real way the issues and challenges they are working to address — as a pivotal ingredient for transforming our societies. Likewise in my own career, I haven’t felt like my insights from working directly with impacted communities and my own lived experience have been valued as a critical asset to advancing social change missions. Even with RBF’s diverse staff, I have often felt like an imposter.
Last year, the RBF conducted an institution-wide equity audit, centering the lived experiences of staff, particularly people of color and women. The audit, facilitated by OneTilt, found that while more than 70 percent of staff report feeling a sense of belonging, more than half experience microaggressions or other forms of bias at work. Staff, particularly those identifying as white, were quite shocked and troubled by these findings while many staff of color expressed feeling validated and their experiences recognized.
The equity audit emanated from RBF’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) process that began in 2008 and evolved significantly after the 2016 U.S. presidential election. As society reckoned with the proliferation of right-wing populism as well as social justice movements like Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, RBF colleagues attempted to grasp the divergent and powerful roles privilege and structural oppression play in shaping our lived experiences, both inside and outside the workplace. To root out structural inequities, we needed to re-examine our own biases and privileges as well as those of our organization.
Since then, the RBF has renewed its commitment to DEI, confronting racial and gender inequity in our organizational culture. The organization has been determined not only to create a workplace where everyone feels a sense of belonging and safety to show up as their authentic selves but also to strengthen its mission of advancing a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world. This work comprised a commitment from leadership; engagement from our Human Resources department; and buy-in from the Black, Asian, Latinx, and white staff to address the structural inequities and power dynamics at the interpersonal and institutional levels, as well as in grantmaking.
Over the last few years, the RBF’s DEI work has focused on building shared understanding through a series of trainings, using experiential learning to unpack and interrupt bias and microaggressions, as well as white supremacist and patriarchal cultures. Staff meet in race-based affinity groups to process daily structural violence towards Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) in a space that aims to cultivate a sense of safety and belonging. The reality of racism is neither optional nor conceptual for people of color (POC). It is deeply and painfully felt, even at the RBF.
The non-Black POC affinity space has allowed me to put my guard down and to process the unintentional and intentional survival mechanisms I’ve adopted to try to belong, and the compromises I’ve made to avoid the racialized harm that essentializes me as different or serves to re-exert oppression. It feels liberating to intentionally work on healing from the labor to fit into a mold shaped by white supremacy and patriarchy. This process has also pushed me to take ownership of how, as a non-Black woman of color, I am both a victim of white supremacist and patriarchal culture, but equally someone who has internalized these norms and standards, thereby perpetuating harm.
The RBF’s staff and the institution have remained steadfast in reflecting on our own roles of causing harm and working to hold ourselves and each other accountable. The RBF also increased resources for the DEI work, creating new staff positions, including a Chief Diversity Officer, and publishing a commitment to becoming an anti-racist, anti-sexist institution, creating accountability both internally and externally. Last year, the RBF allocated $48 million over four years to address critical system failures that underlie both the COVID-19 pandemic and the pervasiveness of racism. This includes $10 million for a racial justice initiative that prioritizes support to Black-led movements and organizations working to dismantle structural racism with an intersectional lens. The institution is a signatory of the WCAPS Pledge on Racism and Discrimination and a member of Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy. The RBF has taken an institutional panel and meeting parity pledge that encourages diversity in the events and meetings in which our staff and grantees participate.
RBF staff are also working to incorporate these vital lessons into our grantmaking. Within my own work—in the Western Balkans and Peacebuilding programs—my colleagues and I seek to better understand inequity in the programs’ contexts and geographic areas. The Peacebuilding program views engaging a diverse array of actors, including communities affected by conflict, as critical to the program’s goal of advancing just and durable peace. Even with research demonstrating the effectiveness of refugees in addressing key challenges within their communities, refugees are routinely depicted as passive recipients of aid rather than actors that are better equipped to address their needs and organize for broader social change. Giving credibility to the vital role of lived experience—including my own—the RBF recently partnered with other donors to provide flexible and accessible funds through a funding call for nascent refugee-led initiatives. The Western Balkans grantmaking promotes pluralistic and inclusive societies across the region’s ethnic, gender, age, cultural, and racial diversity, and prioritizes support to indigenous organizations in the region. Last year, the Western Balkans program co-organized an event with TACSO, an EU-funded project aiming to strengthen the capacity of civil society organizations. As racism and discrimination exist globally, the event enabled participants from the Balkans to learn about the Movement for Black Lives, create pathways for international solidarity, and address anti-Black racism and discrimination in their own contexts.
RBF’s DEI journey has not been without its own mistakes. Initially, the institution did not center structural racism, and it struggled to sustain momentum amid competing demands and societal contexts like COVID-19. But it has learned from this process and strengthened its resolve to becoming anti-racist and anti-sexist. This work is guided by the recognition that BIPOC communities from the Global North and Global South both face persistent structural violence and are at the forefront of working toward dismantling it. By confronting the systems of harm of which we are all a part, we can cultivate spaces for vulnerability, accountability, and, ultimately, transformation. The work of the RBF and my own DEI journey have increased my resilience and ability to show up as my whole self. My work is strengthened by my intimate experiences of structural oppression and displacement, as well as the increased recognition of the unique value of lived experience in advancing societal transformation.
Justice can only be achieved when we can all come into community with one another and work towards creating sustainable solutions for all. The RBF’s and my individual path to DEI is only a tiny piece of the puzzle needed to transform our societies. We have much more work to do so all of us can access belonging, dignity, and safety in community, and to realize a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world.