This is the second interview in our “Inclusive Philanthropy: Foundations and Disability Rights” series, where we explored how philanthropic foundations support disability rights and disability advocates.
We interviewed Catherine Hyde Townsend, Senior Advisor for Disability Inclusion at the Ford Foundation. The Ford Foundation supports organisations in America, Africa, The Middle East and Asia that tackle inequality and injustice. Attention: the Ford Foundation does not provide funding for advocacy and policy work within Europe, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union or Russia.
Question: How is the Ford Foundation advancing disability-inclusive development? Can you tell us some of the main programmes you support?
Answer: Ford is committed to disability inclusion throughout all of our grantmaking – whether it be funding led by our 10 regional offices around the world, our global thematic programs or our US-based programs. We do this by providing learning to all staff who make grants and providing guidance on assessing proposals for disability-specific and inclusive work (the latter being work with a broader focus than disability that includes intentional activities, budget or decision-making that engages people with disabilities).
The areas we work in are detailed on our website, such as natural resources and climate change, work to combat gender-based violence and equality in technology and digital spaces. Our program leadership expects every team to integrate disability rights grantmaking and holds teams accountable for annual targets.
Question: The GLAD Network is a coordination body for donors supporting disability-inclusive international development and humanitarian aid. What are the benefits for the Ford Foundation of being a member of this network?
Answer: Given the chronic underfunding of disability rights work, donor communication and collaboration becomes even more critical. The GLAD network provides a frame for the Ford Foundation to understand the landscape of global funding, and the particular role we can play – oftentimes in funding newer, more nascent efforts (such as Black Disabled Lives Matter Brazil), while also potentially influencing our peers – for example to dedicate more attention to gender equity in their disability funding. In building our approach to disability inclusion, we also borrowed and learned from others such as Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the World Bank and UNICEF.
Question: How does the organisation involve and collaborate with persons with disabilities (and their representative organisations) when deciding which actions to support?
Answer: We work with organisations of persons with disabilities in a number of ways. First, in developing our disability strategies, we engage external stakeholders (including representative organisations) to inform the priorities and focus. For example, our US Disability Rights program was the very first program at Ford to start with community input. Second, we encourage funding of and connections to organisations of persons with disabilities. At times, our strategies and systems are not as inclusive of representative organisations as we want. In those cases, we ask non-disability organizations engaged in disability advocacy which representative organisations or persons with disabilities they partner with, how these organisations inform or lead their disability work, and how they see themselves accountable to the disability community.