Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
The library is for all. Serving everyone requires additional resources to overcome historic inequities. The Foundation works to fund a more equitable library system and society.
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Institutions like libraries and philanthropic organizations have played a role in creating societal inequities. We have the obligation – and the opportunity – to address past and present harms. The Foundation must ensure that the library has the resources it needs to help remove barriers caused by systemic racism, poverty, ableism, ageism, lack of language access, and other factors.
To support these goals, the Foundation has made significant internal investments in DEI following an action plan adopted in 2020. We seek to center DEI in our culture and practice, and integrate DEI into every policy and procedure. This past year, we:
- Worked with Morgan Stanley to reposition our investment portfolio toward DEI-integrated holdings, a notable shift to ensure our finances align with our values.
- Used an equity lens to guide our search, recruitment, and hiring process for our CEO position, ensuring opportunities for and fair treatment of a wide variety of candidates.
- Developed a new Board recruitment structure and priorities to help diversify, strengthen, and educate our organization and our supporters.
At the library, most of what Foundation donors currently fund has a direct equity focus. Many programs are designed with or prioritized by members of communities impacted by racial, social, educational, economic, and other injustices. Some examples include:

Offering diverse and representative collections
Why: Stories by and about people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and others have traditionally been excluded in publishing and the wider culture – and are now the target of growing censorship nationwide.
What we support: Foundation funding adds more than 100,000 books to the library every year, prioritizing books in multiple languages, formats, and by authors from historically excluded communities in order to build a more diverse, representative, accessible collection for readers. The donor-funded Books Unbanned program opens the resources of our library to young people across America facing censorship or lack of access.

Empowering students for academic success
Why: Library programs prioritize students and families who are furthest away from educational justice and have been disproportionately impacted by pandemic learning loss, particularly in communities of color.
What we support: Donor-supported programs such as Global Reading Challenge, Homework Help, and Summer of Learning provide instruction, activities, books, and fun ways to engage with literacy. These programs prioritize students from Title I schools, those who speak a language other than English at home, and those at an age where kids often lose interest in reading.

Supporting older adults
Why: As the population of our region ages, the library has identified that some people over the age of 50 have greater access to resources than others depending on their background or where they live. Individuals facing physical and mental health challenges, food insecurity, housing insecurity, unemployment, and limited or no digital access have far greater barriers to the resources they need.
What we support: The Foundation funds the library’s Older Adult Programs that support the information and referral needs of this demographic, create opportunities for social and civic engagement, and provide training opportunities for public services staff so that every library is a welcome, safe hub for older people.

Reducing barriers to library access
Why: Not everyone is able to visit a library branch easily, including patrons with barriers due to age, disability, illness, lack of transportation, or neighborhood resources.
What we support: The donor-funded Mobile Services unit prioritizes outreach to the people and places with the most barriers to library access, such as preschools in lower-income communities where students may not have as many literacy resources, older adult facilities like retirement homes and senior centers, housing for people with disabilities, and tiny house villages with residents facing housing insecurity.
The work is ongoing. While we have much more learning and acting to do, the Foundation’s internal and external efforts reflect our commitment to creating a more equitable organization, library system, and society.
This statement was first published in November 2023 and is updated annually to reflect our organization’s progress on DEI efforts. It was last updated in November 2024. To provide feedback on the statement, please contact us at foundation [at] supportspl [dot] org.