As the NIH moves away from traditional score-based paylines toward a “unified funding strategy,” nonprofit biomedical funders may see some similarities to their own holistic approaches to grantmaking. Yet the NIH’s shift is happening in a moment of intense legal and political pressure on DEI in research funding and of questionable transparency in funding decisions. 

In this open mic session, members of the HRA DEI Learning Community will discuss whether discretion in funding decisions protect or threaten equity. How do we measure and defend the impact of inclusive grantmaking when “priorities” can shift? And what can nonprofit funders learn (or unlearn) from how federal agencies are navigating this tension? We invite our community to share how their organizations are thinking about funding decision frameworks in light of these developments.