Fact Sheet Urban Institute and Federal Equity Initiatives
Examples, Resources, and Analyses from the Urban Institute’s Office of Race and Equity Research (ORER)
Rekha Balu, Olivia Soledad, Jimena Vallejo
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The Urban Institute offers briefings, resources and partnership with federal agencies to advance their equity strategies and goals as they implement executive orders 13985 and 14091, which offered guidance on embedding equity in government-wide processes and called for annual equity action plans. Urban’s Office of Race and Equity Research (ORER)—which houses our Community Engagement Resource Center, Racial Equity Analytics Lab, and Disability Equity Policy Initiative—leads many of these federal interactions. 

The office’s work in the past year includes detailed analysis of agencies’ equity action plans; presentations and briefings to OMB, interagency councils, and department and agency staffers on approaches to engaging communities, measuring outcomes, and designing policies; and convenings that bring together leaders and staff members, external experts, and community members to facilitate learning and collaboration. We also offer tools, resources, and frameworks to support the refinement and implementation of federal equity actions.

Notable Convenings Focused on Equity Planning and Implementation

 

Expanding Participation in the Regulatory Review Process (July 2023) brought together federal agency leaders, leadership from the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs and community organizations to discuss efforts to develop tools and resources that promote additional participation by community members in the regulatory process.

Federal Equity Action Plan Workshop- Peer Exchange (July 2023) convened federal agency equity leaders for the second iteration of Urban’s Federal Equity Action Plan workshop series, providing a space for dialogue on community engagement and outcomes measurement as they prepared to submit their plans. 

Moving toward Outcomes and Community Engagement (June 2023) built on Urban analysis of initial equity plans, agency- and department-specific conversations, and goals for 2023 action plans. This was the first iteration of Urban’s Federal Equity Action Plan Workshop series designed to support agency equity leaders throughout the development and implementation of their equity plans. 

Advancing Racial Equity through a Whole-of-Government Approach (May 2022) brought together equity leaders from federal, state, and local governments. Discussions explored best practices for the allocation of resources and delivery of government benefits, and ways to deliberately engage with communities of color.

Expanding the Toolkit for Equity Assessment: State-of-the-Art Methods for Federal Agencies (November 2021) brought together data experts from government and community organizations to explore data limitations and advance analytic and methodological approaches that could enhance the federal government’s understanding of structural inequities. The convening’s insights informed Urban’s recommendations to agencies.

Notable Advising and Engagements

In 2023, Urban Institute experts participated in more than 30 meetings, briefings, and presentations with agency staff. 

Executive Order Implementation

  • Throughout 2022–23, Urban experts on equity analysis have been invited to advise leadership teams in the Office of Management and Budget, Department of Health and Human Services, and General Services Administration, among others, to share practices agencies can use as they develop evaluation and measurement tools in new pilot projects.
  • In early 2023, Urban experts presented on data equity at a meeting of the Equitable Data Working Group, Community Engagement and Accountability subcommittee; and met with Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs staff to share burden reduction resources and methods, including ways of streamlining application processes and modernizing the social safety net.

Equity Action Plan Measures and Implementation

  • In May 2023, Urban participated in the White House Convening on Equity. Urban speakers highlighted considerations for agencies as they develop their 2023 plans, drawing from Urban’s research on equity measurement and analysis based on 2022 plans.
  • Over 2022–23, Urban experts met with various departments’ leadership and staff to discuss Urban’s approach to community-engaged research, ORER analysis of equity action plans, equity metrics to consider, and ways to align equity goals with strategic goals.

Analyses

Our work provides in-depth analysis of federal equity efforts and presents tools, strategies, and frameworks that federal agencies, community members, and researchers can use to advance equity in policy, programs and research.

Reports and Blog Posts

  • How the White House is Continuing to Prioritize Equity (February 2024) uses a text mining approach to identify commonalities within the 2023 equity action plans and identifies key trends as well as new processes, initiatives, collaborations, and performance measurements.  
  • How the Federal Government Can Use Data to Make the Most of the Executive Order on Racial Equity (January 2021) provides pathways for improving federal data infrastructure and presents strategies and actions policymakers can use to embed an equity lens into data collection and dissemination efforts.
  • Scoring Federal Legislation for Equity (June 2022) proposes designs for a scoring system to measure the potential impact of federal legislation on equitable outcomes and help advance policies that improve racial, gender, and other dimensions of equity.
  • The GSEs’ Equitable Housing Finance Plans (October 2022) offers an in-depth analysis of equity action plans issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and a follow-up report from February 2023 highlights specific equity metrics those agencies could adopt and implement.
  • Pathways to Equity at Scale (March 2023) synthesizes the 2022 federal equity action plans. It categorizes equity commitments into three types of equity actions, highlights agency-specific examples for each type, and proposes recommendations for OMB, departments’, and agencies’ equity planning.
  • Federal Agencies’ Equity Action Plans Digests (March 2023) includes digests of more than 20 agency equity action plans that reflect a multifaceted, mixed-methods analysis; they do not evaluate the quality of the plans but identify themes within and across plans as well as opportunities for agencies to focus on implementation to achieve greater impact.
  • Advancing Equitable Government 2.0 (March 2023) identifies ways agencies can learn from and build on the equity action plans started under executive order 13985 as they implement executive order 14091.

Comment Letters

Contact Information

Rekha Balu, Director of Federal Equity Initiatives

Victoria Van de Vate, Government Affairs Manager

Office of Race and Equity Research
Research and Evidence Technology and Data Race and Equity
Expertise Research Methods and Data Analysis
Research Methods Data analysis Data collection Research methods and data analytics
Tags Federal urban policies Community engagement Structural racism Structural racism in research, data, and technology