Focusing Philanthropy on Social Justice and Racial Equity

Can philanthropy help create greater racial equity and social justice? How would we know if it did? And how could philanthropy be encouraged to do more?

Good questions, and the guiding questions in the first several years of this inquiry sponsored by Ford Foundation (2005-2009). In addressing them, we faced a few cautions:

Conversations using the terms “racial equity” and “social justice” are non-starters, we were cautioned. Humans learn about fairness at a very young age – at the kitchen table and the playground -- and claims of unfairness and injustice easily lead to pushing and shoving, and worse. And that’s in contests with no racial overtones.

Proclaiming other people’s values or attitudes as good or bad would be counter-productive. Any kind of finger-pointing and blaming for the sins of omission and commission in the past or present also should be avoided in this inquiry, we felt.

While theory and definition can be important, the insistence that we get these perfectly right before taking significant steps can be a way of stalling and deferring progress.

We knew there are no easy criteria of success, no conventions for benchmarking progress in achieving greater justice and equity.

To keep our inquiry grounded in more productive territory, we decided to start with the notion of closing gaps or disparities, rather than the challenge of fixing people’s attitudes.

ROOTING THE INQUIRY IN THE GOAL TO CLOSE GAPS AND DISPARITIES

Almost all studies conducted in how well society’s systems (education, justice) or markets (business development, health care) work show different system outcomes, on average, for different racial and ethnic groups. These studies show how our public systems do better for Whites, on average, than for other racial or ethnic groups. These differences in system performance for different groups are called disparities or gaps. They exist in almost every area of life. We compiled a small inventory of these gaps in an article in our Resource section.  Three examples:

Around the country, applications for home mortgages submitted by African Americans are rejected at a higher rate than those submitted by European Americans, even when the applications are identical.

On Bourbon Street, African Americans have to wait longer for service and are charged more for drinks than Americans of European descent, on average.

African American children start school at greater risk, on average, than European American school children. They ultimately finish their schooling with less satisfactory prospects, earning less and having less to invest in their homes, their health or their children.

For a variety of reasons, these gaps are widespread, deep, and pervasive. They can have snowballing or cascading effects that run through the generations if not addressed.

This is shown in the chain of events suffered by young African Americans who perhaps make the mistake of riding their bike into the wrong neighborhood or boosting a candy bar. Police and other agents of the court still come down harder on these kids than on white kids (a disparity shown in all the data) who are more likely to be driven home and told to stay out of trouble when they behave in the same manner. Those early police records are frequently used to influence later decisions made by law enforcement, meaning that these kids have a harder time finishing school. The repercussions of youthful indiscretions continue, leading to other difficulties, and too often leading young African Americans to experience major disillusionment. When young people have a harder time getting work, it increases the likelihood of re-offending, and engaging in other self-destructive behaviors. These circumstances break up families, prevent economic self-sufficiency, prevent the development of self-respect and respect for the dominant culture, and virtually ensure widespread unhappiness and poor prospects.

What to do? These cycles have to be broken, by making our systems work more fairly and producing more equal success rates for all racial and ethnic groups, as well as for groups in poverty or in rural areas. The metaphor “level the playing field” is helpful, suggesting that our systems and markets should not tolerate operating rules that advantage some groups over others -- certainly not by design.

And the role of philanthropy? Philanthropy – as distinct from government and from private enterprise – can be directed to the challenge of closing these gaps.

Nonprofit organizations, funders, and intermediaries of all kinds are involved with pieces of the problem, though examples of dealing with the whole elephant are rare.
In this project, we searched for examples of philanthropy being directed to this challenge, and put together a synthesis for use by other philanthropic organizations to use as a guide.

We spent three years in the field in focused conversations with almost 100 different philanthropic organizations. The essential question: “What does progress look like to you? How do you spell success? What helps progress along, and what hinders it?”

Some of these organizations were private foundations engaged in traditional grantmaking, others were new forms of philanthropy just developing in communities of color, others were “intermediary” organizations using a variety of donors’ funds to make things happen on the ground, and others were nonprofit organizations specialized in community development, or church administration, civic engagement, or advocacy.

Challenges abound. Gaps are pervasive. Policy specialists see them in the data. Millions of Americans feel them in their lives. The way our public systems and private markets work is uneven. Basically, Whites are treated more favorably and get more favorable results than non-Whites. This is regrettably true in almost areas in which system performance and quality of life can be measured.

Progress is possible, and philanthropy has much to offer. To answer the question at the top of this section, we say Yes, philanthropy has and does play a useful role. But it can do ever so much more. And if philanthropy wants to claim effectiveness, it will have to learn how to address issues of equity and justice. Otherwise, it can produce good outcomes for a shrinking share of its market (Americans of European descent), leaving out a growing share.

When confronted with the realities of gaps or disparities, most people say, “Well, that’s not right; we can fix that.” And indeed we can, because our systems and markets are all made by humans; solutions will be made by humans as well. Ingenuity, creativity, leadership, will, and the wish to do good and do this American thing right are all assets to be brought to the challenges of creating a just and equitable society.  

What can philanthropy do?

The answers are shown in our six “pathways to progress”…

Too many organizations that want to counter these trends are under-resourced and ill-equipped, matching up as David to Goliath. Philanthropic organizations can bulk up and shape their own organizational activities to close gaps in fields of interest that they care. See Preparing the Organization.

It’s difficult to talk about this stuff without old assumptions, wounds, and frustrations rising to the surface. This makes trust, a necessary ingredient for bridging divides, a rare commodity. Philanthropic organizations can create or support the kinds of conversations needed to build trust among community leadership for problem-solving. See Building Trust.

Good ideas – potential solutions that could fix these dysfunctional systems -- are often resisted, and efforts to move them are often fragmentary and easily derailed. Philanthropic organizations can help move along good ideas and solutions that hold promise for closing gaps. See Advancing Solutions.

An infrastructure of support for change – relationships, networks, and associations of people – is often under-resourced, stymied, or disrupted. Philanthropic organizations can support the kind of networks and leadership needed to promote and implement good solutions. See Relationships, Networks, and Leadership

Philanthropic dollars for this kind of work are in short supply, especially compared to the resources used to maintain these disparities. The time and talent of people wanting to help fix unfair systems is in greater supply, but with too few channels for expression. Too few efforts take direct aim at the disparities. Philanthropic organizations can help raise resources, and devise ways to deploy them better, in the service of closing gaps and disparities. See Philanthropic Resources.

Too many efforts have the effect of helping only individual victims or casualties of badly functioning systems. Strategy has to be directed “upstream” to reduce the flow of casualties. Philanthropic organizations can make progress if they keep focused on the challenge of gap-closing, and work on these pathways singly and in combination. See Putting It All Together To Fix The Problem And Close Disparities.

Progress can be measured

 We’ll see that the problems injustice and inequity are fixed when we see public systems and private markets operate in ways that allow more fair and just progress, unrelated to race and ethnicity. Progress in achieving greater equity would be seen in the data as shrinking gaps. Unfortunately, there are many gaps, in many systems, in many jurisdictions, with many contributing factors and different contexts.

It’s a big elephant, and no one has a view of the whole thing. Even harder to acknowledge is that no one grant is going to close a gap, nor is one organization, or one million dollars. Gaps are enmeshed in complex systems, and it will take concerted and sustained effort to get to their inner workings and tweak them sufficiently to make a difference in the trend lines. Demands for accountability and results will have to focus on building the infrastructure that fixes the problem before we can expect changes in the ultimate indicators shown in official data.

The Pathways to Progress highlighted on this site explore the territory just above the bottom line of “reduced disparities.” They are the areas of effectiveness along which progress must be made if the gaps are to close. The more activity there is on these pathways,  the more likely the gaps will close. That, at least, is the “theory of action” emerging from this project.

If a philanthropic organization can show that it is making progress along one or more of these pathways, it should be able to draw support. Such progress can be told with well-crafted stories mixed with well-considered numbers. The section, “Benchmark Signs of Progress” embedded in each of the Pathway pages points out where such data is needed.

CURRENT GOALS FOR THE WEBSITE

• Base the lessons to the larger field of philanthropy field directly on the experience of people and organizations working to make equity and fairness happen.
• Be a guide, revealing the pathways to progress in achieving greater fairness and equity in the way our society’s systems and markets can work.
• Inform the many, diverse fields of philanthropy of the options and strategies available for making a difference.
• Show what “making a difference” looks like – a reduction in disparities and gaps – and presenting strategies in hopeful and positive ways.
• Provide useful examples and goals for discussion at staff and Board meetings.
• Show practical ways for a philanthropic organization to move forward, drawing on our “benchmark practices.”
• Help philanthropic organizations find their way to longer term commitments, by encouraging them to stay grounded in the realities of reducing a key disparity that they care about.
• Provide a big tent for the variety of philanthropic organizations to recognize mutual opportunities to be useful, by not finding it necessary to distinguish among funders, nonprofits, intermediaries, even individuals, and providing a platform from which potential partners can find each other.
• Show the interconnections of organizational effectiveness, evaluation of progress, and the imperative to help achieve the American dream of justice for all.
• Show philanthropic organizations ways of “being effective” in achieving long-term results, and of accounting to stakeholders by “showing progress.”
   

  This page updated 13 January 2010