Closing the Gaps in Racial Equity and Social Justice

Choose disparities that touch on your interests, and create a plan to fix them.

Review. Examine how your current mission effectiveness is affected by markets and systems that work unfairly, creating unequal outcomes for different groups.
Be strategic. Good community reconnaissance, listening to a greater variety of resources, could put some promising ideas and solutions in play, and if supported by a growing base who see their self-interest in improving the data, and if backed by a variety of philanthropic resources – all of which can be lined up – could move the needle and bend the trend lines in the disparities data you choose to monitor.
Use a variety of lenses -- rural, environmental, racial, cultural, geographic, gender – to develop a more comprehensive approach. PolicyLink works to bridge the traditional divide between communities and policymaking at the local, regional, state, and national levels. It is developing the concept of “regional equity” and has developed a set of tools to “help reduce social and economic disparities among individuals, social groups, neighborhoods, and local jurisdictions across metropolitan regions.” National Rural Funders Collaborative supports “the reinvention of rural economies – ones with living wages, career ladder employment and jobs that respect the environment and the health and safety of employees – is fundamental to addressing extreme and persistent rural poverty and forging positive transformative change in rural America. NRFC understands that poverty is often a factor of race, class, culture, and power dynamics that are linked and concentrated.”

Apply a wide array of your resources and skills to the challenge of closing a gap in equity that you want to take on.

Create a culture of accountability and cooperation .The Jacksonville Community Council, Inc. , conducted intensive community-based studies of conditions in Jacksonville and how to improve them. They now work to keep alive the good recommendations from the studies. The South Carolina Association of Community Development Corporations encourages its members to recognize their rights and their responsibilities to their communities, to step up and participate.

Work to change rules, increasing the opportunities for good outcomes. The Louisiana State University Foundation changed the wording of its rules and regulations to positively affect 600 scholarship funds. ERASE Racism changed key provisions of Nassau County’s fair housing ordinances. Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families , working with a variety of other groups, wrote legislation that reduced the number of uninsured low-income children in the state. When the budget was cut, Lee County Community Development Corporations , working in the Arkansas Delta, created new ways to offer education to its members. Alaska Rural Community Health Economic Strategies used new funding streams to create job positions and educational opportunities that support the viability of Native village life.

Add voice and influence. Philanthropic organizations are, contrary to prejudgments of lawyers unfamiliar with IRS rules and regulations, allowed to be advocates for needed change to our social and community infrastructure, and they are allowed to support other philanthropic organizations in that work as well. That is, they can do almost all the things that a commercial entity or private individual can do, as long as the intent is to serve a public good rather than private gain. See more at Alliance for Justice . A surprising variety of every-day activities make up the list of permissible acts of advocacy, including: Philanthropic organizations can engage in advocacy; that is, they can do almost all the things that a commercial entity or private individual can do, as long as the intent is to serve a public good rather than private gain. This includes:

Bringing people together to discuss what they each might bring to the challenge of gap-reduction.

Introducing people to others who could conceivably be helpful.

Creating opportunities for others to step forward and do more.

Writing a check.

Giving encouragement to others.

Lending your name, your influence or your money to a gap-closing cause.

Design special initiatives by philanthropic organizations to work on gaps. The Twenty-First Century Foundation created a special initiative to attract attention and energy to the plight of African American men and boys. Hamilton Community Foundation focused on poverty reduction, neighborhood development and youth engagement.

Work on all the pathways, especially in combination, to stay focused on the challenge of gap-reduction.

Follow policy proposals from idea to advocacy to successful implementation, helping groups link to critical networks and develop resources. To create a program of Individual Development Accounts in the state of Arkansas, the Southern Good Faith Fund helped write legislation drawing on ideas surfaced from numerous community discussions. They then helped pass the legislation, drawing on the power of numerous networks of vested stakeholders convened by Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. Elsewhere, the National Rural Funders Collaborative , a network of national and regional funders working with a collection of smaller organizations, has helped through its convening and direct assistance to bring forward several policies to legislative and executive deliberation.
Watch for and seize unique, comprehensive opportunities. The Community Foundation in Jacksonville (Florida) saw an opportunity, given the timing of events in the city, to create the “Quality Education for All” initiative. It allocated two-thirds of its unrestricted grantmaking budget annually for at least 10 years to the project, and provided leadership in both the private and public sectors. The board combined its historic donor-focus with a community leadership role. Wanting to add value more intentionally to the community, the foundation diversified its board, and gained a presence at more conversations in the community.
Stimulate investments the public or private sector would ignore, invigorating the local economy in ways that benefit more segments of the community. Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation has worked to create an economy in which African Americans can participate, by making several grants to improve science, technology, engineering and math education in all schools, additionally targeting middle and high schools with high African American enrollment. Appalachian Ohio Regional Investment Coalition used local arts and crafts to create opportunities for community economic development. Alaska Rural Community Health Economic Strategies created and extended health field career ladders in Alaskan native villages. This helped to stimulate the local economies, increase the standard of living and allow elders to stay healthier and remain longer in their villages. The Community Foundation of Ottawa created a loan fund to assist low-income entrepreneurs.
The more all these different Pathways to Progress can be engaged, the more likely the progress towards social justice and racial equity – our central thesis. See our various Articles and Tools for elaboration.

RESOURCES

State of the South 2007 calls upon the region's philanthropic organizations to think more creatively and act more boldly to help the South address its self-limiting inequities and spur its competitiveness in a global economy. MDC, Inc.

State of the South 2004 examines the region’s economic and demographic landscape and how Southerners are faring within it. MDC, Inc.

Grantmaking With A Racial Equity Lens. Available from Grant Craft www.grantcraft.org)

Three articles by Steven E. Mayer, downloadable from this site. Choosing Promising Ideas and Proposals: A Tool For Giving That Closes The Gaps; Gaps in Racial Equity, and Strategies for Reducing Them; Saving the Babies: A Clash in Philanthropic Approaches.

Building Community Capacity: The Potential of Community Foundations, by Steven E. Mayer, available from Rainbow Research, Inc.

This page updated 29 August 2008