Increasing Resources to Address Disparities and Gaps

• The Challenge
• Promising Practices
• Benchmarks

The data are consistent: increasing racial equity and strengthening social justice remain challenges to our society. But the amount of money that institutional philanthropy directs toward closing gaps or disparities in racial equity is minuscule compared to money provided to education, health, arts, culture and other areas.

Barriers to progress include:

• The false belief – stemming from mainstream 19th and 20th century philanthropy -- that philanthropists are White and old, if not dead, limits entry to participation. The term “philanthropy” is alien to so many people, even though we’ve all done it!
• There’s not enough awareness, especially among the stewards of “old money,” that advocacy on issues of equity and justice is legitimate, fruitful, and consistent with their current missions.
• While giving to efforts that secure social justice and racial equity is firmly in the tradition of philanthropy, the amounts given represent a very small portion of the total pie.
• Models of philanthropy historically have been more focused on helping the needy than on fixing systems that contribute to problems, or on going to root causes of poverty, inequity, or injustice, or on fixing the public systems and private markets that contribute to problems.
• Even when philanthropic organizations raise funds in the name of doing good for their communities, those funds are more often invested in instruments that provide working capital to far-away commercial interests than they are in instruments that support community development closer to home.

Fortunately, the cultivation of donors – not just of money but also of time and talent – has become an art form, and much is known about it. Philanthropy is growing enormously around the world. Philanthropy by the rich and famous is almost daily fare in the media.  Here at home, philanthropy in communities of color is growing at a faster rate than in the dominant community.  There is fresh search for old traditions of philanthropy.   And more traditional philanthropic organizations are showing interest in aligning both their development and allocation efforts to serve matters of equity and justice.

Click on Promising Practices to see how these challenges can be addressed.

This page updated 11 August 2008