Increasing Resources to Address Disparities and Gaps

Help communities – the geographical and cultural – discover ways to cultivate generosity for mutual betterment.

Help people understand the potential of philanthropy for themselves and their community . The Community Investment Network is a network of African American giving circles, in which young professionals learn about the power of creating solutions for their communities, and discover opportunities for making a difference with their resources. HindSight Consulting , organizers of the Next Generation of African American Philanthropists, coaches and assists this network. The New Mexico Community Foundation addresses wealth creation in ways that honor local culture; from the revival of buffalo herds, sheep and wool production, to sweat equity. Revitalizing these assets allows more trade to occur and local wealth to grow.

Help communities discover their assets. The Black Belt Community Foundation covers an Alabama area with limited monetary resources. Its motto is “Taking what we have to make what we need.” Rather than starting with financial donors, the foundation sees the community as the endowment, starting with its people. They represent talent, skill, dedication, kinship/friendship networks, intergenerational wisdom, commitment to nurturing youth and the preservation of cultural wisdom from many traditions. These strengths keep this community despite limited financial resources. The Southern Rural Development Initiative created a special tool that allows communities to assess the location of philanthropic capital. With the Philanthropy Index, individual rural communities and small towns in the South can assess their ability to create a permanent charitable fund to support community life. It combines objective data with the collective knowledge of community leaders to measure philanthropic potential.

Develop special opportunities suited to attract contributions from sources more likely to be interested increasing justice and equity. The Twenty-First Century Foundation is a national foundation and public charity that makes grants to support African American community revitalization. It supports donors with program design, grantmaking, administrative record keeping and money management. It has created the Black Men and Boys Initiative, the African American Women’s Fund, the Fund for Greater Harlem and the Metro Chicago Fund as ways to focus donors’ interest. The Arkansas Community Foundation has 25 affiliates – local foundations at work in 33 mostly rural counties. Similar to branch banks, affiliates are led by boards of local community leaders. They make local grants and develop more grantmaking resources. Hurricane Katrina evoked a huge outpouring of sympathy and compassion from all over the country and the world. A large number of philanthropic organizations in the path of Hurricane Katrina created special funds for distributing relief funds collected from near and far. Examples: Foundation for the Mid South, Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund, and the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation. SpectrumTrust (formerly known as the Diversity Endowment Funds) is a partnership between communities of color and The Saint Paul Foundation that has built permanent endowments within communities of color throughout Minnesota. They include the Asian Pacific Endowment, the Pan African Community Endowment, El Fondo de Nuestra Comunidad, Two Feathers Endowment, and the Multicultural Endowment.

Allocate more resources to efforts that contribute to social justice and racial equity.

Designate more of the program budget to social justice and racial equity.The Hamilton Community Foundation (Canada) has committed all of the Foundation’s discretionary grantmaking dollars to its Tackling Poverty Together initiative. The Arkansas Community Foundation matched funds put into their local affiliates, creating a larger pot for grantmaking. The Jacksonville Jaguars Foundation pledged larger grants over multiple years to specific youth-serving agencies that demonstrate success in providing services to low-income and minority communities. The Community Foundation in Jacksonville (Florida) allocated two-thirds of its unrestricted grantmaking budget to its “Education for All” initiative.

Think differently about how best to use financial resources. The Community Foundation of Ottawa recast its grants program to follow the assets model of community development, gaining a new spectrum of opportunities to choose from in its social justice efforts. The National Rural Funders Collaborative designed its program to support “comprehensive community change” rather than piecemeal services to different community segments. The F.B. Heron Foundation focused on a double-bottom line – financial return plus social return – on investments. The foundation put more of its assets to work. Not only some of the excess cash flow normally designated for grantmaking – but 24% of its endowed assets as well, expanding on the idea of mission-related investing.

Help the field of philanthropy orient to the possibilities of social justice philanthropy.

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy promotes the concept of “social justice philanthropy” through its materials, such as with this definition: "Social justice philanthropy is the practice of making contributions to nonprofit organizations that work for structural change and increase the opportunity of those who are less well off politically, economically and socially (2003)." The Community Investment Network encourages organizations and individuals to think and act more strategically with their giving to impel greater social change in their communities. The Social Justice Funding Collaborative is a growing network of national organizations within the field of philanthropy that calls on grantmakers and donors to increase and deepen their commitment to funding social change. The Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE) is a multiyear project intended to increase the amount and effectiveness of resources aimed at combating institutional and structural racism in communities through capacity building, education, and convening of grantmakers and grantseekers. The Diversity in Philanthropy Project is a voluntary effort of leading foundation trustees, senior staff and executives committed to increasing field-wide diversity through open dialogue and strategic action.

RESOURCES

More Giving Together: An Updated Study of the Continuing Growth and Powerful Impact of Giving Circles and Shared Giving. Report of the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers, 200?

The First Charity: Why Philanthropy Must Make Democracy, by Robert Matthews Johnson. Seven Locks Press, 1998

Remaking America: How the Benevolent Traditions of Many Cultures Are Transforming Our National Life, by James A. Joseph. Jossey-Bass, 1995

Grassroots Philanthropy: Field Notes Of A Maverick Grantmaker, by Bill Somerville. Heyday Books, 2008.

Just Money: A Critique of Contemporary American Philanthropy, by H. Peter Karoff (editor). The Philanthropic Initiative, 2004.

A Hand Up: Black Philanthropy and Self-Help in America, by Emmett Carson. Washington, DC: Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Press, 1993.

African American Philanthropy, produced by Council on Foundations. http://www.cof.org/files/Documents/Publications/Cultures_of_Caring/bibafam.pdf.

Short Changed: Foundation Giving and Communities of Color, by Applied Research Center, 2007 http://www.arc.org/content/view/271/48/

Publications and resources of the Foundation Center (www.foundationcenter.org)

“ The Cost of Sticking Your Neck Out,” by Stuart Applebaum, Foundation News & Commentary, Sept/Oct 2005.

New Frontiers in Mission-Related Investing, by Luther M. Ragin, Jr., F.B. Heron Foundation, 2003. http://www.fbheron.org/documents/ar.2003.viewbook_new_frontiers.pdf

This page updated 29 August 2008