This November, voters across the United States will have the power to send elected officials to Washington whose decisions have far-reaching effects on their daily lives. That is, unless they are one of the 3.6 million people who live in the U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands.
People from the territories — 98 percent of whom are people of color — can fully participate as delegates in the selection of each party’s presidential nominee, as they did in this summer’s Democratic and Republican national conventions. But come November, they will be denied basic political rights, such as the right to vote for president or voting representation in Congress, even as they pay more than $5 billion in federal taxes. For 126 years — since the Spanish-American War in 1898 — they have also been denied the basic right of self-determination, including having a voice in the nature and scope of their relationship with the United States.
This is not a partisan issue. Even on the politically polarized U.S. Supreme Court, there is consensus on this fundamental unfairness. Justice Neil Gorsuch has called the colonial legal framework governing the territories “shameful,” noting that it has “no foundation in the Constitution and rest(s) instead on racial stereotypes.” Justice Sonya Sotomayor has described it as “odious and wrong.” And the Justice Department recently responded to a bipartisan call from 43 congressional leaders to recognize that the legal framework governing the territories is “irreconcilable with foundational American principles of equality, justice, and democracy.”
Residents of the territories are also at the center of many of the most pressing problems our nation faces, such as climate change and economic inequality. It’s long past time they received power and agency over the decisions that directly affect them.
Philanthropy needs to do its part to support democracy, equity, and self-determination in U.S. territories. While U.S.-based philanthropic investment to the territories has increased during the last decade to about $60 million in 2021, that pales in comparison to the $103 billion philanthropy gave to U.S. charities that same year. Adjusting for population differences, people in the territories receive just $16 per person from U.S.-based philanthropy compared with the national average of $310.
Philanthropy must work to close this gap by better understanding how current grant making approaches exclude people in U.S. territories and what can be done to remedy the situation.
A Growing Movement
Last fall, our organizations — the Ford Foundation and the Democracy Fund — co-hosted the Summit on U.S. Colonialism, which for the first time offered leaders in philanthropy the opportunity to engage with nearly 50 community leaders from all five territories. The summit was convened by Right to Democracy, a new project focused on confronting and dismantling the undemocratic colonial framework governing people in the territories. It was the culmination of a five-territory listening tour that resulted in the release of a report — Building a Movement: Democracy, Equity, and Self-Determination in U.S. Territories — which documents how these historically marginalized people of color are coming together to build political power.
(The Ford Foundation is a financial supporter of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.)
As the report outlines, poverty rates in U.S. territories range from two to five times the national average, a problem exacerbated by federal policies that deny these communities Supplemental Security Income, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, access to veterans benefits, and more. The result is significant community displacement and disruption: The population of U.S. territories decreased by an astonishing 11.6 percent from 2010 to 2020.
The territories’ lack of political power — both within the United States and internationally — is reflected in the deadly disaster recovery following Hurricanes Maria and Irma in 2017, human rights violations, and threats from climate change and militarization.
Right to Democracy will hold its second summit on U.S. colonialism in February, giving philanthropic leaders a chance to come to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands to witness both the challenges these communities face as well as the potential opportunities when people from all five territories work collaboratively to demand change.
Philanthropic Opportunities
Expanding the movement to empower people in U.S. territories will require increased support and investment by grant makers on both sides of the ideological spectrum who care about strengthening democracy.
Civil society leaders in the territories have carried this effort forward for generations, working to develop solutions and challenge the narrative that normalizes U.S. colonialism and its many harms. Philanthropy needs to have their back.
Grant makers can play an important role by simply recognizing that the United States has a colonial problem. One of the biggest obstacles to change is a lack of awareness and urgency to act. Funders can continue to increase their support for these communities by focusing on four critical areas:
Education and awareness. Most grant makers know almost nothing about the U.S. territories or the racist colonial framework that governs them. Once they become aware, many feel compelled to act. To increase that awareness, foundations should include time for discussion and education about this issue during their convenings and conferences. And they should create opportunities for staff to visit the territories and experience first-hand the challenges they confront.
Internal practices. Grant makers need to consider how their own practices may be impeding support for these communities. That should include an internal audit that examines systemic practices and assumptions and helps determine how work in the territories can be better integrated into existing programs — or the development of new ones. A first step may be as simple as checking whether the U.S. territories are included in eligibility criteria for grants and in grant management systems.
The funding gap. People in the territories are some of the most vulnerable in the United States, yet they have historically fallen through the cracks when it comes to giving. That has started to change. From 2012 to 2021, philanthropic support to the territories increased 10-fold. Philanthropy should commit itself to this same growth rate, which would require providing $600 million a year to the territories by 2031. While ambitious, this would still mean that people in the territories receive just 50 cents in philanthropy on the dollar on a per capita basis compared with the current rate of five cents.
The role of communities. Deploying standard top-down philanthropy to address the challenges facing the territories would merely re-create the kind of colonial and undemocratic structures that need to be dismantled. Philanthropy should instead rely on people and organizations in the affected communities as the experts and architects of their own advancement. In doing so, philanthropic engagement in U.S. territories can help serve as a model for other historically marginalized and isolated communities throughout the United States.
We hope other grant makers join us and nonprofit leaders in the U.S. territories to close this glaring philanthropy gap and address the democratic deficit facing these communities. Every presidential election cycle we are reminded how millions of people in the territories are denied democracy and self-determination. Let’s finally come together to do something about it.
