In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, people frustrated by the government’s piecemeal support decided to take matters into their own hands. They formed mutual-aid networks across the country to address immediate needs for hand sanitizer, homemade masks, groceries for the elderly, cash for families struggling to pay the rent, and much more. The once-niche term “mutual aid” was popularized as communities created Google spreadsheets listing volunteer and donation opportunities and shared them on social media and neighborhood discussion lists.
More recently, as the public-health crisis collided with a moment of racial reckoning, people across the nation started organizing not just to meet basic needs, but to uproot and transform entrenched structures of white supremacy in our society.
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The philanthropic world should take a cue from these people-powered developments and embrace an approach to giving that borrows from both mutual-aid and social-justice organizing.
Mutual-aid philanthropy stands in stark contrast to our current era of billionaire philanthropy, in which the preferences and pet projects of big donors crowd out the voices of ordinary donors. The result is a nonprofit world increasingly dependent on the rich and their own ideas about social change — and a system that allows unelected and minimally accountable wealthy individuals to make decisions that affect all of us. The revival of mutual-aid philanthropy is a healthy sign of change.
Mutual aid vastly diminishes the donor vs. recipient power dynamic of conventional philanthropy. When philanthropy takes the form of mutual aid, community members stand as equals, act without paternalism and hierarchy, and preserve each other’s dignity. In the aftermath of an emergency, mutual aid can help a community respond to the immediate crisis. And over time, it can foster the civic ties of solidarity and trust.
Donor and Recipient Alike
In the mutual-aid model, individuals can be both donor and recipient by, say, accepting someone’s offer to shop for them while contributing personal protective equipment to the local hospital. One person may be a recipient in this crisis (perhaps a protester in need of bail funds), and a donor in the next (perhaps a translator offering services to an immigration nonprofit). There are no institutional gatekeepers, grant applications, outcome metrics — no technocratic vision of improving the world delivered from the sanctum of a foundation and directed by the whims of the rich.
Yet, there are limits to mutual aid. Although mutual aid is especially well suited to meeting immediate needs in a crisis — especially in marginalized communities — these efforts alone cannot reform the structural causes of inequality and poverty. In the long run, relying on voluntary mutual aid is a second-best substitute for robust social support guaranteed by the state.
Beyond the Crisis
Is there a version of mutual aid that can be a model for philanthropy in the long run, rather than in emergencies like the coronavirus? We believe there is, and that model has shown its strength in recent weeks as grass-roots uprisings have started to result in political change.
Advocates in struggling communities need money and resources to build political power and fight for systemic change. While traditional mutual aid focuses on sharing resources in the short term, philanthropists can share resources on a longer time horizon by lifting up the voices and organized interests of the dispossessed and victims of discrimination. We call this approach grass-roots philanthropy. Just as mutual aid remedies inequalities during a crisis, grass-roots philanthropy strives to address inequalities and injustice in the long term, ensuring that basic needs never go unmet.
Philanthropists such as Ford Foundation President Darren Walker have long professed a desire to address structural inequalities, relying on a range of strategies to achieve this goal. But the most effective approaches focus on investing in grass-roots-67ymovement building, borrowing from the mutual-aid model that lets those most affected lead the way. Activists and community groups are already doing the essential work of forging relationships, organizing actions, and making demands. It is up to the rest of us to join the fray and help. This is particularly important in democratic societies where social movements play an essential role in resetting the public agenda, shifting public opinion, and creating structural change.
Invest in Grassroots Organizing
What would that look like for philanthropists right now? It involves investing in grass-roots organizing that elevates the agendas of advocates and community residents. Social-justice donor networks such as Solidaire and Resource Generation have already developed guides on how to support organizing efforts led by people of color. They emphasize the importance of giving boldly and consistently over several years to ensure that movements can sustain themselves, and they offer suggestions on how to identify groups effectively fighting to end systemic inequality. For instance, both donor networks have partnered with and fundraised for the Movement for Black Lives, a national Black-led coalition of more than 150 organizations.
More than a decade ago, Incite! Women of Color Against Violence famously declared, “The Revolution Will Not Be Funded.” Sociologists have long expressed concern that when institutionalized philanthropy gets involved in social movements, they end up domesticating the political visions of activists. But these are not inescapable outcomes. It is our collective imperative to contribute to social movements that aim to guarantee dignity to all. Mutual-aid networks, collectively formed and without hierarchy, are showing us how that can be accomplished.
