Many philanthropy conferences discuss racial equity, but a conversation at this week’s national meeting of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations dug beneath the surface in a strikingly personal way.
Michael McAfee, vice president for programs at PolicyLink, a group that promotes economic and social equity, discussed his frustration with the inability of philanthropy and other institutions to make real progress to end racial disparities.
“We get right up to the line, then there’s one more data set, one more case made, one more return-on-investment study,” he said. “Even with all that, we’re still not courageous enough to act.”
Peggy Flanagan, a Minnesota state legislator and former executive director of Children’s Defense Fund-Minnesota, said Minnesotans have a hard time talking about racial equity. When the subject comes up, she says, “someone will say, Who wants pie?”
A member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, Ms. Flanagan said that she often feels invisible. “When you meet someone and they’re surprised you even exist, that is a problem,” she said. “When your first instinct when you meet me is to tell me you believe your great-great-grandmother was a Cherokee princess — not a thing, by the way — that is a problem.”
The comments were made at a plenary session moderated by the Rev. Starksy Wilson, a prominent figure in the aftermath of the 2014 killing of Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo.
A black woman in the audience who said she worked for a family foundation in Los Angeles described her fatigue at operating in mostly white spaces and having to answer questions about everything from her braids to why people shouldn’t say certain things to people of color.
“Now in philanthropy I feel like I have to walk a line between wanting to educate people in my community and also feeling tired of having to educate people,” she said. “When is it appropriate to say to white people, Girl, go read a book?”
Doug Stamm, the chief executive officer of Meyer Memorial Trust, a foundation that has revamped its operations to focus on equity issues, told her she could absolutely respond that way. Mr. Stamm, who is white, said his organization set up separate affinity groups for white and minority staff members after recognizing that people of color were facing a “very heavy lift” and should be relieved of always having to play the role of educating white staff members.
Getting to Know Each Other
Reverend Wilson, co-chair of a commission that made public-policy recommendations after Michael Brown’s killing, suggested the book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, by Beverly Daniel Tatum, and Ms. Flanagan recommended Boarding School Seasons, by Brenda Child. But Mr. McAfee said he doesn’t think white people should have to read a book to relate to him. “Just get to know me for who I am,” he said. “Be in a relationship.”
One of the tensest moments at the session came when a white audience member responded to a story that Mr. McAfee told about forming a discussion group of black and white men and his dismay when some confessed they were afraid of Mr. McAfee. “The moment I walk in that door, these dudes are afraid in their heads for whatever reason,” he said, wondering, “How will that play out in their job as a city planner?”
The audience member declared that she was not afraid of black people and “I don’t feel anyone in my world is.” She added that she had lived in Ireland for 16 years and seen many disenfranchised white, Catholic people and asked if we could “remove the race card and all just be human” when discussing inequity.
Mr. McAfee responded to applause: “My visceral reaction to what you said is, There you go again, wiping away my experience.”
“There’s a reason we’re talking about race,” he added. “There’s a stimulus I’m responding to in the environment, and I’m asking you to consider that while you might not see it, it doesn’t invalidate it.”
Mr. Stamm, who is in his 60s, urged white people not to wait as long as he did to start working on racial-equity issues. “Figure out how to use your white power and privilege. Call the question,” he said.
Beyond Overhead Costs
Overhead was another hot topic at the conference.
Speakers at a Grantmakers for Effective Organizations panel said foundations should expand their thinking about the expenses of running a healthy nonprofit that go beyond narrow definitions of overhead, like fixed assets, working capital, reserves, and debt. Foundations often limit the percentage of grant money that can be devoted to costs not directly supporting programs.
The Real Cost Project, a program started by a coalition of California foundations and regional grant-maker associations, has been conducting research and meeting with foundation leaders and program officers across the state to address that issues.
Among the discoveries: The vast majority of grant makers do not have a global policy on what rates to set for “indirect costs,” or money to cover nonprogram expenses, often leaving the decision to the “back offices,” said panelist David Greco, who directs the project. Sometimes the rates even vary within the same foundation, he said.
Other impediments are cultural, he said. For example, most foundations are organized around programs, and program officers want grant money to pay for “their” programs. The philanthropy world also lacks a shared language to discuss the “real cost” issue and has no established “best-practice” models to follow, he said.
Ellen LaPointe, president of Northern California Grantmakers, one of the groups that is leading the Real Cost effort, said the project had completed its initial phase of consultations and will now explore next steps. Among the questions on the table, she said: “How might we create a sector-wide conversation on this?”
Beatlemania
Tired of boring PowerPoint presentations at philanthropy conferences? Take a tip from Luis Arteaga, a senior program manager at the Levi Strauss Foundation, who engaged an audience at the conference by tapping some well-known philosophers of philanthropy — the Beatles.
Many fans think Beatles songs have hidden meanings, for example that “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” is a reference to LSD (not true, Mr. Arteaga said, to the disappointment of some in the room). It’s likely that few people have scoured Beatles lyrics as extensively as Mr. Arteaga has to find lessons for grant makers.
Take “The Long and Winding Road.” A clear reference to the advantages of multiyear grants that recognize that social change takes time, says Mr. Arteaga, who led a panel on Levi Strauss’s Pioneers in Justice program, which provides money and technical assistance to social-justice leaders in San Francisco.
“Help!”? Obviously about capacity building, or helping nonprofits get the tools they need to work effectively. “We Can Work It Out”? The importance of building relationships, as the Pioneers program does by bringing its grantees together for four hours every other month.
To encourage audience participation, Mr. Arteaga played snippets of Beatles songs and asked people to identify them, then say how the lyrics applied to leadership-development funding. Volunteers were rewarded with a card offering 30 percent off the purchase of a Levi’s product.
After the Beatlemania died down, the panel had a more straightforward discussion of the five-year-old Pioneers program, which draws leaders from organizations fighting civil-rights battles in areas like immigration, gay rights, mass incarceration, and police abuse.
Lateefah Simon, who was a Pioneer while serving as executive director of the San Francisco chapter of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, said the program brings progressive leaders who are interested in long-range social movements together as “a community of cohorts” instead of as competitors — and helps build relationships that will last for life.
Ms. Simon now heads a similar fellowship program, Leading Edge, at the Rosenberg Foundation.
The panel discussed the difficulties of meeting grant maker demands to show results given how long some social movements take to succeed.
And finding money can be challenging because social-justice activities are often controversial, members said. But, said Vincent Pan, executive director of Chinese for Affirmative Action and a current Pioneer, “if we’re not getting pushback, we’re not where we need to be.”