A year after a once-in-a-generation wave of activism convulsed across big cities, small towns, and nearly everywhere in between, the fight to build a more equitable future is at a critical inflection point.
The twin social and health pandemics prompted Americans to organize, vote, donate, and resist, yet it is far from clear that the surge of public pressure and philanthropic generosity will lead to a truly multiracial democracy in America.
To transform the lives of the more than 100 million people in America living in or near poverty — or one in three people, including nearly half of the people of color in the nation — we need fundamental shifts in our culture, policies, programs, and institutions. Achieving those systemic changes without racial disparities will require a well-capitalized movement for equity — one that focuses on providing social-change leaders with the dollars they need.
But how much is that?
Part of the difficulty in coming up with a figure is that the racial-equity movement has never been funded at the levels or in the ways that would support the thoughtful work to develop that dollars-and-cents roadmap. That is a problem if we want to move from intention to impact.
Meanwhile, let’s imagine. Jason Franklin, senior philanthropic adviser of the Movement Voter Project, which moves resources to grassroots community-based organizations with a focus on youth and communities of color, has a straightforward approach: “One thing I often throw out just as a thought experiment is: What if our giving to racial equity was proportional to the share of the population of people of color? Last year we had $471 billion in giving in the United States, and 40 percent of the population is people of color. What if we just give 40 percent of our giving? That would be $188 billion.”
Of course, there are other ways of ballparking a figure, but we found that what all have in common are price tags that, despite the surge in giving, puts the approximate $12 billion given to racial equity last year to shame.
PolicyLink and the Bridgespan Group recently collaborated to analyze the state of philanthropic funding for racial-equity work. Our research on what it will take to win included extensive interviews with movement leaders and an analysis of data from Candid, the research organization that gathers giving data on foundations, corporations, and other donors. Here is some of what we learned:
Philanthropic intentions to fund racial equity surged significantly in 2020. A lot of new donors gave to racial equity, and corporate funding for racial equity increased.
However, how much actual giving has happened is hard to definitively pinpoint. That is because the vast majority of the money publicly pledged for racial-equity work in 2020 has not been reported beyond foundation website statements, news articles, and corporate press releases. In fact, 94 percent of grant makers who typically support racial-equity work have not reported their 2020 data as of early June 2021. Therefore, we don’t know whether the checks are in the mail — or not — or who might be getting them.
In addition, the apparent funding trend is muddied by the lack of a shared definition of what “funding for racial equity” truly means. Foundations, corporate grant makers, and big donors all choose their own terms, sometimes including things that movement leaders say won’t change the root causes of inequities. What’s more, it is not clear if the apparent surge in 2020 was truly because of an increase in giving to racial equity or whether it came by relabeling existing giving patterns as racial-equity grants.
The uncertainties are enormous. Based on currently reported grant data collected by Candid, we know the recipients of $1.5 billion in funding for racial equity in 2020. That is a far cry from the $11.9 billion in philanthropic capital that has been publicly pledged for racial equity in 2020.
A better understanding of how funds are aggregated and deployed is a critical piece of infrastructure for a movement that is hoping to win. PolicyLink will continue to look into the state of funding for racial equity annually, as well as gather grant makers and movement leaders for critical conversations that will usher in the promise of equity.
A key beginning step in closing the intention gap is to report data to Candid quickly and transparently. Grant makers should share how much of their funding is going to racial-equity work — including how much is going to structural or systems-change efforts, to organizations led by people of color, and in multiyear general support.
Discussions with nonprofit leaders who have spent their careers focused on racial equity also raised three concerns about the surge of 2020 funding, fueled by their knowledge and experience:
- The money may not have gone to the full range of work that is needed to support transformative change. Without a more intentional focus on directing funding toward work that disrupts the causes of inequity, there’s a risk that any amount of money would be insufficient to eliminate the nation’s racial disparities and improve outcomes for all of the 100 million people living in poverty in the United States. We saw evidence that while philanthropy has shown up to fund efforts at key moments — efforts aimed around a specific campaign cycle or policy change — funding to do the critical long-term work that endures beyond those moments, including narrative change and long-term organizing, is much harder to come by.
- The money is insufficient to address the historical undercapitalization. Research has shown that the majority of organizations doing racial-equity work are undercapitalized. These organizations tend to be led by people of color or are focused on systems change or both. Those are two types of organizations that have typically received less support from grant makers. In our examination of 2018 funding, the most recent year for which complete data is available, we found the majority of racial-equity grants were relatively modest, with the median grant size at $50,000. More than 64 percent of the nonprofits received $100,000 or less. Grant makers committed to equity need to ensure the movement has strong-enough institutions to successfully wage the fight.
- The money will disappear. Mindful of philanthropy’s history of relatively limited giving to racial equity, concerns run high that 2020 was an anomaly with interest in racial equity energized by a perfect storm of nationwide outrage over state-sanctioned murders and a global pandemic, a combination that we hope never again to witness. To ensure giving is sustained will require a transformation of philanthropic norms, practices, and culture.
Investing Enough to Win
What we do know about the investment needed is that any effort that is not deliberately trying to advance equity builds on existing institutions that are reinforcing today’s status quo of inequity or, worse, are exacerbating it. Such inertia is always going to be cheaper than the investment in reimagination might initially require.
And, ultimately, the price we pay for our inequity is always going to cost us the most. “Philanthropy’s accountability has to go beyond that we fund good organizations to do good work but instead to philanthropy actually seeing themselves as a part of the ecosystem,” says organizer LaTosha Brown of Black Voters Matter. “We are funding this work because there is a vested interest for all of us to eliminate structural racism and create a nation that is more inclusive and equitable.”
