By now the ruthlessness of the coronavirus pandemic is clear. It has not only brought devastating deaths and economic destruction and the suffering that comes with both but it has also exacerbated the tolls of racism and pre-existing inequity in our nation.
Echoing Green and the Bridgespan Group recently collaborated to research the depth of racial inequities in philanthropic funding. Based on what we see in our work, two of the biggest factors holding back philanthropy’s efforts to advance social change are rooted in race. One is understanding the role of race in the problems philanthropists are trying to solve. The second is the significance of race when it comes to how philanthropists identify leaders and find solutions.
Many grant makers try to take a colorblind approach to reviewing grants as a well-meaning effort to advance equity. But that is actually the crux of the problem. Race is one of the most reliable predictors of life expectancy, academic achievement, income, wealth, physical and mental health, maternal mortality, and so much else that make a difference for a person to achieve well-being. If socioeconomic difference explained these inequities, then controlling for socioeconomic status would eliminate them. But it does not. This means donors who care about supporting social change must take more deliberate action to achieve racial equity.
Consider the fight against teen smoking in the United States, which has seen an impressive decline overall, with philanthropy playing a pivotal role. However, when disaggregated by race, the data tells a different story. The majority of prevention programs and policies have targeted teens, thus missing the adult window, which is when African Americans typically start to smoke. Although African American teens smoke at much lower rates than white teens, by the time they are adults, the rates are about the same — with tragic results because African Americans die at much higher rates from smoking-related illness.
Likewise, during this pandemic, the racial-justice organization Race Forward reminds us of the importance of “explicitly naming race as a factor that informs how we assess ‘Who is most vulnerable? Who is burdened? Who benefits?’” if we want to ensure that our response, practices, and policies to this crisis and others achieve equitable impact. Otherwise, even our best societal response runs the risk of exacerbating racial disparities that already existed or perhaps even creating new ones.
Funding leaders of color is a significant piece of this puzzle because these leaders often bring strategies that intimately understand the racialized experiences of communities of color and the issues these communities face. Unfortunately, by and large, such funding is not happening today.
Take Echoing Green’s applicant pool, a group that is considered among the most promising start-up nonprofits. Looking just at its highest qualified applicants (i.e., those who progressed to its semifinalist stage and beyond), revenues of the black-led organizations are 24 percent smaller than the revenues of their white-led counterparts, and the unrestricted net assets of the black-led organizations are 76 percent smaller than their white-led counterparts. The stark disparity in unrestricted assets is particularly startling as such funding often represents a proxy for trust.
Disparities persist even when taking into account factors like issue area or education levels. For example, among organizations in Echoing Green’s Black Male Achievement fellowship, which focuses on improving the life outcomes of black men and boys in the United States, the revenues of the black-led organizations are 45 percent smaller than those of the white-led organizations, and the unrestricted net assets of the black-led organizations are 91 percent smaller than the white-led organizations — despite focusing on the same work.
Ford President Darren Walker tells us: “As funders, we need to reject the impulse to put grant making rather than change making at the center of our worldview. Listening, learning, and lifting up voices who are most proximate and most essential to unlocking solutions is critical to the type of change making that we seek. This requires examining what gets in the way of trust.”
These inequities are neither new nor limited to Echoing Green’s applicant pool. Organizations led by people of color, including Philanthropic Initiative for Race Equity and Change Philanthropy, a coalition of seven organizations that promote inclusiveness and equity, have been sounding the alarm about this issue for quite a while. To further understand what drives the racial funding gap, Echoing Green and Bridgespan conducted interviews with more than 50 leaders, including nonprofit executives of color, philanthropic staff, and leaders working to address this issue. Through these conversations, we consistently observed leaders of color hitting barriers across the full arc of fundraising efforts:
Getting connected to potential supporters. Leaders of color have inequitable access to social networks that enable connections to foundations and influential people in philanthropy.
Building rapport with potential donors. Interpersonal bias can manifest as mistrust and microaggressions, which inhibit relationship building and place emotional burdens on leaders of color.
Securing support for the organization. Grant makers often lack understanding of culturally relevant approaches, leading them to over-rely on strategies with which they are familiar and specific forms of evaluation that may not be accessible to organizations that face chronic challenges getting adequate financing and other support.
Sustaining relationships with current supporters. Grant-renewal processes can be arduous if mistrust remains, and funding may stop if the grant maker has a white-centric view of what is a strategic priority and how to measure progress.
The existence of these barriers is a sign of how racial bias — both personal and institutional, conscious and unconscious — creeps into all parts of the philanthropic and grant-making process. And we know the racial funding gap stymies efforts to achieve results. But such disparities also matter because without taking active antiracist measures to ensure equity in funding, philanthropists inadvertently contribute to inequities in society.
We cannot expect philanthropy to work honestly to address racial inequities without claiming responsibility for the roles our organizations have played in helping to create the current reality. For Bridgespan, our own focus on rigorous measurement has led those we advise to overlook the potential of organizations that don’t fit the narrow definition of “good” such measures create. We have also enthusiastically promoted philanthropic big bets — efforts to persuade wealthy donors to take on ambitious social-change efforts — often without acknowledging how such large gifts might magnify inequities in funding.
As for Echoing Green, we continue to help leaders of color get their organizations off the ground despite knowing how difficult the barriers will make it to maintain support from the funding community as they try to grow. Our collaboration hopes to contribute to the ongoing efforts of the many fighting for equitable funding.
When our organizations started this research together almost a year ago, we had no idea that the time to share our work would come in the midst of a global pandemic. But the pandemic only makes this issue even more urgent. Just as Covid-19 has been devastating to communities of color, many nonprofits led by people of color are at risk of not surviving this pandemic either, vulnerable because of chronic underfunding.
As talk increasingly turns to the desire to get back to normal, the racial disparities we see in philanthropy and society should be a wake-up call that getting back to how things were is not good enough. Philanthropist Tricia Raikes powerfully writes: “It’s fashionable, but false, to say that the coronavirus doesn’t discriminate. The virus discriminates because our systems discriminate. ... Today, we can buy groceries and masks, but tomorrow, we should fix a system that leaves people reliant on food banks and treats essential workers as expendable. By giving for change, not charity, we can begin to bridge our divides and build a better future.”
It is up to each of us to decide now if we want to be part of the problem or part of the solution for that better future. Funding more organizations led by people of color and increasing grants to those that already receive support is part of the solution. Are you ready to act?
