‘Trauma, Promise, and Possibility’

The protests over police violence and systemic racism that have erupted around the world have done more than shine a spotlight on race in America. They have created a moment of opportunity, says Jawanza Malone, executive director of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization, which works on housing, education, and other issues for residents in those Chicago neighborhoods.

Radical change may be more possible today than at any time in recent history, he says. But Malone is unsure about whether his group and others like it that are led by people of color will have the resources they need to take full advantage of this pivotal time. And that, too, is because of race.

Malone is part of a coalition of groups that have been negotiating with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot to require the city to create low-cost housing units for people who will likely be displaced by the soon-to-be-built Obama Presidential Center and the luxury housing that is expected to be built nearby. After months of stalemate, the mayor has shifted her stance and is now willing to consider creating thousands of units of affordable housing — far more than she had offered earlier, Malone says.

“That’s something that really just came out of this moment,” says Malone. Demands for racial justice are putting pressure on government officials and policy makers that is opening the door to change that wasn’t possible a few short months ago. Curtailing police funding — a rallying cry for protesters but an obscure proposal until the June protests began — is now being discussed and debated across the country.

The Chicago Department of Housing said in a statement that the city was providing residents with affordable housing through an ordinance passed in February that was the result of a lengthy community-engagement process.

Malone’s group has been around since 1965. It received emergency Covid funding from foundations as well as a Paycheck Protection Program loan from the federal government. That and a well-timed grant disbursement have helped the group survive the pandemic so far. Despite his experience with foundation funding, he is skeptical that it will continue at this level. He expects his group will again be cash strapped and it will struggle to meet all the needs of the people it serves.

Groups like his that are run by people of color have long been underfunded. A study released this spring by the consulting group Bridgespan showed just how large the disparity can be. It found that organizations led by whites that were among the finalists for a prestigious program had budgets that were 24 percent higher than finalists led by people of color. Revenues at groups that work to improve the lives of Black men were 45 percent lower at groups with Black leaders than those led by whites.

Foundations have a particularly important role to play. Four in 10 groups led by people of color say their major source of income derives from foundations, compared with two in 10 white groups, according to a 2018 survey by the Building Movement Project.

Malone fears that this moment, with all of its trauma, promise, and possibility, won’t be enough to break the cycle and that his nonprofit and others like it won’t get the money they need to be effective. Philanthropy, he says, doesn’t seem to understand the opportunity and the crisis at hand.

“How is philanthropy understanding human nature?” Malone asks. “How is philanthropy understanding how they should show up in this moment, and how is philanthropy understanding that they have groups on the ground that have to be nimble and responsive to what’s happening, that want to advance the causes that we’re always fighting for?”

‘We Need to Step Up’

Experts aren’t sure about the answer to those questions. Philanthropy has remained stubbornly white in terms of its leadership and grant-making policies despite years of talk about diversity and a few major exceptions when it comes to CEO appointments and spending policies. Yet there are signs that it is responding to this crisis in a way that takes racial disparity into account.

The ABFE, originally the Association of Black Foundation Executives, last month issued an agenda for philanthropy signed by 64 Black leaders of top grant makers including Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation, urging foundations to support efforts to improve the lives of Black people.

Already, some money is flowing. The Marguerite Casey Foundation awarded $600,000 to three Black-led organizations that are working to end police violence in Minneapolis, Tallahassee, Fla., and Louisville, Ky. — all places where police officers have killed Black people. The Grand Victoria Foundation made grants totaling more than $400,000 in May alone, much of which went to groups led by people of color that combat anti-Black racism.

And the Libra Foundation has doubled its grant making this year to $50 million, with $22 million set aside for social-justice groups. Much of that money will go to groups led by people of color, an expansion of its work to promote racial equity.

“There’s an opportunity here for a real sea change in how we understand social problems in this country and the ability to actually get to a root-cause problem,” says Crystal Hayling, executive director of the Libra Foundation, which focuses on funding groups led by people of color and has seen interest from other philanthropies shoot up.“That’s what we’re supposedly here for, so we need to step up.”

Grim Financial Outlook

Nonprofits led by people of color entered this crisis at a disadvantage. They have long struggled to raise the money they need to do their work and say they face obstacles that white leaders do not. In a survey of more than 4,000 nonprofit leaders conducted by the Building Movement Project and released in June, higher percentages of leaders of color reported inadequate salaries, a lack of role models, and a dearth of relationships with funding sources than white nonprofit leaders — gaps that appear in the survey year after year. (See more from the study’s authors in an Opinion article.)

“Nonprofits that are led by people of color are feeling the impact of this crisis in very stark ways,” says Deepa Iyer, a senior adviser at the Building Movement Project. “Many people-of-color-led nonprofits are underresourced to begin with. When a crisis hits, they are less likely to be able to dig into their reserves or to lean on a very large staff in order to meet the needs of their community.”

Lynsey Weatherspoon

The vast majority of nonprofits have been hit hard by the pandemic, which resulted in canceled galas and a collapse of income from services and forced many groups to close or alter operations. By May, 13 percent of groups had suspended all or most of their operations, and about 17 percent had let employees go, according to a survey by Unemployment Services Trust.

Signs suggest that groups run by people of color may be in worse straits. In a more recent survey by the Building Movement Project of 435 nonprofits since the pandemic hit, 37 percent said their grant revenue had declined significantly or slightly since March. Sixty-four percent said donations from individuals had similarly fallen — all at a time when many of these groups are seeing a spike in the need for services because of the stalled economy and the pandemic.

“We’ve heard from groups saying, ‘We don’t know where we’re going to be a year from now. We don’t know if we’re going to be able to sustain ourselves in the same way that we have in the past. We were already struggling at some level, and we don’t know what it’s going to look like unless there are really long-range interventions made by donors,’” Iyer says.

Slow Pace of Change

Black Youth Project 100, a national organization for young Black activists and community organizers working for social justice, had to act fast to meet urgent needs when stay-at-home orders were issued in March.

The organization set aside $125,000, mostly from its travel budget, for cash assistance. It gave money to people in communities hard hit by the pandemic who weren’t eligible for stimulus funds from the government — some gig workers, sex workers, and others. It set up three other cash funds, including a burial fund for people who quickly and unexpectedly lost loved ones.

Early on, the group received small emergency grants from foundations that already supported it but little from grant makers it didn’t have existing relationships with. They were uninterested in funding the group’s cash-disbursement program, D’atra Jackson, the group’s national director, says. Instead, the foundations directed her to their emergency Covid funds, which are generally grants of $5,000 to $10,000. The sums are so small and, in some cases, require so much paperwork that she didn’t bother applying for some of them.

The group’s profile has been raised during the recent protests, and it has received gifts from about 500 new donors averaging $33 each. But Jackson isn’t surprised foundations have been slow to help groups like hers that fight the systemic racism recent protests railed against.

“Many of the foundations, the values they were founded on are not around flexibility, accommodation, or adaptation. It is about sticking to the goals and the rules. Black organizations, those led by people of color, are trying to push them on those very values,” Jackson says. “But it has to be shifted drastically from within.”

Seeking Change in the Board Room

If foundations really do want to change, they need to diversify their staff, says Keecha Harris, a former foundation board member who also works as a consultant to foundations on diversity, equity, and inclusion. They need to broaden their networks and trust the people who are closest to the inequity they want to remedy. And to really succeed, she says, they may need to go through more radical transformations.

“For any of this to change, you’ve got to have different leaders who are saying, ‘Not only is this a priority for us as an organization, but I am willing to put my money where my mouth is,’” Harris says.

Change at the board level is critical since that is where so many decisions are made, says Sharon Bush, executive director of the Grand Victoria Foundation. According to a Boardsource survey, only 15 percent of foundation trustees and 10 percent of chairmen are not white.

For all of their rigidity, foundations often bend the rules after disasters, which has proven to be very effective. Many have offered grantees greater flexibility in the wake of the pandemic. According to Candid, foundations had pledged $6 billion in Covid aid by the beginning of May, but it is not clear how much of that has been disbursed. Many grant makers moved money quickly by simplifying applications. They cut back on onerous reporting requirements and lifted restrictions on existing grants that could hobble organizations — especially nonprofits led by people of color, which are less likely to win general operating support, according to the study by Bridgespan.

Borealis Philanthropy took those steps well before the pandemic. Founded in 2014 to connect grant makers with social-change organizations, Borealis does things differently. It prioritizes making grants to groups that have been traditionally underfunded and encourages other grant makers to do the same.

“We know from doing it that it’s possible,” says Maya Thornell-Sandifor, director of racial equity initiatives at Borealis. “It’s interesting to see now that it’s also possible for larger institutional funders to do that, even though they’ve been saying they can’t.”

Built-In Bias

As protests have spread across the country in recent weeks, Hayling of the Libra Foundation has been fielding calls from other grant makers that want to support groups led by people of color but are uncertain how to proceed. Many are used to funding groups they have long-term relationships with. They often think they need to help small groups led by people of color improve their management and operational skills before making grants. Hayling says they are needlessly cautious and narrow in their understanding of who can be effective change agents.

She says that many groups led by people of color have worked for years on policies that have come to the fore in protests against police violence. Advocates have pushed to radically reduce the role of law-enforcement officers, reserving their use for rare situations when force is necessary. . But too often those groups are left out of important policy discussions because they are local activists whose perspectives and experiences aren’t valued at the policy level, says Hayling. If these groups were better financed, she says, that could change.

“We’ve got some built-in biases about what capacity looks like,” she says. For example, getting 300 people to show up at a state capital to demand the release of inmates at risk of contracting Covid-19 in county jails can be more effective than groups that write perfect proposals but work through the courts or on policy in Washington, D.C., she says.

Grant Makers Advocate for Change

Like Hayling, many other grant makers are trying to change perceptions and encourage their colleagues to think differently.

Hanh Le, executive director of the Weissberg Foundation, joined the steering committee of the Greater Washington Community Foundation’s pooled Covid-19 Emergency Response Fund as a way to advocate that a significant portion of grants go to organizations led by people of color.

For several years, the Weissberg Foundation and other grant makers in the Washington region have been involved in an effort to develop strategies to help foundations grapple with racial inequities. But Le says philanthropy also needs to consider how it upholds those inequities. Many foundation executives have a bias toward large groups’ ability to reach lots of people at the expense of smaller community organizations that can be more effective because they know the neighborhoods in which they work. That means mainstream grant makers shy away from funding groups led by people of color, she says.

“There’s this lack of trust,” she says. “There’s this lack of even knowing who these organizations are. There’s significant underinvestment over time, resulting in groups not having the capacity to do their work in a certain way that mainstream funders are looking for.”

Thanks to the effort of Le and others, more than half the first round of the community foundation’s $7.2 million emergency-response fund went to organizations led by people of color. A portion of grants in the second round will support organizations advocating for systems change.

In Chicago, another effort is underway to help groups led by people of color. The Chicago Community Trust has raised $35 million for groups in and around the city and another $30 million for groups throughout Illinois that serve people of color. (Malone’s group has received grants from the trust in the past.)

“I wouldn’t say that those funds have closed the gap for organizations of color,” says Helene Gayle, the trust’s CEO. “But we understand the burden that many of them carry at this time, and we’ve been able to provide additional resources to help them fulfill their mission.”

An Uncertain Future

Emergency Covid funding from foundations has been pivotal in helping the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization meet the need for food and supplies in those communities. Demand has more than tripled in the last few months and shows no sign of slowing.

Malone appreciates the support, but he has already been disappointed by one foundation that scaled back its commitment. The foundation had said it planned to increase its support to $125,000 this year — a lot for the $1 million-a-year group. But now, because the foundation suffered hits to its endowment, it’s granting only $75,000. Malone expects retrenchment — not the current boost in emergency funding — to be the trend going forward.

He says foundations are shifting priorities, and funding will be tighter next year. “There’s going to be less money to go around for things that we typically will get support for, like organizing,” he says. “In the long term, these needs aren’t going anywhere. The double whammy of Covid-19 and the uprising around the murder of George Floyd has really dramatized this.”

The foundations that fund organizations led by people of color are working hard to ensure that this moment — and momentum — isn’t lost. It’s not easy, but they want to make sure that groups like Malone’s get the funding they need.

The Chicago Community Trust’s Gayle hopes foundations are finally being pushed to a defining moment where they have to grapple with their own practices.

“There is a more affirmative sense that we are part of the problem,” Gayle says. “And this is the moment when we can actually demonstrate that we also want to be part of the solution by tearing down some of this systemic racism.”

(The Chronicle of Higher Education, the organization that publishes the Chronicle of Philanthropy, has received a loan under the Paycheck Protection Program.)