Wealthy Donors Make Big Gifts to Racial-Justice and Diversity Efforts

The mass protests against racial injustice that have shaken the country this year have galvanized wealthy donors to increase their public giving to racial-justice and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. To date, rich donors have given at least $208.3 million to such efforts, according to a new Chronicle tally of public gifts from individuals. All of the contributions have come in the months following the police killing of George Floyd at the end of May.

That 2020 sum is a marked increase from 2019, when affluent philanthropists gave $26.2 million publicly toward such efforts. It does not include the many millions big donors have given to top historically Black colleges and universities, which have also seen a significant rise in donations this year.

More wealthy donors have started to give to social justice and diversity or earmark a portion of a big donation to a university or other large institution to support such efforts since the Black Lives Matter movement started in 2013. Many of those donations have been given over the past six months, when 37 such contributions were announced. The only other year that saw more than four or five racial-justice or diversity donations during that time period was 2018, when six such gifts were given.

The Chronicle’s tally includes only a smattering of social-justice donations made this year by Mackenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. In July, Scott announced that she had given $1.7 billion since last fall, primarily to nonprofits focused on equity causes and led by people of color, women, and LGBTQ people. Not all of Scott’s donations are included in the tally because only a handful of the charities revealed how much money they received.

The figure also includes nearly $21 million in donations from Jack Dorsey to racial- and social-justice groups. Dorsey announced in April that he would transfer $1 billion of his Square equity to Start Small LLC to back global Covid-19 relief and social-justice efforts. So far, he has given more than $209 million to both causes.

Courtesy Jrue and Lauren Holiday

In June, the real-estate mogul Stephen Ross pledged $13 million to RISE to expand the New York nonprofit’s efforts to fight systemic racism by working with community groups, college and professional athletes, and coaches and staff from sports teams and leagues across the country. Ross owns the Miami Dolphins NFL team, and he established RISE in 2015 after talking with Draymond Green, a basketball player for the Golden State Warriors, about the origins of racism.

Police Overhaul

Ross, Scott, and Dorsey are all well-known names in the philanthropy world who have received a lot of attention for their big gifts to help existing charities. All three are white. Other wealthy philanthropists, however, some of whom are people of color, are stepping up to give large sums to promote racial justice by establishing new programs within existing charities or creating new nonprofits.

One philanthropic couple is giving big to support overhauling the police. Gail and Phillip Holloman gave $1 million this summer to the Urban League of Greater Southwestern Ohio to create its Center for Social Justice. Officials at the new center plan to monitor police actions in the Cincinnati and Dayton areas and recommend changes. Phillip Holloman, a retired president and COO of the Cintas Corporation, serves as chairman of the Urban League of Greater Southwestern Ohio and has a decade-long relationship with the organization.

Holloman says he and his wife decided to make the gift to expand ongoing efforts to overhaul police practices in urban areas like Cincinnati and extend them to surrounding towns and suburbs as well. He says they were also worried that the outrage over police killings of Black men and women like George Floyd Jr. and Breonna Taylor would recede from people’s minds and slow the urgency of such efforts both in their region and nationally.

Courtesy Phillip Holloman

“We were really concerned that as the resurgence of the pandemic and the upcoming elections moved to the forefront of the news cycle, we would lose the emphasis on the need for police reform,” Holloman says. “We wanted to make sure over the long term that we have an organization in place with the right resources that will continue to focus on this.”

Officials at the new center plan to assess the current state of police departments in the area. They want to find out whether departments are devoting enough resources to combat things like racial profiling at traffic stops and improve the training police officers receive on de-escalation strategies and other practices that could help them avoid lethal and biased confrontations. Officials also want to work with the police departments and community advocates to identify and implement best practices.

The organization has hired a director to lead the new center as well as another staff member and has already attracted more than $100,000 in donations since the Hollomans announced their gift in June, says Eddie Koen, CEO of the Urban League of Greater Southwestern Ohio. The organization plans to launch a more formal fundraising effort for the center in the coming months.

“People here know if Phillip has given a gift that’s this big, it is really an endorsement of what we’re doing,” Koen says. “We already have several people say they want to learn about the center, they want to tour it, they want to support it. And that is happening when we’re not even publicly fundraising for it yet.”

For his part, Holloman says he plans to help raise money for the center and intends to be closely involved in the center’s work well into the future.

Holloman says his commitment to the center’s mission is driven by his own interests in social justice and his personal experiences as a Black man who has encountered racism in day-to-day life — including getting stopped and questioned by a police officer in front of his own home.

In an encounter one evening four years ago, Holloman says he was driving home when a police car pulled over behind him a block or two from his house in an affluent neighborhood. When Holloman pulled into his driveway and stopped at the mailbox, the police officer drove up to him and asked if he was lost or needed help and implied Holloman didn’t look like he belonged there.

Holloman says he asked the officer why he stopped to question him, and the officer replied that he wanted to find out if Holloman knew where he was going or needed directions. Holloman didn’t answer the question but told the officer to be careful if he decided to ask Holloman another question. At that point, the officer drove away.

“I’m in my own driveway and I’m being questioned, and that’s just one example,” Holloman says. “In a different situation with somebody different, that could have escalated because the African American citizen was just so pissed that they decided to go off and then the officer reacts to that and that escalates.”

Aid to Black Businesses

Other donors are giving to fight economic inequality in Black neighborhoods.

Jrue and Lauren Holiday gave roughly $5 million in July to launch the Jrue and Lauren Holiday Social Justice Impact Fund to fight systematic racism and social and economic inequality in Black neighborhoods. The couple are professional athletes. Jrue Holiday plays for the New Orleans Pelicans basketball team, and Lauren Holiday is a retired professional soccer player on the U.S. women’s national soccer team and is a two-time Olympic gold medalist.

Police killings of Black citizens and the resulting protests that exploded in recent months prompted Jrue Holiday to wonder whether playing basketball mattered right now and whether he should sit out the rest of the season. Lauren Holiday suggested instead that he play and give the remainder of his NBA season salary to start the foundation.

“We felt like this would be a perfect time to do that, especially on the national stage that we’re on,” Jrue Holiday said in a video announcement about the gift.

Lauren Holiday said it was particularly important to her and her husband to give to Black-owned businesses because so little of the Paycheck Protection Program payouts went to such business owners.

“I felt like this year really made me step up as a person and as a Black man,” Jrue Holiday said in the announcement. “I think 2020 kind of gives you a kick in the butt to really look at yourself in the mirror and see what you’re about.”

The Holidays created their New Orleans nonprofit to back Black-led charities, Black-owned businesses, and programs that help people of color in New Orleans, where they live; Indianapolis, her home town; and the Los Angeles area, where he grew up and where the couple attended college. They are also directing some of the grants they give through the organization to Black-owned businesses in other cities across the country and to historically Black colleges and universities.

The Holidays are directing up to $1.5 million to nonprofit organizations in New Orleans, $1 million to charities in Indianapolis, and $1.5 million to groups in Los Angeles and Compton, Calif. Another $1 million will be awarded to Black-owned small businesses, and they’re directing $500,000 to historically Black colleges and universities.