To the Editor:
Black people in America are owed a debt that’s long past due, and philanthropy must pay our share. Alex Daniel’s recent article, “The Push for Payback: Robert Wood Johnson and 80 Other Foundations Make a Case for Reparations” (March 11) covered one approach to addressing the problem: Foundations’ efforts to fund and advocate for reparations. However, philanthropy also needs to confront how our own wealth was built by exploiting Black people.
Acknowledging past and present racial atrocities is crucial for justice and healing. That’s why philanthropy should account for and address past harms as well as ensure policies, practices, and operations reflect our commitment to rectifying historical injustices and promoting equity.
In 2021, the organization we co-lead, iF, A Foundation for Radical Possibility (formerly the Consumer Health Foundation), commissioned the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy to research philanthropy’s role in reparations for Black people in the Washington, D.C., region we serve. The recently released report, “Cracks in the Foundation: Philanthropy’s Role in Reparations for Black People in the DMV,” demonstrates how foundations can examine and acknowledge our own origins and the harm caused by our wealth-building; engage exploited communities in determining how to repair and redress that harm; dismantle white supremacist philanthropic structures, and advocate for reparations legislation.
We’re intimately familiar with these inconsistencies in philanthropy. For a long time, iF told an origin story that we now know was fiction. Through the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy’s research, we discovered that the foundation’s wealth, like that of most other foundations, was created through a racist and exploitative capitalist system that caused significant harm to generations of Black people.
We commit to centering Black people as we acknowledge, reckon with, and repair the damage caused by our wealth-building. We call on all foundations committed to racial equity and justice to walk with us in this endeavor. Let’s hold up a mirror to ourselves and address the cracks in our foundation.
Temi F. Bennett & Hanh Le
Co-CEOs
iF, A Foundation for Radical Possibility
