Philanthropy This Week

Todd Johnson, San Francisco Business Times

Good morning.

As the world marks the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we have in-depth coverage of what donors and nonprofits are doing — and what’s next.

But before you get to that, an article by Eden Stiffman we just published is worth your attention.

Eden is based in San Francisco, and she was curious about an ambitious philanthropy effort to reduce chronic homelessness in the city. Her goal was to learn whether nonprofits and donors succeeded in finding a way to deal with a problem that has long been neglected: helping the most vulnerable — people whose addictions, mental health, and other problems have made it hard for them to find permanent shelter.

Eden’s focus was on a $100 million effort funded primarily by 14 wealthy donors in the Bay Area and run by Tipping Point, an organization that attracts money from tech entrepreneurs and other philanthropists in the region to support projects on education, employment, and other issues.

The money was the largest charitable pledge in the city’s history to deal with homelessness, but what might have been just as important as the dollars was the work Tipping Point did to help the San Francisco government operate more transparently and efficiently as it sought to fight homelessness.

Eden’s reporting shows just how hard it is for philanthropy to change entrenched government policies — but how much it can do to help localities do better in dealing with social issues. Tipping Point and its financial support were catalysts for bringing city government and nonprofit service providers together to work in new ways. And it helped spur innovation and legitimize promising solutions before government dollars could follow.

Says Sam Cobbs, Tipping Point’s CEO (above): “The city fundamentally serves and thinks about how to serve chronic homeless individuals differently than when this initiative started.”

But progress was slowed by the pandemic and other challenges so chronic homelessness is still a problem in San Francisco. Cobbs says the setbacks were inevitable. “”When you work on large societal problems like homelessness, it’s going to take longer to see the transformational change you want.”

Here’s what else you need to know:

Diego Herrera Carcedo, Anadolu Agency, Getty Images

On this first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as philanthropic funding has sharply declined in the typical boom-and-bust pattern of disaster giving, foundations should rethink how they can support efforts to make the world more peaceful and equitable (opinion).

Global peace has diminished for the 11 years straight, writes Alexandra Toma, who leads the Peace and Security Funders Group, “with a simultaneous negative impact on the world’s economy.” Yet less than 1 percent of all philanthropic giving goes to support peace.

Grant makers can help reverse that by funding efforts to prevent conflict (which costs 10 percent as much as recovery), mitigate dire consequences of wars, such as human trafficking, and support stable, resilient societies.

In Ukraine, for example, the Open Society and Ford foundations and others are making big commitments to rebuild infrastructure to weather the post-conflict era. Others are making issue-specific grants to support scientists, farmers, and efforts toward free and fair elections.

For those interested in helping, writes Toma, “a dedicated, passionate community of donors is ready to jointly fund, collaborate, and welcome them into this critical work.”

Also: As the conflict rages in Ukraine, nonprofits are helping on many fronts: Charities are helping Ukrainians in the United States cope, volunteers are sending supplies to the war-torn country, and donors are navigating ethical issues.

The Obama Foundation

America’s top donors have an eye on the future, supporting efforts to prevent cyber attacks and to find the next generation of leaders (“the next Obamas”), but most are still giving to the kinds of issues wealthy people have funded for decades, such as scholarships and research on cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and Alzheimer’s.

In our report on the 50 biggest philanthropists of 2022, most were men, only one was a person of color, and many observers worry that too little money is going toward climate change and equity, report Maria Di Mento and Drew Lindsay.

After the murder of George Floyd, a number of philanthropists stepped up to see what they could do, Crystal Hayling, of the Libra Foundation, told Maria and Drew. But now, she says, “conversation is moving back to a place that’s a little bit more comfortable for people of wealth. They say, ‘Let’s just talk about equal opportunity, job pipelines, and improving schools.’ Those things are important, but they can be slightly evasive of really addressing the issue of racial justice.”

Plus: In another article, Emily Haynes reports on a study that shows the value of gifts of $10 million or more dropped 38 percent from 2021 to 2022 — although the number of gifts increased by 3 percent,. That drop was mostly due to a $15 billion gift from Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates in 2021. Without that contribution, the value would have dipped just 4 percent.

Kevin Frayer, Getty Images

The perceived messy, risky work of building movements often scares away grant makers, but these efforts are critical to creating equitable societies (opinion).

That’s the view of Ben Naimark-Rowse. a Tufts University professor who has written a new report, “Dollars and Dissent,” that examines the obstacles to funding grassroots groups.

Among the barriers: Grant makers often have advocacy or legal backgrounds, so they are often drawn to social change efforts that rely primarily on small numbers of experts and insiders and are leery of approaches that rely on a broad base of support from those who have firsthand experience with the social conditions they seek to change.

Naimark-Rowse urges grant makers to learn more from organizers and movement leaders, such as adding them to the board and rethinking how to evaluate the success of grassroots organizing.

And most important, he writes, they should recognize that “throughout history, movements have been central to changing norms and laws about women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, ending wars and securing peace, opening entire regions to democracy, expanding electorates, and provoking people’s imaginations about what is politically possible in their societies.”

We hope you can relax and recharge this weekend.

— Marilyn Dickey and Stacy Palmer

WHAT WE’RE READING ELSEWHERE

The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s annual list of the top 50 donors highlights some persistent truths about big philanthropy — it is overwhelmingly white and rather secretive — but offers a few “glimmers of change.” (Vox and Barron’s)

The Sierra Club’s first leader of color says the environmental movement and the struggle for racial and economic equity are inextricably linked. (Los Angeles Times)

NPR will cut its staff by 10 percent to fill a $30 million hole in its budget, a year after attracting record corporate underwriting. (NPR)

New York City’s sometimes yearlong delays in getting money to its nonprofit contractors are putting those agencies’ vulnerable clients in harm’s way. (New York Times)

The chief diversity officer for a venerable social-justice nonprofit has been accused of fabricating her identity — by her mother. (Intercept)

As other institutions have spurned philanthropy from the Sackler family, Oxford University has continued to cultivate them as donors. (Financial Times — subscription)

NEW GRANT OPPORTUNITIES

Your Chronicle subscription includes free access to GrantStation’s database of grant opportunities.

Urban agriculture. The Department of Agriculture supports the development of urban agriculture and innovative production. Two types of grants are available: Planning projects work to initiate, develop, or support the efforts of farmers, gardeners, citizens, government officials, schools, members of tribal communities, and other stakeholders in areas where access to fresh foods is limited or unavailable. Implementation projects are for accelerating existing and emerging models of urban or innovative agricultural practices that serve multiple farmers or gardeners, which may include new and emerging, as well as traditional or Indigenous, agricultural practices. The application deadline is March 27.

Health disparities. The Department of Health and Human Services funds program to improve health, prevent chronic diseases, and reduce health disparities among racial and ethnic populations with the highest risk or burden of chronic disease. Eligible projects will support culturally tailored interventions and activities for nutrition, physical activity, and tobacco collaborations that ultimately lead to reduced health disparities in chronic conditions of hypertension, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, and obesity, as well as vaccination activities to support the prevention of infectious diseases such as flu, Covid-19, and other adult diseases. The application deadline is April 11.