A Philanthropic Covenant with Black America

Rodney Jackson

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780470397923
• eBook ISBN: 9780470494134
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Nonprofit Organizations & Charities
• Index: Business

A Philanthropic Covenant will feature eight essays from several prominent African American grantmakers, scholars, activists and clergy that will examine critical elements of modern philanthropy and how they affect Black communities for good and for ill. Each chapter will include statistical documentation of the issues, strategic recommendations to improve the quality of Black life, and examples of outstanding models already being practiced throughout the country. A Philanthropic Covenant is intended to inform individuals, grantors, religious organizations, fundraisers and youth how philanthropy--time, talent and treasure--can be strategically mobilized to assist Black communities in dealing more effectively with the issues outlined in The Covenant with Black America. Throughout the book, emphasis will be placed on the role, responsibilities and potential of African Americans and African-American philanthropy, in particular, to affect positive change in their own communities.

Chapter 1

Empowering the African American Community through Strategic Grantmaking

Angela Glover Blackwell

Founder and CEO, PolicyLink, Oakland, CA

Facts

The author gratefully acknowledges the writing contributions of Katrin Sirje Kärk, former PolicyLink senior writer, and Fran Smith, PolicyLink senior communications consultant; and for her insight on many of the climate change implications this chapter contains, Danielle Deane, program officer, Environment, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

• More than 72,000 foundations in the United States were responsible for $42.9 billion in giving in 2007, according to the Foundation Center, a research organization focused on philanthropy. Adjusted for inflation, grant dollars have more than doubled since 1997.¹

• A Foundation Center analysis of grants of $10,000 or more awarded by a national sample of large foundations found that 7 percent of dollars were designated explicitly for racial and ethnic minorities, including 1.5 percent for African Americans and 1.2 percent for Latinos.²

• Twelve percent of grants by large independent foundations, but only 7.7 percent of grant dollars, went to minority-led organizations in 2004, according to a study by the Greenlining Institute, a policy and advocacy organization. When a $535 million grant to the United Negro College Fund was excluded from the analysis, minority-led groups received only 3.6 percent of grant funding.³

• Foundation Center analyses show that almost 46 percent of grant dollars go to health and education. Fourteen percent go to human services, a broad category that includes criminal justice, food and nutrition, employment, housing, youth development, sports and recreation, and safety and disaster relief. Environment and animals receive 6 percent of grant funding.⁴

• In a 2007 study of giving by its members, Environmental Grantmakers Association reported that 42 percent of funding went to species and land protection. Climate and energy received 13 percent. Eight percent went to pollution and toxics, including 2.4 percent for environmental justice.⁵

From marquee foundations dispensing the fortunes of corporate titans, to family foundations supporting causes close to a founder’s heart, to community foundations striving to make a difference at home, the philanthropic sector offers vast resources to tackle the world’s most pressing problems. But these resources have limits, and like government budgeting, foundation giving raises hard questions: Which organizations, issues, and constituencies should receive grants and why? Who benefits? Who decides?

At the 2007 conference of the Council on Foundations, an overflow crowd participated in a discussion of the Covenant with Black America. Philanthropy leaders showed strong interest in the Covenant agenda and their role in advancing it. And they should.

Foundation investment can have a profound impact on struggling and disconnected populations. While the robust philanthropic sector should not serve as an excuse for the government to abdicate responsibility for social, economic, and environmental welfare, foundations can and must work with the public and private sectors to promote opportunity for all. Yet foundations have not fully risen to this challenge. Relatively few dollars reach communities of color and African Americans, in particular. People of color make up one-third of the population of the United States, but research by the Foundation Center shows that only 7 percent of grant support is designated specifically for racial and ethnic minorities. A mere 1.5 percent is targeted to African Americans.

This minimal funding is not for lack of foundation interest in the issues affecting African Americans. On the contrary: while prestigious institutions such as universities, museums, symphonies, and opera companies hold high-profile fundraising galas and attract elite benefactors, foundations have a much broader portfolio. As Foundation Center statistics show, more than 70 percent of grants of more than $10,000 support work in health, education, human services, youth development, public affairs, community development, and civil rights—areas of great concern to the black community.

But do organizations funded to do this work have strong alliances with, or allegiance to, communities of color? Is this question regularly asked by foundations as they review proposals? Foundations have not generally done a good job of identifying organizations rooted in the black community and other communities of color and providing support at the levels required to achieve significant, sustainable impact. A Greenlining Institute study of domestic spending by 25 of the nation’s largest foundations found that minority-led organizations received 12 percent of grants in 2005 but only 8 percent of grant dollars, an indication that nonprofits run by people of color typically receive relatively small grants, if they receive funding at all.⁶

Many foundations support an established roster of grantees or concentrate on a narrow set of issue areas, making it difficult for new constituencies and organizations without significant connections to foundation professionals to step up from small project-oriented grants to substantial funding. Certainly some foundations seek out innovation and untested grantees, but like all habits, long-standing grant practices prove challenging to break. Achieving the goals of the Covenant with Black America will require many well-run, well-resourced, dedicated groups with staying power that are accountable to communities of color.

What does it mean to be “accountable to communities of color”? Is it sufficient that a person of color leads the organization? Must the majority of the staff be of color—and what about racial diversity on the organization’s board of directors? Would an organization that focuses on a relevant issue—improving public schools in cities, for example—be considered accountable given the potential benefits of improved urban education for people of color? Can an organization that does not have a voting membership ever be truly accountable?

These hard questions require finely nuanced answers that ultimately involve more art than science. Clearly an organization that focuses on building a more inclusive society, led by a person of color with a track record of service and struggle on issues affecting a particular racial or ethnic group or several communities of color, is a good example of accountability. This accountability is strengthened if people of color hold leadership positions on the staff and board. But is it also possible for that same organization, with the same agenda, and the same staff and board, to maintain a deep commitment and accountability to communities of color even without a leader of color?

True accountability is reflected in actions. It requires debating the issues with the affected communities. It means demonstrating a continuing commitment to improve conditions in communities of color and strengthen the authentic voice of people of color. Accountability exists when an organization steadfastly and reliably works with residents and/or leaders of color for the good of communities of color—even when such positions are not in vogue.

Creating an Equitable Portfolio

Unlike charitable organizations, devoted largely to providing for the short-term needs of individuals, many foundations use strategic philanthropy to determine how to allocate their money. Strategic grant making focuses on change and builds for the future. Ideally, strategic giving reflects and advances a foundation’s core values and concerns.⁷ Through strategic philanthropy, foundations can translate their interest in issues affecting people of color into actions to improve and strengthen communities of color.

The urgent need to confront climate change presents an exciting opportunity to use strategic grant making to build organizations committed to inclusion—and may lead to a case study of how to develop an equitable portfolio in any arena of concern to philanthropy.

As an emerging frontier for grant making, and one that will grow more critical in the years to come, climate change offers a way to be deliberate about inclusion from the outset. Strategic grant making can also help strengthen the connections between communities of color, environmental justice, and the mainstream environmental movement. In the popular culture, environmentalism has often been portrayed as the chic cause of affluent white Americans, but it is well documented that the poor are affected most by environmental problems. In fact, the grassroots environmental justice movement was born from the realization that low-income communities and communities of color often bear the brunt of air pollution, toxic dumping, dilapidated infrastructure, and undesirable public works sites such as sewage treatment plants and bus depots.

Although climate change threatens to cause catastrophic consequences that transcend race, class, and geography, the poor and people of color around the globe stand to suffer disproportionately. Weather fluctuations brought on by rampant consumption of energy, particularly in advanced industrial nations, are predicted to wreak havoc on the agriculture, infrastructure, and very survival of some of the world’s poorest communities in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In the United States, African Americans, Latinos, and other people of color once again will shoulder an unfair burden.

The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation conducted an exhaustive analysis of the impact of global warming on African Americans. The report—which is impressive in its scope and for the fact that the CBCF undertook this examination in 2004, well before celebrity activists took up the cause and Al Gore’s galvanizing documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, effectively beat back the vestiges of skepticism about global warming—found that African Americans are less responsible for climate change because as a group, they create fewer greenhouse gases. But they are and will continue to be disproportionately affected by global warming.⁸ According to the CBCF research, African Americans are more likely than whites to live in polluted communities; suffer from serious environment-related conditions such as asthma; and die in connection with hurricanes, floods, heat waves, and other extreme weather events. African Americans also are more vulnerable to the economic effects of global warming. The report noted that drought, sea level rise, and the higher temperatures associated with global warming may have particularly disruptive effects on agriculture, insurance, and buildings and infrastructure. “In general, economic transitions strike hardest at those without resources or savings to adapt,” the CBCF said.

At no time in recent American history did the intersection of race, class, and government disregard become more shamefully evident than during Hurricane Katrina. In tandem with the forces of nature (in the form of the extreme storm that experts fear will occur more frequently as the earth’s temperature changes) and policy neglect (in the form of inadequately maintained levees that failed to protect New Orleans from catastrophic flooding), Katrina exposed raw poverty and isolation to a shocked global public and offered a critical lesson to anyone committed to fighting climate change: It is necessary but not sufficient to focus on the environmental impacts. Philanthropists also must pay attention to the effects of global warming on people. Foundations need to invest in an advocacy infrastructure in communities throughout the United States that are vulnerable to the ravages of extreme weather, to ensure that future disasters do not disproportionately affect poor residents and people of color.

Like everyone else, foundations are scrambling to catch up with the growing threat of global warming. Research sponsored by several major foundations reached the chilling conclusion that if philanthropy, government, business, and individuals don’t “act boldly in the next decade to prevent carbon lock-in, we could lose the fight against global warming.” For example, coal plants under construction along with nonenvironmentally designed factories, homes, and commercial spaces built to last will emit carbon for years, even generations, to come.⁹ Without strong, immediate action on energy efficiency, emissions will essentially snowball. Efficiency efforts will fall further and further behind, until mitigation may become impossible.

The danger in racing to respond is that equity will fall victim to urgency and that unintended consequences of policies to combat global warming will reinforce existing disparities. How will new regulations, trading systems, or tax and incentive schemes play out in communities? If one city enacts green building requirements, for example, will affordable housing developers raise prices on their units or abandon the area entirely for a more lax jurisdiction? How can people at all income levels take advantage of more fuel-efficient cars and energy-efficient appliances? Will carbon trading perpetuate environmental racism by encouraging plants that are already disproportionately located in low-income areas to pollute with greater impunity, knowing they can simply buy or trade their way out of reducing their own emissions?

Many policymakers are in the early stages of responding to climate change. They need to pay close attention to California’s landmark global warming law, which includes a “no backsliding” provision to prevent “solutions” at the expense of communities of color. This type of protection should be at the center of other state and federal initiatives on carbon reduction, but in California and elsewhere implementation will be the true test. Without state commitment to spend adequate resources for monitoring, enforcement, and sanctions—and without vigilant, well-funded NGOs accountable to communities of color—disparities will likely persist.

Mobilizing Communities of Color

The philanthropic sector has cultivated some of the most creative and transformative economic, scientific, and social innovations—microlending, disease eradication, and community development financing, to name a few. Now foundations have an extraordinary moment to lead the United States and the global community in equitable, inclusive climate change policy and action. The tenfold increase in climate change an...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 - Empowering the African American Community through Strategic Grantmaking
• Chapter 2 - Philanthropy and Religion
• Chapter 3 - Fundraising to Strengthen Black Communities
• Chapter 4 - Youth in Philanthropy
• Chapter 5 - Civic Engagement in the African American Community
• Chapter 6 - An African American Response to Natural Disasters
• Chapter 7 - Families and Friends—The Power of Small Groups
• Chapter 8 - Time and Talent: Volunteerism as a Resource for Black Communities
• Chapter 9 - A Philanthropic Covenant with Black America
• Reconciling King’s Dream, Obama’s Election, and the Imperative for a Black ...
• About The National Center for Black Philanthropy, Inc.
• About the Editor
• About the Authors
• Index