posted on: Monday, March 22, 2010

By Niki Jagpal

As our country celebrates the House’s passage of the healthcare bill, many of us rightly welcome the first major social change program passed since the 1960’s. But even as we do so, much work remains to be done to address the myriad disparities that persist as barriers to equal life opportunities. Since 1966, the United Nations General Assembly has brought ending racial discrimination to the forefront, following the 1960 police attacks on peaceful anti-Apartheid protesters in South Africa. With the passage of Resolution 2142 in 1965, the UN General Assembly called on the international community to increase our efforts to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination, proclaiming March 21 as the date to do so. So as the House signed the healthcare bill for the Senate’s consideration, I wonder how many of us know the extent to which racial disparities continue to impede equal access to basic healthcare.

For example, in the most recent health report issued by the Measure of America used the Human Development Index adapted to the United States found significant disparities in healthcare by race. And although our country ranks high among developed countries using this metric, we’re not doing so well when 29 countries have residents who live, on average, longer lives than we do while spending 8 times less on healthcare. We rank 39th in the world for infant mortality and the rates by race are even more disturbing (full data tables are available at the links above).

I’m privileged to be a mentee of Dr. john a. powell, and wrote about an interview I did with him on how structural barriers to equality must be addressed must be addressed and how philanthropy can contribute meaningfully to those efforts. And this is the time for grantmakers to really analyze their strategies to ensure that racial equity remains a priority in all their work. And there are some great foundations leading the way – the Woods Fund of Chicago, Funders for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Questioning Issues and the California Endowment, for example. But the time is now for more foundations to embrace the principles of justice and equality on which this country was founded. One way is to acknowledge explicitly race as a persistent barrier to social inclusion. And there are many resources for funders who wish to do so (GrantCraft and the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity produced a guide for funders and the Diversity in Philanthropy Project is another resource; there are many more resources on each of the sites above). As the healthcare bill moves to the Senate, I hope more grantmakers will consider funding work that seeks to end racial discrimination as some of their peers have.

Niki Jagpal is research and policy director at NCRP.

posted on: Tuesday, January 26, 2010

By Andrew Grant-Thomas

If you’re reading Keeping a Close Eye… you probably don’t need to be cautioned against the rosy view that Barack Obama’s election ushered in racial and social nirvana. Nevertheless, over the last year and more the counterpoints have come, fast and furious: the disparate impacts of our credit, lending and foreclosure crises; the ongoing economic recession; the debate over health care, now seemingly doomed to an unhappy ending; the hullabaloo over Sonia Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” claim, the “Birthers” phenomenon… on and on.

Just yesterday a friend sent a link to an article about a guy named Moose who wants to start a whites-only – actually, for “natural born United States citizens with both parents of Caucasian race” – basketball league in Augusta, Georgia. It’s not about racism, says Moose: “Would you want to go to the game and worry about a player flipping you off or attacking you in the stands or grabbing their crotch? … we should have the right to move ourselves in a better direction.” Ah. Thanks for the clarification.

Sadly, in this era of continued deep structural or systemic racism, of pervasive implicit biases even among folks who sincerely mean better, of the marginalization of efforts to help the marginalized, and their own marginalization even within such efforts, the Mooses of the world may be the least of our worries. Sound hopeless? It’s not But here’s the million-dollar question:

How do we proceed?

On March 11-13, 2010 in Columbus Ohio, the staff of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and some 600+ of your fellow advocates, activists, scholars, students, spoken-word artists and just-plain-folks of all stripes will engage all this and more at our conference on Transforming Race: Crisis and Opportunity in the Age of Obama. Similar to NCRP’s work under Criteria for Philanthropy at Its Best and the Grantmaking for Community Impact Project (GCIP), our work is organized around three themes critical to equity and social justice work: Racial Dynamics and Systems Thinking; Race Talk; and Race, Recession, and Recovery. Click this link for more on these themes and to peek at the agenda.

Transforming Race will begin with two pre-conference training sessions for social justice workers – one on “opportunity communities” by the Kirwan Institute, and one on applying systems thinking to race. The second piece is likely familiar to readers of NCRP’s Criteria. The Values chapter, co-authored by Kirwan’s executive director, john a. powell, talks about the concept of “targeted universalism.” Targeted universalism might sound like an oxymoron; it’s not. It’s about ensuring that efforts to meet the needs of our most vulnerable populations are sensitive to the particulars of how they are situated within the web of policies. Institutions, and systems that shape opportunities for us all. Ultimately, it is about creating a more socially inclusive society in which we all fare better.

At a time when major foundations like the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Wood Funds of Chicago, Funders for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered and Questioning Issues, and many other racial justice workers are adopting structural racism and systems thinking as an analytical framework, it is critical that we look to systems work in other arenas (business, environmentalism, engineering, medicine) to inform and deepen our own approaches.

That’s what Transforming Race is really about – taking lessons learned from all sectors to improve practice and life opportunities for the most marginalized, and to build a more just, equitable, and sustainable future for all of us. Like NCRP, of which Kirwan is a member, we see philanthropy playing a crucial role in enhancing the common good by supporting nonprofit advocacy, community organizing and civic engagement through grantmaking. These strategies have shown tremendous “return on investments” for foundations, while addressing the needs of our diverse communities.

Registration is open! We hope to see you in March!

Andrew Grant-Thomas is director of Transforming Race, and deputy director of the Kirwan Institute at The Ohio State University.

posted on: Monday, November 16, 2009

I’m delighted to share a great new resource from Funders for LGBTQ Issues. The racial equity toolkit provides funders with an important lens to consider when making grants for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning communities. It demonstrates a deep understanding of the intersections and nuance of the many dimensions involved in grantmaking of any kind. And as RaceWire points on out, while the toolkit was designed specifically for LGBTQ grantmaking, any social justice organization that challenges existing power structures and norms can find tons of benefits and resources in this work.

I blogged about the Woods Fund decision to explicitly adopt a racial equity lens in their grantmaking back in September and it’s great to see so much similar work being done around this important issue across the sector.

A big shout out to Funders for LGBTQ Issues for making this important contribution to the field!!!

Niki Jagpal

Niki Jagpal is research and policy director at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP).

posted on: Wednesday, September 09, 2009

by Niki Jagpal

On September 3rd, the Woods Fund of Chicago sent out an announcement to its listserv stating that this grantmaker is choosing to employ a racial equity lens in its funding. As the announcement states, “This addition comes after significant analysis, discourse and consideration on both an internal and external basis. It is informed by many sources, including foundation colleagues, grantee partners, the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity, the Racial Justice Funder’s Roundtable, and the grantmaker’s guide by GrantCraft entitled 'Grantmaking with a Racial Equity Lens.'”

The announcement also includes the foundation’s new racial equity principle, which states that “The Woods Fund of Chicago believes that structural racism is a root cause of many challenges facing less-advantaged communities and people and serves as a significant barrier to enabling work and eradicating poverty. The Woods Fund encourages and supports organizations, initiatives, and policy efforts that lead to eliminating structural racism. Success in this area will be evident when there is equal distribution of privileges and burdens among all races and ethnic groups, and when a person’s race or ethnicity does not determine his or her life outcomes. … Woods Fund is committed to raising awareness in the philanthropic community to support this work.”

I’m delighted to learn that the Woods Fund will use a racial equity lens in its grantmaking. Already an exemplary grantmaker in many ways, I drew on the Woods Fund's work when writing Criteria for Philanthropy at Its Best: Benchmarks to Assess and Enhance Grantmaker Impact. At the time of that writing, I noted how Deborah Harrington, president of the Woods Fund, identified the problem with implicit versus explicit articulation of racial justice language. I quoted Harrington before the Fund embraced explicitly a racial equity lens in making our case for more foundations to consider doing so. In her words: “[racial justice is] implicit in our guidelines and mission statement, [however] the lens is poverty, not race, and by addressing poverty, we are generally looking at people of color but not saying it directly.”

I also noted the contributions of organizations mentioned in the recent announcement in making the case for why racial equity offers the potential to transform philanthropy, including foundations and civic sector nonprofits. Organizations such as the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity under the leadership of dr. john a. powell, the Center for Social Inclusion, the Applied Research Center and the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity are currently engaged in critical work that emphasizes the importance of explicit racial language and identifying the intersections of race, place and opportunity among other issues. The groups are working toward what many call “catalytic” or “transformative” change. And grantmakers like the Woods Fund, Funders for Lesbian and Gay Issues and many more are including explicitly racial equity lenses in their grantmaking that supports some of these groups.

It’s about acknowledging the legacy of our past in influencing access to life opportunities for communities and individuals. As the Woods Fund’s recent announcement makes clear, trying to solve these problems by using proxy terms instead of confronting directly our root problems or trying to solve problems with a “top down approach” that doesn’t respond to the real needs of communities is like trying to put out a wildfire with a hose. That’s where the importance of community organizing comes in, an area where the Woods Fund has, and continues to, lead by example.

Finally, using a racial equity lens will, I hope, make the Woods Fund’s multi-issue work even more impactful. We can’t solve problems in isolation by focusing on one issue at a time, nor can our community work in silos. It’s only by building our alliances and support for each other that we can truly hope to make a difference. As dr. powell once said to me, “Small problems hurt us by enticing us to see things as separate, while big problems are more likely to be seen relationally. … It is important for foundations and communities not only to do multi-issue work, but to see issues in relationship.” [Note: he’s way more articulate than I and we’re fortunate to have him as a member of our research advisory committee.] The Woods Fund has been exemplary in this aspect, already funding community organizing and participatory public policy, and importantly, the crossover of the two issues. That’s just what dr. powell’s talking about – seeing issues in relationship to each other. I’d say that’s the essence of strategic philanthropy – a holistic approach to problem-solving that produces real benefits for all of us. There are great stories of the widespread benefits from policy engagement of disenfranchised populations through nonprofit groups on a range of issues such as health care, living wages and civil rights from a series of reports we’re producing in our Grantmaking for Community Impact Project.

A big h/t to the Woods Fund and Deborah Harrington for their decision to include a racial equity lens in their grantmaking. I share Harrington and the Fund’s hope that “by incorporating a racial equity lens into our guidelines and criteria, in some small way we can begin to model and promote racial equity practices within our own foundation and the greater philanthropic community.”

I definitely think they can promote racial equity practices in the broader philanthropic community – what about you?

Niki Jagpal is research and policy director at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP).