| For Immediate Release 5/3/2005 |
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| Social Justice Philanthropy: The Latest Trend or a Lasting Lens for Grantmaking? | |||
| WASHINGTON-The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) today released a new report that defines and discusses the concept of social justice philanthropy and provides an assessment of its future in philanthropy. Social Justice Philanthropy: The Latest Trend or a Lasting Lens for Grantmaking? explores how grantmakers define and apply the concept of social justice to their work. The report's findings indicate that social justice philanthropy is fraught with many definitional variations, as well as disagreements on how to apply social justice concepts to grantmaking. While many agree that social justice philanthropy is somehow concerned with a more equitable redistribution of economic, political, and social power, there is little consensus on what a more just society would look like, or if philanthropy is capable of fostering these changes. Based upon two years of data collection and analysis, NCRP developed a definition of social justice philanthropy that explicitly emphasizes promoting economic empowerment and structural changes as a way to rectify social injustices. Following a discussion of this term, the report provides an overview of various social justice philanthropy organizations and projects and delineates research that is currently being undertaken to understand foundations that support social justice initiatives. The report also features research findings drawn from data on several hundred foundations identified as funding social justice programs and organizations, as well as interviews with officials from ten of these foundations. Implications from the data and interviews point to the relative disorganization of foundations' social justice grantmaking priorities and the absence of long-term strategies that could help foster sustained changes in public policies and institutions. The report recommends that foundations interested in promoting social justice develop a sense of agreement about what social justice grantmaking should look like, as well as articulating a set of core social justice values to guide grantmaking. Such efforts could eventually help the philanthropic sector be more efficient in tackling pressing social justice issues. Reports of Social Justice Philanthropy are available to NCRP members for the discounted price of $10.00 and to non-members for $20. NCRP is a national watchdog, research and advocacy organization that promotes public accountability and accessibility among foundations, corporate grantmakers, individual donors and workplace giving programs. For more information on NCRP or to join, please visit www.ncrp.org or call (202) 387-9177. |
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