By Ayo Adeyeri and Iman Fathima
Community philanthropic organizations have historically been pivotal actors in bringing about lasting change, and today many are revisiting traditional funding models to ensure the same. Last week, we attended the Convening on Community Philanthropy’s Opportunities to Build Inclusive Communities, presented by Justice Philanthropy Research Network and hosted at the NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. This research network includes faculty and students from five universities and their research has been funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation. It was a great opportunity to hear from community leaders on how they were reimagining the roles of their community foundations in tackling systemic inequities.
The event featured Amy Daly-Donovan, Executive Director of the Community Foundation Opportunity Network; Felicia R. Beard, Associate Vice President of Racial Equity Initiatives at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo; Pamela Ross, Leader of Community Impact at the John R. Oishei Foundation and Cesar Aleman, Executive Vice President of Membership and Impact at UpTogether. The discussion was moderated by Jamie Levine Daniel, Henry & Marilyn Taub Foundation Associate Professor of Nonprofit Management and Public Service. The speakers highlighted different strategies that they had adopted over the decades to center the voice of their communities. Of the many insights shared at the event, we focus on three particularly compelling lessons below.
#1: Philanthropic Policies Should be Empowering
The panelists found it imperative for the organizations to recognize the priorities and lived experiences of their communities. One of the most insightful discussions at the event was centered on direct cash assistance as a tool for systemic change. Cesare Aleman, Executive Vice President at UpTogether framed poverty as a policy failure. A lot of challenges such eviction, hunger, and lack of healthcare could be resolved if community members had the financial means to do so. Yet there is often hesitance to provide direct support.
As community foundations leaders, they advocated for it to be a practice of philanthropy to invest directly in community members. This would meet immediate needs as well as build the capacity for grassroots advocacy to address systemic issues. Real change only happens when those affected by inequities are empowered to lead toward justice.
#2: Collective Power furthers Philanthropy
Pamela Ross, Leader of Community Change at the John R. Oishei Foundation, and Felicia Beard, Associate Vice President at the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, emphasized the importance of sharing power within philanthropy. Both women emphasized the urgency to move beyond traditional top-down decision-making in philanthropy, while embracing co-creating strategies as key aspects of their leadership. As scholars of philanthropy, we found the Greater Buffalo Racial Equity Roundtable, managed by Felicia Beard, quite an interesting model of shared governance, as the Roundtable creates opportunities for community leaders from public, private, nonprofit and faith organizations to contribute towards collective well-being. Pamela Ross’ reflections on her journey from Indianapolis to Buffalo highlighted the institutional challenges of embedding racial equity into philanthropic practice. Her candid acknowledgment of the difficulty in sharing power and building trust with community ambassadors underscored a key aspect of what it means to share power. It is not merely the invitation to decision-making venues, but a profound readiness to divest control, requiring sincerity as well as the capacity to embrace discomfort in the process.
#3 Cultivating Institutional Readiness
Community foundations must proactively ensure that they are cultivating their organizational cultures to be reflexive in their efforts towards equity. An example shared was the NEON (Nexus of Equity and Opportunity Nationwide)[1] network, which emerged as an action model, effectively pooling resources from community foundations nationwide to address complex systemic hurdles. As succinctly described by Amy Daly-Donovan of the Community Foundation Opportunity Network (CFON), NEON’s success hinged on its organizing framework that was foundational to their collaboration, the Five Commons: common goal, strategies, measures, narrative, and policy agenda. The network’s most significant breakthrough was its evolution toward a flexible learning community that prioritized internal reflection such as including self-assessments of racial structures within participating philanthropic institutions. By investing in this, foundations can cultivate a pipeline for future leadership from within their communities.
Future Directions
As the convening drew close, we were left with a great deal to ponder. The lessons from the event offer us a roadmap to understand philanthropic leadership, accountability and strategic action. A few insights that we will be exploring in our own works include how philanthropy must move beyond extractive engagement and establish reciprocal relationships with communities. With growing influence of community foundations, could there be more creative means of sharing power? Can community foundations effectively scale their impact while preserving local relevance? And there were many more interesting questions on community foundations that our fellow attendees raised and have explored in their own works, which perhaps will be the topic of our next blog post!
We would also like to express our gratitude to Professor Laurie Paarlberg and to all our colleagues at the Justice Philanthropy Research Network for their invaluable support.
[1] In Fall of 2021, a group of scholars from the Lilly Family school of Philanthropy observed and engaged with NEON.
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