Racism and international philanthropy: How little practices and big resource flows are connected

Do we know what it means to share power? (Plus 5 concrete changes funders can make.)

By Solomé Lemma, Executive Director, and Jennifer Lentfer, Director of Communications of Thousand Currents

· What if diversity, equity, and inclusion in philanthropy were a reality, not a far off ideal?

· What if we could change the narrative from “making a difference” to “here’s how transformation really happens and why we need you”?

· What if our organizations’ leadership mirrored the world, not the elite few?

· What if the donor-intermediary-implementer-local leader hierarchy could be inverted in global philanthropy?

· What if shaping the future we want to see becomes the guiding light that shapes our decision-making, rather than donor deadlines and budget amounts and log frames?

· What if we could heal the past through the work we do together now?

These are the questions with which we walked into our interview as part of the Tiny Spark podcast’s coverage on racism and philanthropy and international aid for Nonprofit Quarterly. You can find a link to the podcast and listen in here, or on iTunes, Stitcher, or Spotify.

As an organization founded on over 30 years of grantmaking based on learning, humility, and trust, we at Thousand Currents are not immune, nor phased by fundamentally uncomfortable questions, including those surrounding racism, colonialism, imperialism, and white supremacy.

Which is why we fundamentally believe that it is a hopeful and exciting time of history to be working in philanthropy. Yes, big changes are all around us. People from elite and privileged backgrounds are being invited to give up access to resources, control of resources, and opportunities that usually arrive at their doorstep.

At Thousand Currents, we have been asking, what does it mean to share power?, for a long time. We were really happy to share what we’ve learned with Amy Costello, host of Tiny Spark, because our partners have always been our most important teachers on this topic.

We care so much about racism and philanthropy for a few reasons:

• The people who can best “solve” deeply-rooted social, political, and economic problems are the people whose lives are most affected by them. This requires us as Thousand Currents to step away from the usual role of “expert” or “changemaker.” Our first duty is to listen. Listening is about honoring each others’ dignity and supporting people to use their own power. For white folks, this means learning first to speak less and be willing to give up their own power.
• Thousand Currents has an explicit focus on funding and supporting people who are dismantling the structures that perpetuate poverty, including inequality, racism, xenophobia, marginalization, homogenization, and injustice. We understand racism as a historical framework operating today in our lives and in our societies, the vestiges of colonial and imperial world views that continue to shape our economic and political systems. Our and our partners’ political analysis requires us to connect the local to global and then back again. Racism has been and is a central part of what it takes to consolidate wealth all around the world and maintain power and control of finance, including philanthropic capital.
• Thousand Currents is continually experimenting with what it means to collectivize efforts with people with divergent lived experiences. As a result, we also continually recreate our work as we learn, and have learned intimately the difference between supporting a cause or an issue, an organization or a movement in our 33 years of operation. Our partners continually teach us how to protect humanity and to venerate love and courage. They are not development economists nor foundation heads. They are people around the world, who have faced regimes down, all the way down, before.

In the case of global philanthropy, many people are now discovering how the little practices and the big resource flows are connected:

How racism shows up in systemic ways

(1) Hiring and promotion practices:

Researchers at Quantum Impact this year analyzed 976 leaders across 206 global “social good” organizations. Their results reflect just how acute this leadership issue is for minorities and women in our sector:

• 4 out of 5 organizations (80 percent) had leadership teams that did not have a representative number of people of color. Half of all organizations (51 percent) had no leaders of color.
• 2 out of 3 organizations (66 percent) did not have gender-balanced leadership teams. 1 out of every 5 organizations (20 percent) do not have a single woman serving on their leadership teams.

This is also manifested in reliance on expats in organizations working in countries in the Global South. Diversity without inclusion comes at a cost to those outside the circles of power.

(2) Selection of grantees:

Racism is also at play when only 1% of humanitarian relief funds reach national or local organizations responding to earthquakes in Haiti or in Nepal, or fighting Ebola in west Africa. A recent report by CEP and COF released demonstrates the inequity in global giving, namely:

• Just 12% of international grant dollars from U.S. foundations went directly to organizations based in the country where programs were implemented. The remaining 88% was channeled through organizations based elsewhere.
• Just 1% of international giving was for general support to local organizations.

How racism shows up in everyday ways

Racism is evident in what one of our former colleagues termed, the “horrible little practices that many people are happy to ignore” in philanthropy. For example:

• when we talk (extensively!) about mitigating risk or evidence, but never about control or power
• when local nonprofits’ capacity is maligned
• whenever people of color are assumed to be less qualified and have lower credentials than they do
• when different opinions would be helpful, but perspectives are not asked for, or are discounted
• when the stories and photos we use to describe our work reinforce harmful stereotypes

Aspects of white dominant culture, as described by anti-racism trainers Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, reveal how subtle discrimination shows up in professional settings. All are related to the concept of expertise that reflects an accepted power imbalance in our sector. Do any of these sound familiar?

• Progress is bigger, more
• Sense of urgency
• Paternalism
• Individualism/competitiveness
• Objectivity
• Perfectionism
• Power hoarding
• Quantity over quality
• Worship of the written word (formal education over lived experience)
• Either/or thinking
• Fear of open conflict
• Defensiveness
• Right to comfort

So how we address racism in our work at Thousand Currents? A few ways:

• Thousand Currents is led by a women of color, and we intentionally make hiring and governance decisions that reflect the world we want to see (and that it is).
• We are clear that our role is not to devise solutions to the world’s greatest challenges, nor lead movements, but to effectively move more resources to them. We are clear that we are not strategists or project/portfolio managers or technical experts, but we are focused on getting more money into the ecosystems that are social movements.
• We intentionally build trust within our relationships, to be able to have the uncomfortable conversations required to talk about wealth, power, and privilege. Trust and truth is necessary because the rearrangement of power needs more and more moments of realization and relinquishment by white people. We are clear that this discussion is not about political correctness or identity politics, but it is about acknowledging what it has taken for Black, Brown, Indigenous, LGBTQ people to stay alive as nations around the world have been and are being shaped.

Giving up power/control may feel like loss and pain. But there is liberation for all in it, and beyond it, is the world we dare imagine.

We welcome and acknowledge that more and more people in our sector are navigating a paradox: the privilege of “doing good” on one hand, and a fundamental misconception that outside experts can ‘fix a problem.’ This misconception is a result of colonization, globalization and systematic racism. Charity is a Western concept of “givers” and “receivers” that has evolved from the 19th century and the roots of international aid are based in modernist viewpoints of the 20th century and the Cold War, where poor countries were expected to meet an external economic measure of “progress” that resembled rich “white” countries in the Global North. That means wealth privilege and racism is embedded in the roots of international aid and philanthropy.

What are the changes funders and organizations can make?

We can address racism, all -isms, and implicit bias in all that we do by making changes — right now — within our teams, programs, organizations, foundations, agencies, social enterprises, funds, etc. This includes very concrete actions to dismantle internal and external power structures that perpetuate inequality and prejudices. These include:

1. Making different hiring and promotion decisions, learning the difference between diversity and inclusion, and challenging who is at the decision-making table.
2. Funding “front-line” community organizers and getting money directly to grassroots leaders. But only if we’re ready to get out of their way. Consider no-strings-attached grants, for example. When we don’t dictate what activities and strategies nonprofits use, this frees them up to listen more closely to the community.
3. Dare to redefine the notion of results and accountability — no longer just for our funders or boards or by our staff.
4. Do your personal healing work so you can “show up” in solidarity. Loving yourself is a fundamental part of ensuring we are not harming others.
5. Be brave! Brave funders will fight for what their grantees have identified as what they need to succeed. Be the voice of the shared vision in your partnerships, not the voice of bureaucratic hurdles and excuses.

Our duty in this sector, at this moment globally, is to unleash people power. And with our bodies and our planet under threat, that must be our sole focus, our relentless pursuit, our greatest joy. It’s time to learn what history books didn’t teach us — that we are each powerful beyond measure, but only when our hearts, values, purpose, and resources are aligned with others, and that’s where Thousand Currents and our supporters come in.

Lasting, transformative social change also takes grassroots leadership, community organizing, volunteer hours, systems analysis, pressure on power structures/holders, and committed allies people showing up.

It’s a journey we’re on together. And…it’s worth it.

(Listen to the podcast here.)