What’s Holding Us Back?
Invested Impact’s Managing Partner and ChangeMatters Founder and Principal, Amy Kincaid, reflects on how change happens and what we can invite funders, donors, and other impact investors to do to achieve it.
I love the construct about how change happens, which was presented a few years ago in the book Switch. Essentially, the authors say that barriers to behavior changes come in three forms:
• motivation — people don’t want to change (or don’t feel it personally),
• knowledge — people don’t know what to do or how to make the change, or
• structures — the systems and supports are not in place to make it reasonably easy for people to change.
When I think about social and racial equity and how it shows up — and how it doesn’t — in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector, I wonder what’s holding us back.
Knowledge and Structures.
We know what to do, right? Or at least some of what to do: General support, multi-year grants, invest in capacity-building, support the leaders closest to the work, let people lobby on critical issues, multiple investment and funding strategies, revise application and reporting processes. Of course there’s more to call out and to change. But the ones I’ve just mentioned are among the most common recommendations, and have been for decades.
Traditions and habits die hard, and I get that. I also get that breaking habits means experimentating with how, and that experiments can be tough to sell to donors. Experimentation can sound iffy and in philanthropy, we are fundamentally stewards. Responsible stewards.
But we can also be more. Some funders are doing these things, and therefore many models exist. Just about any private funder or donor could deploy at least a portion of resources in these ways.
The need for improved performance on equity has been described by others better positioned than I, and the call for specific changes in practice and habits has been made. And experiments are being tried all over the country. If the barriers to equity and impact are about knowledge of how to revise practices or about inventing more supportive resource structures, we can tackle them.
However, another explanation is more difficult to attack and much more painful to consider.
Motivation.
What if foundation execs and donors actually just don’t want their resources to contribute to racial equity in this country? What if their (our) personal connection to the expense of poverty in this country is just too distant to be able to get it. What if.
Funders and donors (and let’s be honest, we consultants) may not be able to fully understand the impact of existing philanthropic practices via experience the daily barriers or the essential assets (somewhat related in vibe: Dream Hoarders).
I’ve been in this business long enough to cultivate a certain cynicism (and I’m an older GenX, which I understand is a BooXer, so there’s that). But I do believe that most of our colleagues in philanthropy want life to work better for more people. That’s pretty much what philanthropy is supposed to be for.
And I have to believe that we can do better. So what can we invite funders, donors, and other impact investors to do?
Step one: listen.
Listen to the individuals who live in the communities experiencing barriers and organizing efforts of strength and change.
Step two: believe them.
Believe and trust what the leaders say about their communities’ assets and challenges.
Step three: respond with money.
Respond to what the leaders say,
not with nine months of abstract questioning and back and forth,
not with parading women leaders and leaders of color around on the conference circuit for zero compensation,
not with unsolicited critique about how or from whom they raise their money, and
not with an invite to a two-day “leadership summit” on some issue only to present a new initiative that the funder’s team has already fully designed.
(You understand, I have been at this work in this sector for decades.)
Instead, respond efficiently with openness, flexibility, vulnerability, sincere engagement, and trust. And well-timed, generous funding.
It’s not just the nonprofit organizations that need help “building their capacity.” Maybe it’s foundations, funders, and donors who must work on building their capacity to work with community leaders (h/t Rodney Foxworth video mentioning this idea).
Improving the capacity of funders to invest more equitably will involve larger, longer, less restricted investments. More meaningful introductions and connective relationships. Collaboration. New and straightforward structures for increasing resources and impact. Rethinking and reframing what we mean by “risk” and talking about it powerfully with donors.
And it’s going to mean investing directly in the leadership and organizations created and led by leaders of color, immigrants, rural leaders, working organizers and activists and program developers who went to public universities — or maybe not to university at all. Genuinely looking for experience and quality in communities’ leaders means funders will begin finding them in unfamiliar places.
