Blog
When funding equity is a fad
It’s been six years since the racial justice uprisings in 2020, and I think it’s time to call it. Funding equity-denied communities was a fad. To be completely honest, it always has been.
Over the past few years, I have researched Indigenous, Black, and feminist funding frameworks and practices, holding conversations with both philanthropic funders and grantees. Over and over again, the story sounds the same: we’re just trying to keep our heads above water.
2020 offered hope that the tides would turn, and traditional philanthropy would begin funding Indigenous, B3*, and women-led/serving organizations and communities at higher rates. The door had finally opened. For too long many of these organizations had been struggling to stay afloat, their respective mandates not always given the recognition they deserved. Scrappily funding their own work was the norm, and 2020 offered an opportunity for real change. But that was not to be.
Data on how equity-denied nonprofits are funded
The reality is this: analysis of grant data from 40 major Canadian foundations showed that Black-led organizations received approximately 0.03 per cent of total philanthropic funding despite Black Canadians making up 4.3 per cent of Canada’s population.
Similarly, less than one per cent of philanthropic dollars go to Indigenous communities despite them making up five per cent of the population in Canada. Women-led and focused organizations receive only two per cent of philanthropic dollars, and we can easily guess what percentage of the population they make up.
Even with recent changes to the disbursement quota that set a higher floor for philanthropy to grant per year, and 2022 changes to the Income Tax Act that enable philanthropy to grant to nonqualified donees, funding numbers for these communities haven’t increased enough to meet growing need. Philanthropy has billions of dollars at its disposal, but only a small amount of it seems to go to Indigenous, Black, and women-led/serving organizations and their communities.
We need to start asking why this is still an issue.
Researching the needs of equity-denied nonprofits
I initially approached this research with preconceived notions about what communities and organizations may want as grantees. I assumed there was a need for culturally relevant funding practices based on trust and desire to learn. I assumed there was a desire for funders who understood the complexities of the issues grantees face and could approach the work from a less hierarchical perspective.
I also assumed that the potential misalignment in values (i.e. think the extractive capitalist roots of philanthropy) may play a role in lower granting rates due to lower desire to apply. I assumed that because many of them were functioning as stand-ins for gaps in public programming, they were more likely to apply for government funding. Some of that may have been true. However, what the research showed was more concerning: it was the fact that the doors to these funding opportunities weren’t really open to these organizations. They couldn’t seem to get money from traditional philanthropy in the first place.
But why is this? Are grantees from Indigenous, B3, and women-led/serving organizations and communities hard to fund? Are they not applying? Are they all somehow submitting poor grant applications? No, not at all.
The reality seems to be that funding these organizations and communities requires pressure: pressure from the public, pressure on boards, pressure from staff and executive directors, even pressure from the current sociopolitical context. This pressure can lead to hard conversations and more radical decision-making that normally wouldn’t happen during regular funding cycles.
Funding equity-denied organizations and communities also requires work. It requires outreach to communities you’ve never engaged with before, it requires rethinking traditional hierarchies embedded within philanthropy, it requires rebuilding transactional relationships into reciprocal relationships, and it requires thinking of philanthropy as an obligation not just an act of generosity.
As we’ve moved further away from the “progressive advances” of 2020, those deeper discussions around sustainable, long-term funding to tackle systemically racist structures, gender-based violence, and reconciliation have transitioned into conversations focused on heightened risk aversion in the face of increasing fascism and economic uncertainty.
Conversations around sustainability, restitution, and obligatory funding begin to fall to the wayside and in their place sprout fear, caution, and desire to return to the norm. The pressure decreases, the hard work is replaced by the “traditional” work, and eventually the funding to these organizations and communities slows to a drip. The cycle is complete; funding their work has officially become a fad.
Political context of funding equity-denied work
I will acknowledge that the fear of political reprisal is real, even for funders, but that’s no excuse to leave communities behind under the guise of “playing it safe”. Throughout this reversal, B3, Indigenous, and women-led/serving organizations and communities’ needs are being reframed as fineries meant to be indulged in only when times are good, but saved on when times are hard.
All of a sudden B3, Indigenous, and women-led/serving organizations become too political to fund, and proposals seeking long-term funding to tackle long-term systemic issues suddenly become too costly to support. Inevitably, their needs are categorized as no-longer-relevant and their lived-experience whittled down to risky prospective budget lines.
When thinking of these issues the quote, “where money moves and how it gets there is decidedly political” comes to mind. This lurching approach to funding wherein money is given in short bursts, or not given at all to equity-denied communities, will not result in the systems change so many organizations strive to achieve. It is a choice not to fund Indigenous, B3, and women-led/serving organizations, it is a choice to pull back from funding their work out of fear their lived-experience will be deemed “too political”, and it is a choice to only reach out to their communities when their voices are finally breaking the thick barrier between the front-line and the philanthropic sector.
Do not mistake my argument for an assumption that philanthropy bears the responsibility for funding the solutions to all the systemic issues faced by equity-denied communities. I don’t believe that’s philanthropy’s job, nor do I want it to be. And let me be clear, there are many in philanthropy who are doing incredible work with these communities. The Black Feminist Fund and the Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund wouldn’t exist without the work of their respective communities, and the backing of traditional philanthropy. But these are the exceptions, not the rule.
The facts are that philanthropy has the dollars to fund these communities and by-in-large, chooses not to. I cannot say if this stems from fear, rigid tradition, lack of information, or a combination of these things. But, what I can say is that if philanthropy is meant to lift all boats, many in philanthropy have to be prepared to change.
Now is the time to invest in an equitable future for all
With a rise in fascism, ongoing anti-Indigenous and anti-Black racism, and persistent gender-based-violence, leaders in philanthropy must make a choice. They can either continue to treat funding Indigenous, B3, and women-led/serving organizations and communities like fads or support them like they believe in them and their work.
Philanthropy must align their stated values to their funding practices as though communities and their livelihoods depend on it, because they do.
Now is the time to invest in Indigenous, B3, and women-led/serving organizations so more don’t fall through the cracks. Now is the time to show solidarity with their work, enabling them to continue protecting, building, and leading their communities towards just futures. Now is the time to continue showing up for these communities and their organizations so that their ability to do their work does not remain at the whim of their community’s popularity but instead becomes a mainstay in philanthropy across the board.
*B3: Black-led, Black-serving, and Black-focused organizations (see Careers Education Empowerment webpage for more)
