Catalytic Philanthropy for Public Health

Why Proportional Funding is Meaningful and Should Spark Change

Today NCRP celebrates the announcement from the Brooklyn Community Foundation that going forward, they will ensure that “at least 30 percent of all grants–both in discretionary grantmaking and across Donor Advised Funds” to “explicitly benefit Black communities,” with priority given to Black-led groups focused on systemic change. We also commend the Foundation, one of our 2015 Impact Award winners, for its promise to share its demographic grant data with the public. NCRP has increasingly called on foundations to embrace parity and transparency. Last year, we highlighted this gap in reports that covered the constant underfunding of immigrant and refugee groups, as well as the insufficient amount given explicitly to Black communities. These are not new conclusions: similar reports by our friends and colleagues have noted how the amount of funding that Asian American, Latin@x, Native American and LGBTQ communities is not close to representative of their proportion in the U.S. population. Proportional funding is just the start of the equity conversation, not the end. Funding Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPoC) communities at a rate commensurate with their relative size is a floor for equitable funding, not a ceiling. To be sure, other promising steps have been made since last summer’s uprisings for racial justice in the wake of the police murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others. The Cleveland Foundation, for example, adopted a hate group policy and launched a racial equity investment pool, among other changes to their financial policies. The Pittsburgh Foundation has continued their journey around demographic data transparency and new funds, increasing discretionary dollars for BIPOC-led groups in the process. And the California Black Freedom Fund promises $100M over 5 years for Black power-building and movement-based organizations. NCRP commends those important, overdue steps towards justice. And we thank the women of color and Black women specifically leading the way, out front and behind the scenes. That’s why NCRP is so energized by the Brooklyn Community Foundation’s public commitment. We hope that it spurs similar actions across the country from philanthropy, and from community foundations in particular. NCRP invites and calls on community foundations to follow BCF’s example by: Committing to parity in grantmaking for Black communities  Providing Transparency Continuing to explore parity for other communities of color and groups Read the full article about proportional funding by Ben Barge at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.