According to the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s recent report on grantee experiences with intermediary funders, 33 percent of intermediary grantees report receiving multiyear funding, compared to 58 percent of grantees of other traditional funders. I find this statistic particularly damning — not of funding intermediaries in philanthropy, but of the philanthropic field itself.

As referenced in the CEP report, philanthropy often asserts, “that (intermediaries) can be well positioned for field building and advocacy.” From my own personal experience, a large amount of Village of Wisdom’s funding has come from intermediaries who tend to have public statements, website language, and open application processes that are often explicitly about the role of race, class, and inequity.

However, when intermediaries and donor collaboratives find themselves in situations that the CEP report highlights — unsure of what their funding will look like from year to year — it undercuts arguably their greatest potential: funding intermediaries in philanthropy to resource transformational social change efforts. The question, then, must be asked: are intermediaries just another example of philanthropy’s inability to adequately fund strategic efforts to address root causes of social issues?

The Impact of Inconsistently Funding Intermediaries in Philanthropy

Let’s consider the impact of inconsistent funding for intermediaries in philanthropy for social change efforts through the lens of a familiar but, I suspect, under-examined legal battle in this country.

In 1896, Plessy v. Ferguson confirmed the separate but equal doctrine, legally codifying segregation at a national scale within America. Plessy wasn’t overturned until 1954 with Brown v. Board of Education. Said another way, it took nearly 60 years to bring about that significant social and legal change in this country. Brown v. Board was not just one case but an amalgamation of five separate cases brought to the Supreme Court starting back in 1936. This 18-year legal campaign was kicked off by Charles Hamilton Houston requesting the NACCP invest $10,000 for him and Thurgood Marshall to spend two to three years strategically planning for it. According to inflation calculators, Esquire Houston’s request in today’s US dollar value would equal to $234,900.

But how does this relate to funding intermediaries in philanthropy? Transformational change in this country is not something that occurs in three to five year grant cycles, with tepid dollar amounts, as Hilary Pennington points out in her blog reflecting on the CEP report about intermediary funding. In the case of social change that hinges on racial justice, there is evidence that decades of work by highly skilled and dedicated individuals (read: professionals earning $100K+ salaries) will be required to precipitate such change.

Read the full article about funding intermediaries by William Jackson at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.