Over the past several years, we’ve been hearing the term “culture of philanthropy” a lot. According to the 2013 report Underdeveloped, by Haas Jr. Fund and CompassPoint, culture of philanthropy incorporates these key elements:

“Most people in the organization (across positions) act as ambassadors and engage in relationship-building. Everyone promotes philanthropy and can articulate a case for giving. Fund development is viewed and valued as a mission-aligned program of the organization. Organizational systems are established to support donors. The executive director is committed and personally involved in fundraising.”

Haas also provides a great list of what a culture of philanthropy looks like, in this follow-up report, “Beyond Fundraising: What Does It Mean to Build a Culture of Philanthropy?”

It’s been a few years now, and “culture of philanthropy” has worked its way into our lexicon. People use the term all the time, often latching on to the first element mentioned above, the one where fundraising is not just the purview of fundraisers, but that everyone participates in fundraising.

This embrace of culture of philanthropy can’t possibly be bad, right? But as I talk to colleagues, I am hearing increasing skepticism and concern at this concept. Nell Edgington, for example, raises alarms about our sector’s tendency to focus on individual organizations’ fundraising tactics while continuing to ignore sector-wide issues.

My main issue with the concept of culture of philanthropy is the lack of equity analysis. This has been the common challenge with so many concepts that have been advanced in our field: Collective impact, strategic philanthropy, logic models, etc. Because of this lack of equity analysis, we often take things as “best practices,” and over time, it can cause a lot of harm to our work. Collective impact, for instance, at least in Seattle, where I am located, often resulted in a bunch of funders removing funding from grassroots marginalized-communities-led organizations and consolidating funding to grant to white-led, gatekeepy backbone organizations (See “Why communities of color are getting frustrated with Collective Impact”).

Read the full article about the culture of philanthropy by Vu Le at Nonprofit AF.