When Justice Funders was founded 10 years ago as the Bay Area Justice Funders Network, the philanthropic sector had been having conversations for nearly a decade about how to increase diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the field. From the beginning, we knew we wanted to be having a very different conversation: one about creating and promoting a shared framework for social justice philanthropy, deepening transparency and mutual accountability with social justice organizations, and organizing within philanthropy to mobilize increased resources for social justice movements.

Over the last decade we’ve seen some promising shifts in grantmaking practice, with more funders adopting trust-based approaches and mobilizing resources to movements for justice than ever before. The 2016 election, the COVID-19 pandemic and the uprisings for Black liberation sparked by the murder of George Floyd this summer have certainly helped to accelerate these shifts.

At the same time, the conversations in philanthropy in response to these flashpoints remain predominantly focused on how to increase diversity, equity and inclusion in the field.

Meanwhile, our movements are calling for something much more radical, much more transformative. It has become increasingly clear that DEI efforts — particularly those limited to internal organizational changes — are insufficient to address the ills of white supremacy and anti-Black racism that have long plagued our society. There is a growing recognition that the extractive, capitalist economic system is at the root of many of the injustices that Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) communities have experienced for the last 500 years, and the only way to dismantle those systemic injustices is to radically transform our economy along with the systems that allow the tax shelter of philanthropy to exist.

Read the full article about reflecting on philanthropic work from Justice Funders at Medium.