Giving Compass' Take:

• Nonprofit Quarterly reports on Ryan Schlegel and Stephanie Peng's study about philanthropy in the South, explaining how charitable giving can be the most effective in that region of the United States. 

• How can philanthropists make stronger ties to communities in the South in order to understand the needs of those individuals?

• Read about the four ways to change grantmaking in the South. 

So, if nothing changes—that is, if “business as usual” persists and philanthropy continues to underinvest in the South and, even when it does provide grants, does so in a way that often undermines local capacity—we would be foolish to expect better results.

Ryan Schlegel and Stephanie Peng, titled As the South Grows, So Grows the Nation, is the culmination of a five-part series, based on over 150 field interviews conducted over a two-year period, published by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) and Grantmakers for Southern Progress.

In their latest report, Schlegel and Peng highlight the fact that, despite higher need, philanthropic funding in the South trails the nation. According to their analysis of the five-year period from 2011 through 2015, philanthropic spending in the South averaged $60 per person. By contrast, in New York state—where, of course, many national foundations are located—philanthropy spends $194 per person, three times as much.

But, as Schlegel and Peng also show, quality is at least as important as quantity. In their report, Schlegel and Peng present an interesting list of “what not to do,” which is reproduced below:

  • Let those who benefit from the status quo dictate what is too dangerous to confront.
  • Take a race-and-ethnicity-neutral approach, allowing past wrongs to go un-righted.
  • Obscure the role national institutions have played extracting wealth and power from the South.
  • Prioritize credibility and reputation over risk and impact.
  • Overlook existing community infrastructure that looks unfamiliar or is hard to find by design.
  • Import a nonprofit or advocacy model that is not adapted to succeed specifically in the South.

As for philanthropy in the South, Schlegel and Peng point out that “foundation staff often get bogged down in the learning phase of grantmaking or they take a cautious approach that funds only direct services instead of long-term change.”

Read the full article about philanthropy in the south by Steve Dubb at Nonprofit Quarterly