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Top-down, Meet Bottom-up: Sharing Power In Philanthropy

Johnson Center
This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
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Giving Compass’ Take:

• This Johnson Center post examines power dynamics in the social change sector and inverting traditional notions on who should wield it: We must put community voices first.

• Action items discussed include practicing humility and making sure there’s plenty of room for equity at your table. What would be the measurements of success in these areas?

• Here’s more about understanding the relationship between philanthropy and inequality.


Does change come from the bottom up or top down?

The simple answer is both — it often happens when there is collective leadership creating pressure on the outside of an institution, and allies inside the institution or with the power to influence the institution leveraging that pressure to create change. These two groups of leaders, however, are very different. As our social, political, economic, and media bubbles move further apart and become less porous, creating linkages among them has become more challenging. We must understand the dynamics that allow bottom-up and top-down to work together: the need for people to believe in their ability to lead and the need for leaders in positions of traditional power to share or give up power.  Two new books offer important insights on how power has often operated and how it might operate more inclusively.

First we must understand and encourage bottom-up leadership. Six years ago, I wrote Everyone Leads: Building Leadership from the Community Up to share my lessons from twenty years developing more than 5,000 diverse young leaders across the United States through Public Allies. We saw a teen mother in community college eventually become a White House lawyer, a deli worker become a top disability rights advocate, a shoe salesman become a top public health leader at a major hospital.

We learned through hundreds of stories like these that leadership is a muscle everyone has, and that like any other muscle it can be developed with practice and exercise.

Read the full article about sharing power in philanthropy by Paul Schmitz at johnsoncenter.org.

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Impact Philanthropy is a complex topic, and others found these selections from the Impact Giving archive from Giving Compass to be good resources.

  • This article is deemed a must-read by one or more of our expert collaborators.
    Click here for more.
    Teach For All: Focus on Collective Leadership to Build Up Schools

    Giving Compass' Take: • The author describes her experience as a participant of Teach For All and the impact that it can have on individuals to inspire collective leadership within communities.  • How can this teaching model expand into teacher development training for faculty that are not affiliated with Teach For All? • Read about how successful teacher collaboration will make students' learning experience more effective.  I have become acutely aware of the millions of children around the world who face limits because of where they were born or how much their families earn. Many days, this feels daunting. What gives me hope is that it doesn’t have to be this way.  Every child is born with enormous potential. Nothing is more exciting to me than a world where every child becomes aware of the unique gifts that he or she has to offer the world. Good teachers can be the switch that turn on this light within a child. I get especially hopeful when I think about those creative teachers, parents, and school leaders who are reimagining education.  The current education system is archaic and broken. We need to imagine something completely different.  I’m personally dreaming of schools that help kids discover their own strengths, operate with empathy, work across difference, and become conscientious global citizens. That’s why I joined Teach For All, a global network of 45 organizations that is working to ensure all children have the opportunity to fulfill their potential.  In each country, our network partners recruit promising graduates and professionals to teach in high-need schools, and give them the training and development they need to become effective teachers and collaborative life-long leaders who are deeply rooted in these local communities. At the core of our work is the notion of collective leadership.  This is a critical idea to grasp.  In a world where we have grown up equating authority with leadership, and have been overly exposed to stories of charismatic individual leaders, we may need to do some unlearning. Read the full article about Teach For All by Radha Ruparell at Harvard Business School 


Are you ready to give?

If you are ready to take action and invest in causes for Impact Philanthropy, check out these Giving Funds, Charitable Organizations and Projects related to Impact Philanthropy.

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