“For we have, built into all of us, old blueprints of expectations and response, old structures of oppression, and these must be altered at the same time as we alter the living conditions which are a result of those structures.” – Audre Lorde

I was recently on vacation with family, and we were contrasting the ease with which we gathered this summer to the difficult years during the pandemic when we were unable to travel across state and international lines to be with each other. As we’ve passed the midpoint of the year 2023, 2020 really seems like a lifetime ago. I look back now and remember how, in 2020, amidst the pain and uncertainty, philanthropy seemed to be getting unstuck from and stretching beyond harmful and paternalistic sector-wide practices: increasing payout above the paltry (and frankly unethical) five percent floor; relaxing restrictions and waiving onerous reporting requirements; and making public commitments to racial equity and justice and funding of Black-led, Indigenous-led, and people of color-led efforts and organizations. Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) president, Phil Buchanan, noted that 2020 and 2021 saw “more change in foundation practices and approaches in two years than we had in the previous two decades.”

Sadly, some of these changes and commitments turned out to be hollow, as Lori Villarosa noted in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, shedding light on the misinformation (the nicest way to portray this) about funding commitments to racial justice and the real harm such misrepresentation of the facts causes. In too many instances, the appearance of solidarity was, sadly, if predictably, just an appearance; or as Anastasia Reesa Tomkin states, in her aptly titled NPQ article, “Philanthropic Pledges for Racial Justice Found to Be Superficial.”

There is evidence that funders have indeed changed some of their practices in a positive manner, though, with more general operating support and less reporting, since 2020. In addition to findings from the recent CEP report, Before and After 2020, the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project conducted a survey of grantmakers that showed that the majority of respondents made and sustained trust-based practice changes between 2020 and early 2023. While changing grantmaking practices is an important and positive shift, changing practices alone is not sufficient to shift power so that resources, opportunities, and power are equitably shared by all people and communities, and our planetary home is treated with care.

Read the full article about change by Gabriela Alcalde at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.