What will it take to create a more equitable America? Increasingly, that conversation is turning to reparations for Black people and building a culture of racial repair for everyone, as the missing piece. As of now, at least 80 national funders, including the Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, are supporting multiple actors in the reparations and repair ecosystem.

Reparations are used around the world typically in cases where people have suffered human rights violations. “When we ask for donors to support reparations, we are not begging for money for Black people. We’re extending a lifeline into your humanity, into your liberation and freedom, by being a part of this healing journey and process,” says Edgar Villanueva, founder and CEO of the Decolonizing Wealth Project. “When we work to repair as a nation — including ensuring Black folks achieve reparations — we are all going to benefit tremendously, and there are going to be generational impacts.”

Because of that opportunity for transformation, The Bridgespan Group, a global non-profit that advises philanthropy, nonprofits and impact investors, and Liberation Ventures, an intermediary organization and donor committed to reparations, collaborated on a report on the role that philanthropy could play in the movement for reparations and building a culture of racial repair. The research included interviews with more than 45 movement leaders, scholars, and funders, a literature review, and a survey of senior philanthropic leaders representing more than $12 billion in assets.

In our work, we define reparations as a comprehensive federal program that addresses the legacy of slavery and the centuries of documented race-based policies thereafter. Inextricably linked to achieving this is building and sustaining a culture of racial repair. This makes reparations an investment in the future — the more equitable world that can be created from a foundation of healing and repair.

Many funders, movement leaders, and scholars, come to the work of reparations through a desire to address the racial wealth gap. If the current wealth of white households remained stagnant, it would take Black families 228 years to catch up. That is more than 10 generations. There is a growing understanding that the gap is a result of a pattern of race-based policies fueled by anti-Black narratives, that have systematically demolished the wealth and humanity of Black people while reinforcing inequities across generations. Such policies include a hundred years of Jim Crow laws; the National Housing Act and redlining; Social Security’s exclusion of the majority of Black people for about two decades; and the GI Bill, which, in practice, excluded nearly two million Black veterans — all in addition to more than two centuries of enslavement.

Read the full article about reparations by Tonyel Edwards, Cora Daniels, and Ivy Nyayieka at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.