Many of us are familiar with the Frederick Douglass quote “Power concedes nothing without demand…” But just before that famous line, Douglass uttered the following in his speech entitled “If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress”:

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground … This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle.”

Douglass calls those of us who “favor freedom” to directly engage systems of power; yet, many in philanthropy are still tentative. Concepts of equity and inclusion are more prevalent in the philanthropic sector’s rhetoric, but funders seldom take a hard look at the power they have and make courageous choices about how to build, share and wield power to achieve a more equitable world.

In the newest issue of Responsive Philanthropy, 3 funders who have taken on that challenge by incorporating the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy’s Power Moves self-assessment toolkit in their work tell their stories.

Read the full article about philanthropy tools for an equitable world by Jeanné Lewis at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.