"Business as usual is no longer going to work."
This proclamation from World Affairs CEO and President Philip Yun launched Day 2 of this year's Global Philanthropy Forum, "Shifting Power, Collective Action."
Day One honed in on the urgent need for disruption in the philanthropy space with panels highlighting the enduring structural inequality between donors and recipients, inefficiencies in fund delivery, institutional failures to take risks on new, people-powered solutions, and a prevailing lack of trust between all actors across the sector. On Day Two, we "move from the thought space to the action space," in the words of Sara Lomelin and Isis Krause of Philanthropy Together – spotlighting current experiments in disruption that are actively shifting power through innovative structures, system design and cultural transformation.
"We are not questioning the generosity of philanthropy but the effectiveness and efficiency of current approaches." Yonis Hassan, Director of Toronto based organization, Justice Fund and known "philanthropy disruptor" kicked things off with a provocative start. The issue, he says, isn't the size of Canada's philanthropic sector – it's the second largest in the world – but a systemwide failure to prioritize real-world impact, especially for those who need it most. The need for a philanthropic reckoning is clear and it must start with challenging traditional approaches like incremental change, bureaucracy, and virtue signaling. Hassan called on the room not to "let donor fatigue creep in," especially in the aftermath of the promises made following the murder of George Floyd, and to push further to maximize spend-outs and fund grassroots initiatives.
The day's first round of working groups highlighted multiple funding models that are currently breaking new ground in centering trust-building and impacted communities in high-level philanthropic decision-making.
When we hear the word "giving" in the philanthropic space, we often think of the exchange of financial resources. But what else can we – funders, thought leaders, and decision-makers – give? That is the driving question of Giving Circles, a participatory, constructive philanthropy model that is rooted in practices of Indigenous and communities of color and mutual aid societies. The goal of Giving Circles is to create an intentional, impact-oriented community in which participants go beyond the money – to give time, give testimony, give ties/networks, and ultimately, and ultimately to give trust.
In the spirit of transforming thought into action, Philanthropy Together leadership led the room in brainstorming their own giving circles – from finding your "why," to locating potential partners, fostering diversity, and maintaining justice principles in organizing and engagement. Following this exercise, nearly half of session attendees said they were interested in joining or starting their own circle beyond GPF. This morning it was also announced that in partnership with NEID Global and Moore Philanthropies, GPF will be co-hosting a Giving Circle on economic justice, giving our network the opportunity to get involved right away.
The portals were back on Day Two of GPF, this time connecting to youth climate activists in East Africa. Building on conference themes about the importance of local knowledge and power, activists highlighted that while some of the people in their home countries–Sierra Leone and Rwanda for example–don't know what the word climate change means, they experience the effects on an everyday basis, making them experts and innovators in ways that people in the Global North could never fully understand.
A second session returned to Mexico City, where climate activists compared barriers to youth organizing in both the US and Mexico and stressed the power of international network-building. Many GPF participants praised the Portals' unique ability to translate the themes of the conference – connecting across differences, solutions-based collaboration, and leveraging community – into a reality.
"What does it mean to be a good guest somewhere?" It is something we are taught as kids–how to be respectful in someone else's home–but what about when your own home is on someone else's land?
That was the focus of the "Philanthropy's Role in the Return of Indigenous Land" working group, which featured panelists who are doing work to "rematriate" indigenous land in California. Ariel Luckey is the Development Director of Oakland-based Segorea Te' Land Trust, which pioneered the Shuumi Land Tax Guidance for Foundations as an invitation to people who are not Indigenous to make a contribution to the land trust. That contribution is in part financial–individuals, businesses and institutions can give money to protect Indigenous lands–but it's also cultural: to acknowledge the enslavement and genocide of Indigenous California tribes. "Once we accept that foundation, then the real work begins."
The "Bold Giving Practices" session certainly lived up to its name with bold statements such as "we call ourselves foundations but we are just tax shelters." Those were the words of Glen Galaich, CEO of the Stupski Foundation, who was joined by Iara Peng, Founder and CEO, JustFund, Jennifer Risher, Founder, #HalfMyDAF and Una Osili, Associate Dean for Research and International Programs, Lilly School of Philanthropy.
The panelists all echoed a similar and pointed message: the way that individual philanthropists and foundations have thought about their financial assets in the past was wrong. That change starts, as Risher put it, with "flexing our giving muscles." Instead of focusing on how to grow endowments or avoid a hefty bill from the IRS, we should focus on how we can give away more money, more quickly. "We have to recognize that the things that help our investments grow tend to work against the people who we are trying to fund," said Galaich.
Peng focused on how we can eliminate obstacles for potential grantees to receive funding and how her organization has worked to standardize the grant proposal process. "A single grant proposal can take 15-25 hours," she said. "That is $5,000 and something that most small NGOs simply can't afford." Peng said that the philanthropic space should be a place to do things that governments can't–specifically when it comes to risk-taking. "Give communities the chance to fail and fail fast. Because it gets us closer to the winning solution."
"For a long time people of color have been seen as recipients of philanthropy, not necessarily the donors themselves."The Minority Leaders in Philanthropy Forum working group session inspired a dynamic discussion of a pressing, but under-researched racial justice question in the philanthropy space: the exclusion of donors of color from stewardship, recognition, and a place at the table with their white counterparts. Una Osili's recent research revealed that while donors of color are at the frontlines of mutual aid, racial justice giving, and adopting high-tech solutions, they are not the face of philanthropy. And in this gatekeeping, the sector may be losing out on millions of dollars, key strategic inroads and insights, and potential leaders and change-makers.
"It starts with changing the narrative of who is a philanthropist."And for many donors of color, that simply means shining a light on funding mechanisms – like churches, community funds, and race-based organizations – that have always existed in minority communities. Looking ahead, World Affairs CEO Philip Yun expressed the goal of transforming GPF into an incubator to shift the narrative around donors of color in the philanthropic space.
"Movements are messy because people are messy. And philanthropy is the same way. But the way that we've been successful is by building the trust to say, 'I won't run away from you even when it gets hard.'" Tynesha McHarris is the Co-founder of the Black Feminist Fund which gives grants to, as she put it very frankly, "black resistance movements."
The "Realizing Transformative Change Through Gender Equity" working group continued to focus on the theme of trust-building that emerged as a throughline between various panels and sessions. While McHarris underscored the importance of establishing trust when the going gets thick, moderator Nidhi Sahni, Partner and Head of US Advisory at Bridgespan, spoke to how trust-based giving–that is, giving without restrictions–is absolutely critical to funding gender-based initiatives.
As we all know, COVID changed everything. And although it broke parts of public health systems from Rwanda to San Francisco's Bayview District, it also provided valuable lessons. The "Health Equity in the Midst and Wake of Covid-19" panel offered different perspectives on how COVID-19 changed the way things are done in the health sector. "We had defunded public health infrastructure in this country for 35 years," Chet Hewitt, President and CEO of Sierra Health Foundation noted, but systems created during the pandemic reengaged community leaders as the stewards of health information and testing - taking matters into their own hands.
And for Ayanna Bennett, Chief Health Equity Officer at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, COVID simply laid bare systemic inequities in the public sector that have defunded communities of color for centuries. Isabelle Kamariza, President and Founder of Solid Africa, emphasized the need to continue to scale up COVID-era solutions, direct resources, and build sustained partnerships with historically underserved communities in the US and internationally.
"This is an invitation to accept that we are on the inside." And because of that, it is our jobs as philanthropists to wade through bureaucracy, identify potential leaders, and streamline funding processes for activists affecting change on the frontlines. That was the central message of "Amplifying People-Powered Change," an energizing discussion with Marguerite Casey Foundation CEO Carmen Rojas, and Carlos Saavedra, an immigration activist and Executive Director of the Ayni Institute, a training ground for individuals building social movements. It is the job of philanthropists to support doers in navigating the complexities of the funding space, making it easier – not harder – to get things done. In Saavedra's words "Funders don't want to fund winters. They only want to fund summers. But money in the right place at the right time can warm something beautiful."
The languages we speak in the Global North, or those introduced to continents like North and South America by colonizers, don't fully capture the meaning that Indigenous People have nurtured with their lands. And Co-founder of the Indigenous-led non-profit organization, Ceibo Alliance, Nemonte Nenquimo's closing lightning talk about her journey to suing and defeating the Ecuadorian government's plan to develop Indigenous Waorani land in the Ecuadorian Amazon, was one such example. It was a powerful and emotional way to end an inspiring two days, with the story of a woman who stood up for environmental and Indigenous rights on a continent that is notoriously dangerous for those who fight for those rights and do it regardless.
