A New Year’s Resolution for Philanthropy
posted on: Wednesday, January 11, 2012
By Kevin Laskowski
The Chronicle of Philanthropy has a fine Outlook 2012, complete with challenges, donors and nonprofits to watch and New Year’s resolutions for the field:
Great people’s movements are demanding new social contracts all over the world. The Arab Spring, the Occupy movement, and ongoing calls for social justice have inspired millions, yet U.S. philanthropy has remained largely sidelined and silent. We, in the foundation sector, resolve to stop being as irrelevant as we have been for so long. Because history will not absolve us, we commit to taking a hard look at the root causes of ineffectiveness and addressing our myriad shortcomings as a sector. - Albert Ruesga, president, Greater New Orleans Foundation
May 2012 be a year of courage for philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. We face an extraordinary assault on programs serving the most vulnerable in our society, voting rights we long took for granted, and harsh anti-immigrant policies that undermine our values. Now is the time for our sector to find its voice and support advocacy, organizing, and civic engagement. - Deepak Bhargava, executive director, Center for Community Change
Philanthropy must adapt to the growing diversity of donors, activists, and communities. We need to work with and support the new global majority—people of color—to create the next generation of leaders, overhaul our failing educational and health systems, and conquer pervasive structural racism. - Melissa Bradley, chief executive, the Tides Foundation
If I had one resolution for the sector, it would be: increase funding for community organizing among lower-income communities and communities of the “Emerging Majority.”
I’m sure you’re shocked to hear this from someone here at NCRP. However, one thing we saw in 2011 and we will likely continue to see in 2012 is the robust participation of some philanthropists in important public policy debates. Bill Gates, Eli Broad and others have played a large role in shaping the discussions about education reform efforts. A number of conservative philanthropies, such as the Koch brothers and the Bradley Foundation, among others, have had an outsized influence on national debates for some time. Some see this involvement as a pernicious force in our democracy, but my concern is not that the wealthy participate in politics. My concern is that they’re increasingly the only ones who do or can.
“Civic and political association and the organized exercise of influence have increased for the elite and have all but collapsed for the bottom half, even for the bottom three-quarters,” writes Robert Kuttner. Even as tremendous inequality and lagging economic mobility garner renewed national attention and concern, he notes, participatory inequality is equally important. He cautions:
Political disengagement on the part of less affluent Americans is circular and cumulative. Disconnection from politics leads to disaffection with government and doubt that government policies can make a positive difference, which leaves the field to elites. In October, a New York Times/CBS poll showed that a record 89 percent of Americans believed that government could not be trusted to do the right thing most of the time. That view, in turn, leads to further desertion from civic life. Less affluent people are more reliant on public institutions than more affluent ones are. They need to be politically involved to take back government from elites, so that government can once again provide opportunity and security and remedy economic inequality. Thus, participatory imbalance reinforces the deepening class divide.
Philanthropy can be a force that reaches across divisions of class or one that deepens them. Grantmaking remains a means for the wealthy to act on their values, and sometimes, if not often, that translates into engaging in public policy. If only philanthropy spoke up more often - and for ordinary people! I do not begrudge a philanthropist acting on his or her values, so long as that philanthropy empowers other people to act on theirs—and that is what is most needed in 2012.
Kevin Laskowski is research and policy associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.
Labels: Civic Engagement, community organizing, participatory democracy, Philanthropy’s Promise, Public Policy, Social justice philanthropy, underserved communities
The Chronicle of Philanthropy has a fine Outlook 2012, complete with challenges, donors and nonprofits to watch and New Year’s resolutions for the field:
Great people’s movements are demanding new social contracts all over the world. The Arab Spring, the Occupy movement, and ongoing calls for social justice have inspired millions, yet U.S. philanthropy has remained largely sidelined and silent. We, in the foundation sector, resolve to stop being as irrelevant as we have been for so long. Because history will not absolve us, we commit to taking a hard look at the root causes of ineffectiveness and addressing our myriad shortcomings as a sector. - Albert Ruesga, president, Greater New Orleans Foundation
May 2012 be a year of courage for philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. We face an extraordinary assault on programs serving the most vulnerable in our society, voting rights we long took for granted, and harsh anti-immigrant policies that undermine our values. Now is the time for our sector to find its voice and support advocacy, organizing, and civic engagement. - Deepak Bhargava, executive director, Center for Community Change
Philanthropy must adapt to the growing diversity of donors, activists, and communities. We need to work with and support the new global majority—people of color—to create the next generation of leaders, overhaul our failing educational and health systems, and conquer pervasive structural racism. - Melissa Bradley, chief executive, the Tides Foundation
If I had one resolution for the sector, it would be: increase funding for community organizing among lower-income communities and communities of the “Emerging Majority.”
I’m sure you’re shocked to hear this from someone here at NCRP. However, one thing we saw in 2011 and we will likely continue to see in 2012 is the robust participation of some philanthropists in important public policy debates. Bill Gates, Eli Broad and others have played a large role in shaping the discussions about education reform efforts. A number of conservative philanthropies, such as the Koch brothers and the Bradley Foundation, among others, have had an outsized influence on national debates for some time. Some see this involvement as a pernicious force in our democracy, but my concern is not that the wealthy participate in politics. My concern is that they’re increasingly the only ones who do or can.
“Civic and political association and the organized exercise of influence have increased for the elite and have all but collapsed for the bottom half, even for the bottom three-quarters,” writes Robert Kuttner. Even as tremendous inequality and lagging economic mobility garner renewed national attention and concern, he notes, participatory inequality is equally important. He cautions:
Political disengagement on the part of less affluent Americans is circular and cumulative. Disconnection from politics leads to disaffection with government and doubt that government policies can make a positive difference, which leaves the field to elites. In October, a New York Times/CBS poll showed that a record 89 percent of Americans believed that government could not be trusted to do the right thing most of the time. That view, in turn, leads to further desertion from civic life. Less affluent people are more reliant on public institutions than more affluent ones are. They need to be politically involved to take back government from elites, so that government can once again provide opportunity and security and remedy economic inequality. Thus, participatory imbalance reinforces the deepening class divide.
Philanthropy can be a force that reaches across divisions of class or one that deepens them. Grantmaking remains a means for the wealthy to act on their values, and sometimes, if not often, that translates into engaging in public policy. If only philanthropy spoke up more often - and for ordinary people! I do not begrudge a philanthropist acting on his or her values, so long as that philanthropy empowers other people to act on theirs—and that is what is most needed in 2012.
Kevin Laskowski is research and policy associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.
Labels: Civic Engagement, community organizing, participatory democracy, Philanthropy’s Promise, Public Policy, Social justice philanthropy, underserved communities
posted by Kevin Laskowski at
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