posted on: Friday, February 17, 2012

I was thinking about our new online directory of advocacy and organizing impacts and the fact that it is Black History Month. Because I conducted much of the research for the seven reports that featured these impacts, I know that many of these policy victories reflected years of hard work to overcome decades and centuries of racism and discrimination. A dramatic example, which I’ve blogged about before, was the post-Katrina effort by fair housing advocates to get the Louisiana and federal governments to provide $2 billion more to African Americans to rebuild their homes, correcting a flaw in the Road Home Program design that had the effect of awarding much higher grants to White homeowners.

The impacts directory is sortable by intended beneficiary, yet “African Americans” is not one of the beneficiary labels. There is “low-income children and youth,” “low-income children and youth of color,” “youth of color” and “people of color.” I really struggled with the refinement of the beneficiary categories. We wanted to be inclusive so that there wouldn’t be so many types of beneficiary as to make the sorting function meaningless. We tried to think about categories that funders would identify as their constituency, the primary population they seek to benefit through their grantmaking.

That got me wondering how many foundations explicitly include “African Americans/Blacks” as an interest area, so I went to Foundation Directory Online to find out. Of the 44,185 grantmakers that currently accept applications, 100 independent foundations have this population listed as a field of interest, as well as 32 community foundations and 25 corporate giving programs or company-sponsored foundations. If you count the public charities that have annual giving, that adds another 98. In other words, less than six-tenths of one percent (0.58 percent) of grantmakers is explicitly focused on African Americans, even though they comprise 13 percent of the U.S. population and experience a 27 percent poverty rate compared to the overall poverty rate nationally of 15 percent.

Obviously many more foundations serve this population, just as many of the impacts we documented in our online directory benefit African Americans, such as new funding for public schools and expansion of health care access. And as the recent clarification by the Foundation Center on its research about funding of Hispanic and Latino causes indicates, many more grantmakers care about Hispanics than is reflected in the data. But in all these cases we have to read between the lines to find out how these populations are benefiting from philanthropic giving.

When we have to read between the lines, do we risk forgetting why philanthropy and society should focus on the wellbeing of African Americans? Or Latinos? Or other underserved populations? And do we perpetuate the funding of solutions that are poorly targeted and not explicitly designed to serve those we seek to help most?

A perfect example of the need for targeted approaches just arrived in my email inbox. In Portland, Oregon, the Western States Center reported that because African American babies are twice as likely to have a low birth weight and to die than other infants, the International Center for Traditional Child-bearing (ICTC) conducted a survey of African American mothers about pregnancy and child birth, revealing major disparities in their experiences compared to other Oregon mothers. As a result of their research and advocacy, the state legislature passed a bill that requires the Oregon Health Authority to study birth outcomes for all women, especially women of color, and to make recommendations for changes.

Lisa Ranghelli is the director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy’s (NCRP) Grantmaking for Community Impact Project.