It’s Time For Philanthropy to Fund Black Folks Dreaming + Innovating

At the summit of Pingora on Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Arapaho land.

Philanthropy isn’t a radical act. Redistributing wealth acquired through exploitation, greed, racism, and tax evasion isn’t radical. Often, instead of creating abundance and fostering innovation, philanthropists exacerbate competition and manufacture scarcity by forcing competition for limited funding, which is ultimately distributed inequitably. Abolishing the systems that allow for gross wealth inequalities and resource hoarding would be radical. Guaranteeing a basic income, providing living wages, and ensuring access to safe and affordable housing and healthcare for all would be radical. 

Alas, here we are, in the interim. Using this inequitable apparatus to return money to systematically under-resourced communities where it should have been in the first place. 

Created as a tax avoidance for the wealthy, philanthropy has little accountability or oversight. Seemingly, more time is spent creating bureaucratic processes and trivial requirements than actually redistributing money. 

At the onset of the pandemic, we learned that many of the obstacles foundations make organizations jump through are fabricated. Overnight, foundations were dropping the requirements they historically mandated -- funds were expedited and written reports were thrown out of the window and replaced with 30-minute calls. In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, somehow foundations were miraculously able to adjust their funding guidelines and find discretionary funds to resource projects and organizations led by Black folks. 

And what did we learn? That it’s all imaginary and that the egos and paternalism of philanthropists and foundations drive how they fund — not any legal obligations. 

Given the many frivolous, self-imposed rules of philanthropy, why aren’t foundations more bold in their stated goals of racial justice and redistribution? In Philanthropic Racial Equity’s latest report, Mismatched: Philanthropy’s Response to the Call for Racial Justice, it was found that only 6 percent of philanthropic dollars supported racial equity work and only 1 percent supported racial justice work in 2018. 

1 percent. 

Grantees are asked to innovate and yet, foundations have pursued the same unimaginative, trite and rigid funding strategies for decades. Given the devastating impacts of state violence, systemic under-resourcing of communities of color, and climate change for Black folks, it’s vital for our communities to be resourced —not just to survive, but to thrive and dream. 

What if the same energy and opportunity that is aimlessly given to old white institutions to repeat the same ineffective strategies were unequivocally allocated to Black folks? 

What if instead of awarding another round of funding to these racists and problematic white institutions, resources went straight into the hands of Black leaders, creatives, and organizations? 

What would happen if resources were moved towards Black folks to explore and imagine? Why not pursue a strategy to swiftly and abundantly move resources to support their dreaming and ideating?

Well-rested and well-resourced people are able to access the edges of their creativity. What would happen if Black folks were able to experience a bit of reprieve from the suffocating effects of capitalism and focus energy on building and innovating? What would happen if incubation spaces, fellowships, and sabbaticals were funded instead of asking folks to parade their trauma in a report for a $10,000 grant that has to be renewed annually and mandates 3-pages of reporting? 

Having the ability to act upon and live out your dreams is a privilege. A privilege that is often afforded to those who aren’t systematically targeted by white supremacy, state violence, the criminalization of poverty — the list goes on. Systemic racism, oppression, and capitalism are dream suppressants.

Fund beyond survival. 

Fund rest. 

Fund dream space.  

Fund (actual!) risk taking. 

Fund play. 

Funding needs to be directed towards allowing space for Black folks to try, fail, dream, and innovate as individuals and leaders. Before you create a new bureaucratic requirement for funding or renew those million-dollar grants to the archaic institutions that have not changed, nor been able to retain any Black employees, think about who the real changemakers are and what they need to take it to the next level.