The following presentation was made by Christopher Harris at the first international meeting of the Network of Independent Funds for Social Justice, in Rio de Janeiro, held from July 8 to 10, 2015. The meeting gathered funds, foundations and activists from a number of countries to discuss the steps needed to construct a collective strategy to strengthen the field of philanthropy for social justice in Brazil and Latin America more widely.
Thank you Ana. I have been asked to give a global tour of philanthropy for social justice in only 15 minutes. Please fasten your seatbelt and get ready for takeoff.
Before we look globally let’s take a minute to understand better what we mean by “philanthropy for social justice.” It has several necessary components:
- It is giving to address the effects of an injustice (e.g., poverty, marginalization by race, gender, sexuality, religion, caste, etc.).
- The key is how it is given. In most places philanthropy follows what some call a “charitable model,” meaning giving that deals with reducing the symptoms of injustice—and frequently focuses on individuals. In a social justice model, the aim is to help groups work toward eliminating the root causes of injustice and ideally involves them in the design.
Hence philanthropy for social justice aims to help change unjust rules and practices that cause and maintain injustice. It is about power—who gets to set or change “the rules.”
Some people are uncomfortable with the phrase “social justice” because it suggests conflict. However, any change from what favors another requires conflict—not necessarily violent conflict, but it is an effort to change unequal power. There is no change without struggle. How many people in this room ever tried to quit smoking? How many people have difficulty getting to the gym regularly? And these are simple, individual changes with no one else resisting–besides us. Social change is far more complex and difficult.
If you are uncomfortable perhaps refer to it as “more effective philanthropy” (as long as the criteria that I mentioned are met). Some people say that doing philanthropy with a gender lens is about social justice. I believe that it is. I also believe that it is more effective. Recall when virtually all Western medicine was based on research done on white men—and extrapolated for women, people of color and children. That sounds absurd now, but some of those practices still exist. Which would be more effective?
Or perhaps you prefer the term “higher impact philanthropy.” Kat Rosqueta founded the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the University of Pennsylvania. It came out of the business school and its purpose is to analyze philanthropic options for specific interventions, and see how to understand its impact. Look at their website and see, for example, their work on helping families who are losing their homes from the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the U.S. They show that the most powerful intervention per family is giving them access to high quality financial counseling (which they define). A donor can help one family at the cost of about USD $600. However, further research says that a donor can have greater impact if they support what is essentially a public education campaign (again, carefully defined) that reaches many families regarding the value of financial counseling. And even greater impact is possible by supporting work to change the rules about how easily banks can foreclose on mortgages. In other words, restructure unjust rules and get higher impact—or as we would probably say, work towards social justice. “A rose by any other name…”
When encouraging an approach for giving based on social justice, some people use the phrase, “Do you just want to feel good; or do you want to do good?” While I think that’s unfair to those who use a charitable approach—charitable support for services many times is necessary—it still makes a useful point. Let me share quickly three stories that show—outside of Brazil—concrete examples of philanthropy for social justice.
First Story
There was an economist in the early 2000’s hired by a large foundation as a program officer to deal with issues of poverty. He was troubled by what he saw as policies by the World Bank and others (e.g., structural adjustment) that appeared to be making things worse for poor people in the Global South—based on what some economists call neo-liberal economic theory. What to do? He could have created a fund for micro-credit. That would have helped some people, but it would not address the root causes nor change rules that led to unjust outcomes. The theory would remain unchallenged. Instead he wanted to support a different kind of economics.
He designed a series of interventions. He funded economists in different parts of the world who supported a kind of economic theory that favored women, the poor and other marginalized groups. He funded publications, meetings, etc. He funded new scholars pursuing such work. He then funded a number of centers (largely in the Global South), including one in Brazil that is still active, that supported groups of economists. He also gave money to help network these centers across the globe to link them—so that they could learn from the others and create a more widely accepted alternative. Nobel laureates like economist Joseph Stiglitz supported such work. Ultimately a different funder supported the creation of the Institute for New Economic Thinking. Now, a second generation of economists is engaged and some are working in the World Bank and other international organizations. Interestingly, the current debate between the Greek Prime Minister and the EU is a direct reflection of these differing views.
Second Story
A grant maker in the UK had supported peace efforts in Northern Ireland for over 20 years. In more recent years he has been troubled by the increased violence in Spain caused by ETA (the armed branch of the Basque separatists), and wondered if his foundation could help. Ultimately they funded back channel meetings between ETA and Spanish government officials. These meetings had to be secret because at that moment it was illegal for a government official to talk to this “terrorist” group. Of course, if they never talked they could never resolve their differences and the violence would continue on both sides. Some of these meetings were in Belfast that eventually brought in not only experienced peace builders from Northern Ireland and South Africa, but former Irish Catholic and Protestant paramilitaries—who uniquely could show how weapons could be “decommissioned” in ways that both sides could trust. ETA announced the “definitive end of its armed struggle” on October 20, 2011 and to the surprise of many, the Spanish government praised the efforts of ETA. This happened in large part because of the back channel negotiations and quiet funding for help from others. And it did not require a huge sum of money.
Third Story
In the Occupied Territories of the West Bank, the struggle is over not just the land but also—and perhaps even more importantly—who controls the water in that dry countryside. During one of the negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians, there was a side session planned that involved technical teams from both sides. Palestinian and Israeli hydrologists would meet and work out a possible technical plan regarding access to and control of water. The Israeli hydrologists were both expert in water issues but also experienced negotiators. Their Palestinian counterparts, however, while excellent hydrologists, had no experience as negotiators. A funder provided a grant to allow the Palestinian hydrologists to have training in negotiations. This grant was designed not to favor a particular outcome or one side, but rather to help level the playing field and allow for a fairer engagement.
Let’s quickly review—Philanthropy for social justice has several necessary components:
- It is giving focussed on the effects of injustice.
- It supports work that addresses root causes or unjust structural arrangements and practices.
- It includes three critical steps to accomplish its goal:
- Examine the problem and analyze it in a way that gets at the real causes. Get help—especially from the group(s) that you are planning to help. This analysis is harder than it sounds because many of the “rules” that cause injustice are hard to identify.
- Think hard about how to design a grant program (such work usually requires several grants over time) that actually helps groups change the rules that cause and maintain injustice. Again, include those affected in the design. This is the toughest part.
- Try it. Evaluate its outcome. Did it work? What didn’t? Why? What else is needed? Nobody gets it completely right on his or her first try. Redesign the needed grants and keep trying. Examine the results at each stage and readjust with new grants. Be prepared to stay with it for the long term if necessary—social changes takes time—maybe decades.
Brazil Is Not Alone
In order to put the effort to connect work on philanthropy for social justice here in Brazil in a larger context, I have been asked to share briefly similar work in other parts of the world. This is a vey fast world tour.
Europe
The European Foundation Centre supports a set of groups of grantmakers who focus on issues such as the rights of the Roma people, immigration rights, racial discrimination, women’s rights and islamophobia, among others. Ariadne is a network of European funds that support human rights.
Arab Region
The Arab Foundations Forum helps several of its members who are interested in philanthropy for social justice. Funds like the Beirut-based Arab Human Rights Fund help groups deal with a variety injustices—from LGBTQ rights to unjust imprisonment and access to legal representation. Given this afternoon’s discussion of community foundations, you should look at the Dalia Fund, a Palestinian community fund based in Ramallah.
Africa
The African Grantmakers Network has an explicit interest in helping its members engage in philanthropy for social justice. Two important pan-African funds worth looking at include the Ghana-based African Women’s Development Fund and TrustAfrica based in Senegal. There are also several highly effective local and regional social justice funds.
Asia
While there is no umbrella group across Asia, recently there was a gathering of social justice funds including those focused on women & girls (Tewa in Nepal) or marginalized groups (the Dalit Foundation in India run by and supporting dalits—so called “untouchables”).
North America
In the U.S. there are numerous networks of funders for social, economic, gender, racial, sexual identity, disability and immigrant justice. My critique of this system is that the networks are too fragmented and are less powerful than they could be if they worked together more.
South/Central America
There are several active foundations that support social justice but no umbrella organization exists for the region. However, Brazil leads the way with the first national network of social justice funders. Within its membership, one of the best examples of philanthropy for social justice in my judgment is the Brazil Human Rights Fund. But there are other extremely important focused funds such as Fundo Elas (for women and girls) and Baoba (for racial justice).
So what do you prefer? Do you just want to feel good; or do you want to do good—by engaging on philanthropy for social justice.
Thank you.