This past week was the first anniversary of the global pandemic and the end of a remarkable twelve months that we have experienced together. As with other anniversaries, this one prompts a reflection on what happened, how we reacted and what is to come. This is my contribution, reflecting in particular on how Canadian philanthropy has reacted.
One year ago, in my first blog on philanthropy in the pandemic, I suggested that philanthropy must:
This wasn’t original. At the time, in the first week of lockdown, there had already been calls for philanthropy to step up. And many individual foundations in Canada responded more quickly and more flexibly than they ever had before. The pan-Canadian philanthropic networks collaborated on a set of principles to help funders respond to the crisis with flexibility, proactivity and creativity. These networks also committed to gathering and sharing data on the responses of philanthropy through a shared website. A number of funders committed to giving more over the next year. Indeed, the data collected by the networks to date indicates that more than $192 million has been allocated to pandemic needs.
As the pandemic crisis wore on, we witnessed more and more clearly the overlapping crisis of systemic racism and inequality, represented not only by the marginalization and violence experienced by racialized Americans and Canadians but also by the much more onerous impact of the pandemic on their health and economic opportunities.
I realized, as many of us did, that philanthropic foundations needed to pay more attention not only to how much and how flexibly they gave, but how they listened, and how they worked more effectively with their community partners and with each other. We began to hear more conversations about intersectional inequities, and the importance of sharing power and building trusting relationships with grantees. These conversations have shifted the philanthropic response to some degree, as the focus moved from rushing out emergency funds to thinking about who was on the receiving end of these funds, and if they were not, how to reach them.
This effort prompted more philanthropic collaboration and willingness to fund collectively. Private and community foundations worked together to establish collective place-based funds, as well as funds targeted to specific communities that were historically underfunded by philanthropy (example, the Indigenous Peoples Resilience Fund, and the Foundation for Black Communities). Many community foundations worked with the federal government to increase funding through the Emergency Community Support Fund. Dr Susan Phillips and colleagues at Carleton University are working with a cohort of 22 foundations to track and share their pandemic responses and many of them report significant shifts in their work as a result of the pandemic.
The good news, as we look back, is that philanthropy has proved its willingness to grant more and more flexibly, to review some of its practices, to listen more and to work collectively with others to extend impact. The Lyle S. Hallman Foundation in Ontario’s Waterloo Region provides just one example of a creative and thoughtful response to the pandemic (which is succinctly summarized in a report released this month). And much of this is paralleled across North American philanthropy, as noted by Inside Philanthropy in its Lessons from One Year of Covid Philanthropy.
But what now? The question many are asking is whether these responses were only short-term, and whether philanthropy will revert to the “old” normal as the crisis eases. I asked this question in early January, as I considered the possibility of a new agenda. I suggested that this might be a crucial moment for funders to reconsider old relationships and roles, not just as individuals but also at the level of governments, of philanthropy and of civil society writ large. The effects of the pandemic, combined with the movement for more meaningful action against systemic racism, inequality and exclusion have created the opportunity for a break with the “old normal”.
Is it likely? The work now only gets harder. Susan Phillips and her team suggested last fall that “the foundation response to COVID-19 and racial justice seems to be entering a critical phase: how to move beyond emergency, flexible grantmaking – a familiar process to foundations -- to more change-oriented strategies and engagement.” This is difficult for many funders. They are not comfortable in the systems change or policy advocacy space. And few funders still are willing to commit to sustained and unrestricted general operating funding to community partners, whether they are delivering services or advocating for systemic solutions to the challenges that we face as a country. Nevertheless, if we listen to community partners, this is what they will be telling us to do.
In March 2020, I quoted Grant Oliphant, the eloquent leader of the Heinz Endowments in Pittsburgh, who urged us to find ways to embrace our collective responsibility and accountability to each other. Philanthropy in Canada rose to this challenge. Now, in March 2021, I return to Oliphant for inspiration. As he says, “we each must ask ourselves, wherever we stand, in whatever roles we might play, what we can contribute to the process of turning this around. For philanthropy, even though it springs from many different traditions and philosophies, there are many paths we can take….Philanthropy can and must make it our job to shorten the distances of space, opportunity, experience, culture and understanding that turn us on each other. We can support policies and programs designed to share prosperity more broadly again, in communities both rural and urban, creating pathways of hope for people [wherever they live].”
Many years ago, I read a mind-expanding book called The Art of the Long View, by Peter Schwartz, an American futurist. It’s a book about telling stories – about the future, or as many futures as you can imagine. Written as a tool for strategic planners using the techniques of scenario planning, it also makes a persuasive case for us to make use of our imaginations, to create stories about our possible futures, as a way of creating new and better directions for ourselves. Yet most of us are not using our best imagination. This is hard to do. It takes discipline, creativity, diversity of perspectives and space to do well. And understandably, we are focused on the now, which feels both uncertain and urgent. Our imaginations are rusty or pessimistic.
We do hope for a “better” future in the post-pandemic world. But hope without imagination may not be realized. A better future is, for most people, a linear extrapolation of now, with less inequality, more inclusion, more evenly distributed growth, a more functional democracy, greater pluralism and social harmony. In other words, the present, but much better. What if we take some time to imagine the long view? What will the world look like ten or twenty years, a generation from now? It most likely will be very different. What are the radical changes we might imagine to: care for the elderly, health care and biogenetics, forms of media, ways of working, patterns of investment, sources of energy and types of housing or transportation? How will philanthropy itself change? Can philanthropy help its partners to anticipate some of the inevitable disruptions and to build strategies for resilience in coping with that disruption?
In my last blog, I referred to Geoff Mulgan’s powerful call for us to deploy our “collective social imaginations”. Mulgan expanded on this in a provocative longer essay, The Imaginary Crisis (and how we might quicken social and public imagination). In this essay, he argues that there is a malaise across the world today, linked to a sense of lost agency and a deepening fear of the future as we contemplate climate emergency, economic disruption, conflict over resources and human migration. We are more pessimistic than optimistic about our shared future. Yet, as Mulgan says, the scale of the challenges we face means that “we need a very major and rapid boost in our capacity to imagine and to design better social arrangements”.
So how do we do this? Mulgan cites past methods to “expand the space of the possible” and to create a sense of direction for social change: imagining fictional utopias, prefiguring spaces and ideas through model towns and communes, and political manifestos and movements, exhibiting the future (think of Expo ’67), even video games and science fiction. The best of these attempts to imagine society in fresh ways, says Mulgan, “grappled with the biggest consistent challenge of human history – how to organise cooperation at larger scale while sustaining some degree of freedom and fairness.” Looking ahead, Mulgan provides an excellent summary of methods that one could use to avoid “being trapped by the present” and to “think thoughts that don’t yet exist.”
How can philanthropy play a role in the aspirational project of quickening social imagination? We have some examples from philanthropy networks in Europe. In 2018, the Association of German Foundations launched their Next Philanthropy project as a global collaboration among philanthropy-supporting networks. The aim of the project was to provide an opportunity for thinking ahead. It was launched as a way to share data, trends, analysis and reflections about how the philanthropic landscape is changing, and how the sector can best keep up with and respond to these changes.
DAFNE (Donors and Foundations Networks in Europe) opened a European chapter of the Next Philanthropy project to explore questions such as: What society do we want to see in the future, and what role can philanthropy play? How can we connect with other sectors and learn from each other? What is disruption and who are the disruptors? How can we leverage evidence-based dialogue? How can we translate discourse into action?
At a meeting in London in February 2020 just before the pandemic forced us to lock down, a panel from the Next Philanthropy project reflected on what it was learning. The project’s first few hypotheses about the future of philanthropy had been hopeful: Philanthropy will be more global, more transparent, more participatory, more collaborative, more digital, and more entrepreneurial; and there will be larger investment. But these are hopes only, as the panel recognized. The question is how to use our social imagination to map back from these hopes to stimulate positive directions for change in the present.
It is not especially encouraging. The sector of philanthropic foundations (both in Europe and in North America) has lagged behind social trends towards transparency and accountability, diversity and inclusion, digitization and knowledge-sharing. But there are signs that would not have been so evident in London in February 2020. Many foundations have responded to the crisis of the pandemic as well as to the surging movements against racism, sexism and colonialism by transforming granting practices, reaching out to community partners, and beginning the conversation about greater diversity and inclusion in their governance. But these responses should be a trigger or catalyst for deeper reflection on the kind of society we want and what philanthropy can do to move in that direction. As Geoff Mulgan says, “we need to start planning for the peace. What new methods can be adapted from the crisis, particularly to slower burn crises like climate change? What new ways of thinking has it thrown up?” We need to start by asking more questions, and using some of the tools that Schwartz, Mulgan and others offer us to open our imaginations, taking the long view. It’s more urgent than ever.
What do learning, plumbing and imagination have to do with each other? They’re all connected to philanthropy’s response to the pandemic and after. As we wait through this seemingly interminable time to the end of the pandemic, we can reflect on what we have learned (and are still learning). What are foundations and funders of various kinds learning about their own approaches and practices? What have they changed? What might change over the next couple of years? Where are the structural (plumbing) gaps that make it hard to make change collectively? And how do we break our imaginations free to think about new possibilities?
We are hearing that communities need to take the lead from funders, and funders need to be more responsive to community. Easier said than done, not least because among our uncertainties, people are feeling uncertain about how and what works best. Some thoughtful minds in philanthropy have been spending time on this. One of them is Ben Cairns from IVAR, the Institute for Voluntary Action Research. Cairns works with operating charities and with funders in the UK; just before the end of 2020 he shared his thoughts about how funders can adapt practices to an uncertain environment in Four Principles To Shape Your Grantmaking Today. Cairns’ advice focuses on the internal work that funders can do to rethink their processes from the point of view of community partners. This can be as straightforward as simplifying the language used for applications, relaxing word limits on online forms and reducing requests for supporting information. It can mean being much clearer about priorities and exclusions, to not waste the time of applicants. It can mean going further and not negotiating or placing restrictions on the uses of the funds. In a nice phrase, Cairns talks about making unrestricted funding decisions based on the “spine of an organization”: its mission, values, goals and track record (I would add its leadership). He stresses the importance of being in learning mode as a funder, trying out new ways to work and taking some risks to do so. Don’t wait until it’s perfect, or until you are sure you have the right answers.
This advice comes out of an IVAR series, Learning from Lockdown, sharing stories from different funders about their pandemic experiences. It’s practical stuff, rooted in various funder contexts. Of course, variety suggests that not all learnings apply universally. The key point is to adopt a learning mindset. With this mindset, a situation that none of us have experienced before also becomes an opportunity for figuring out how to do better. Funder networks can help to promote the value of learning. The Canadian funder networks of Philanthropic Foundations Canada, Community Foundations of Canada, Environment Funders Network and The Circle have done much through their webinars and toolkits to promote learning from experience. And this learning is being liberally shared by PFC and others.
But why should funders also think about the plumbing? In a thoughtful recent blog, Geoff Mulgan, the former director of policy for Prime Minister Tony Blair and now a professor (of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy and Social Innovation…an interesting set of specialties) at University College, London, suggests that the pandemic has taught us about the importance of collaboration. This is a time to make some forward leaps in collaborative work. But not just any kind of collaboration. Mulgan claims, rightly in my view, that one of the reasons for lagging impact in attempts to collaborate is lack of attention to the “unglamourous plumbing” that supports the best collective work. He proposes five areas where the plumbing (or the back office) needs more philanthropic investment:
The first three of these have to do with the internal work that is so often duplicated by foundations. Many funders do their own landscape scanning, their own intelligence collecting, their own evidence building. Why not do it together? We should reflect on how these practices could be done better together than separately. As his fourth suggestion, Mulgan talks about an aspect of the needed plumbing which is external: an open commons of data, intelligence and evidence. Mulgan’s work, which he has written about in his 2017 book Big Mind, has convinced him that philanthropy leaves impact on the table without collective intelligence. It is hard to find many examples of a curated open commons in philanthropy anywhere, although there are shared data platforms such as 360Giving or Candid. Canadian philanthropy didn’t have one before the pandemic, to our cost. PhilanthropyResponds.ca, a collaborative effort among funder networks, met the immediate need for data on the funder response to the crisis. But as pointed out by Grantbook, “the pandemic has increasingly exposed an underlying need for better data sharing between funders in Canada that can be mobilized, not only in response to global crises, but in response to the many issues philanthropy aims to tackle.” And this will require more funder investment in the plumbing for collective work, as Mulgan suggests.
The fifth point that Mulgan makes is one I love. How do we create a “shared positive imagination” in philanthropy? This could be a focus for some truly exciting collaboration. As he says, “we need shared investment in reawakening our imagination, drawing on the best of art and design, on social sciences, the insights of citizens, innovators and activists, to start filling in more detailed pictures of what our options might be in the decades ahead: – what kinds of welfare, democracy, health or tax we might want. If we don’t have such pictures of where we want to go it’s not surprising that we revert to fatalism about the future.” How do we do this? Mulgan doesn’t say. But maybe it’s a great challenge for our Canadian funder networks to help us pick up going forward.
Twenty years ago, in 2001, the federal government and the social good (then known as the voluntary) sector together negotiated and signed an Accord that set out the values, principles and commitments necessary for a stronger relationship. The objective of formalizing the relationship was to facilitate greater mutual understanding. To quote, the Accord “focuses on what unites the two sectors, honours the contributions of both, and respects their unique strengths and different ways of working. The Accord represents a public commitment to more open, transparent, consistent and collaborative ways of working together.” In a signed foreword, Prime Minister Jean Chretien stated that this Accord was “a blueprint for a strong and vibrant relationship between the Sector and the Government of Canada”.
The Accord remains a valid blueprint in 2021. But we have not been able to build the strong relationship for which this much desired Joint Accord gave us a solid design. Why not? For many reasons…changes in leadership, a loss of focus, a reluctance for advocacy, bureaucratic lack of imagination. But nothing that cannot be overcome.
I suggest that a key part of our sector’s agenda for 2021 must be to create a renewed, reinvigorated design for the 21st century relationship between the social good sector (the charitable and nonprofit sector) and the public (government) sector.
The social good sector is crucial to the achievement of many social and economic goals set by the federal government. We are active partners and contributors to the creation of a stronger and more resilient Canada post-pandemic. And we need recognition of our role as partners from the government.
Charities can be innovators and community builders on key files for the government such as responding to climate change, creating economic opportunity for youth and newcomers, fostering democratic inclusion and reconciling with Indigenous communities. We want to engage with government in building policy frameworks and structures that guide our relationship. But we lack a coherent horizontal policy framework across government to structure investments in service delivery, in talent, in technology and in data. There is no lead Minister with a mandate for the broader sector, no Cabinet-level Committee to develop the relationship with the sector as a whole.
The Senate Special Committee on the Charitable Sector in its 2019 report recommended (Rec.22) that the government create a secretariat on the charitable and nonprofit sector to convene interdepartmental work on issues affecting the regulation and relationship with the sector as well as to coordinate with provinces and territories. Imagine Canada released its case and policy brief for a cross-departmental “home in government” in November 2019. Most recently, Policy Options featured an excellent piece by Fateema Sayani of the Ottawa Community Foundation calling for the implementation of a centralized coordination body within the federal government.
The new government of British Columbia recognized the need for a political lead when it appointed a Parliamentary Secretary for Community Development and Nonprofits at the end of 2020. This was applauded by nonprofit leaders like Kevin McCort of the Vancouver Foundation who agreed that “dire challenges like the overdose crisis, racial injustice, and climate change demand greater collaboration between the province and nonprofits to harness existing know-how and foster innovation. This [appointment] will open up doors to new types of partnerships, mobilize new resources, and maximize our sector's potential to improve economic, social, and environmental outcomes.” Alison Brewin of Vantage Point noted that “the challenges facing our province today demand new solutions and fresh ideas. Charities and not-for-profits are proven innovators, fluent in collaboration with an ability to attract investment from outside government. We hope to see greater alignment with government planning and priorities to leverage these assets for the common good.” Surely what is true at a provincial level should be equally true at a federal level, even if the areas of jurisdiction are different.
Many voices across the sector in 2020 have called for a “home in government”. These calls will be louder in 2021. We may have seen a recognition of the need for cross-government coordination in the recent mandate letters sent to federal Ministers. The letter for Minister Ahmed Hussen, who has the Families, Children and Social Development portfolio, asked him to:
Continue to work across government to ensure that charities and nonprofits have the tools that they need to modernize as they emerge from the pandemic to support the Government’s overall agenda in a manner that responds to the needs of Canadians in every region.
Imagine Canada applauded this statement, noting that this was an “official signal of the Government’s commitment to sector policy needs.” Imagine went on to say that “we are hopeful that this is indicative of a readiness to engage in a strategic relationship with the country’s nonprofits and charities, at a time when partnership between these two key sectors is critical. We look forward to working with the Minister’s Office and Department to advance long-awaited reforms to our regulatory, legislative, and funding environment across government.” Indeed, let us hope that the door to a better relationship has started to crack open again in 2021. But the sector will have to keep its focus, rally its leadership and make this a priority federally if we are not to relive the slow weakening that we experienced post- 2001 Accord.
The nonprofit sector in Canada went through a difficult year in 2020, as noted in Part One of this blog. What about 2021? We don’t want to recreate the past, just in a better version. If that’s true, if we want to innovate for a very challenging next decade, what’s our new agenda?
The answer depends in part on what we think about the future. I have no better crystal ball than anyone else. Forecasts are notoriously tricky. Sometimes they are just expressions of what the forecaster would like to happen, not a rigorously considered assessment of what could happen, good or bad. Rather than a forecast, a new agenda might emerge from hard thinking about future drivers and tensions. Drivers are forces that are most likely to shape the choices and needs of organizations. Tensions are the stresses most likely to be experienced as organizations try to cope with the drivers. The agenda is set from the answers to questions that organizations ask themselves as they consider these drivers and tensions.
Here (in my opinion) are the drivers that could shape the choices of the social good sector in 2021. Different organizations will experience the pressure of these drivers differently. But they will be important whether you are a philanthropic funder or a nonprofit working in the social good space:
As social good organizations consider the impact of these drivers on their strategies, they also face some important tensions or contradictions. Some of these are more specific to funders. But they are important to the recipients of philanthropic funding too:
Different organizations are going to ask different questions as they consider these drivers and tensions. So, I will speculate only on a possible agenda for the social good sector as a whole. What questions should we ask to help us shape a sector-wide agenda coming out of the pandemic?
Thinking about these questions is tough. Answering them through action is even tougher, to be honest. This is going to test our creativity and our willingness to let go of certainties. If this is a new agenda for the sector, we have to think about how we push past the immediate emergency. There is great pressure to stay focused on the moment. Funders are being called on to spend more, faster, with fewer restrictions. Organizations are trying to manage with what they have, and not investing in what they might not have. But I hear people talking about the creativity unleashed by stress and upheaval. The roaring 1920s followed the dismal 1910s. Can we repeat? Can we turn creative energy into better community building? I believe so, if we can get past the tough choices. There is one more tough question: how do we build a different relationship with government? How do we engage more effectively in policy development? How do we work with government to design more flexible and more effective regulation? How do we partner to share important data and evidence? How do we get the recognition from government as a sector that will enable us to flourish? I want to reflect on that in my third and last blog about a new agenda for the social good sector.
At the turn of this pandemic year 2020, we are once again in a place of semi-lockdown, asked to stay home and away from others, unable to meet in person, wary of human contact. Being in this place forces us to stand back, to reflect and to try to understand both what has happened yesterday and what might happen tomorrow. In the words of the writer Arundhati Roy, we are all stuck in an unclear present, trying to “stitch together the echoes of our past and the premonitions of our future”. For her, the “pandemic is a portal” that we will walk through; we need to decide what to bring through with us and what to leave behind.
The new year is an opportunity to consider our past and future. Many thoughtful observers of philanthropy and civil society have done so and shared their reflections as we moved closer to the end of 2020. Reading through them, I have been struck by the hope that they express for a “new way” as we move forward, not just a rebuild or a recovery. We have been found wanting. Simply going back to “the way things were” doesn’t feel right. We should want a new, not an “old” normal. But what might that look like?
Many have emphasized, rightly, how the pandemic has shown us, in a way that we cannot avoid and should not look away from, the inequalities in our society – income inequality, systemic racism, social injustice, gender bias. In the face of this, governments, philanthropy and civil society have had to step up to their roles as never before. But arguably, we have stepped up while still acting within the paradigm of the “old” normal. What does that look like?
In the “old” normal, governments protect our health, provide us with safety nets and safeguard our rights as citizens. Philanthropy supports communities and societies by funding charitable institutions of all kinds. And civil society serves, educates, creates and advocates (among many other functions) to enhance our wellbeing as individuals and as a society. Throughout 2020, Canadian governments, donors and nonprofits outperformed in this paradigm.
Governments quickly acted to try to address the impact of disease; they provided urgent income support, widely distributed, as well as targeted funds; and they continued to keep us informed and educated through public health. A significant number of philanthropic foundations loosened restrictions on their grants, gave more than before and committed to collective funds and to shared decision-making with community partners. Civil society organizations and individuals responded in extraordinary ways to the increased demand for support, while coping with the strains of shifting to remote work delivery, the decrease in revenues from traditional fundraising, and the vulnerabilities of their starved core operations. And many responded with motivation and commitment to the movement for inclusion, for equity and for justice for historically excluded and unrecognized populations.
But….much of what was done in 2020 did not step outside the bounds of familiar assumptions and practices. Yes, much of what was done was extra-ordinary. But we held the assumption that we would return to the ordinary, that there was a “normal” state that we would return to. Emergency public funding would end, foundations and donors would revert to previous giving levels and practices, nonprofits and charities would continue to make do with starved operating budgets and doing more with less. Is this what we want more of in 2021?
This is a crucial moment to reconsider old relationships and roles, not just as individuals but also at the level of governments, of philanthropy and of civil society writ large. The effects of the pandemic, combined with the movement for more meaningful action against systemic racism, inequality and exclusion have created the opportunity for a break with the “old normal” in relations between governments and civil society. Prof. Susan Phillips of Carleton University reflected, in a prescient and thoughtful article published in late September, on the events of the past year and their implications. She noted at least three major impacts:
She argues for real change in the policies and practices of governments, nonprofits and private funders. “The disastrous effects of COVID-19 on the nonprofit sector require not mere recovery and restoration of the status quo but reinvention of models of service delivery, better means of engagement in policy development and more effective inclusion and human resource strategies.” We don’t need more proforma consultations, or detached and uninformed policy making. We need to have deeper relationships and dialogue, as partners working towards shared goals, at both community and national levels.
Lucy Bernholz, the self-described philanthropy wonk at Stanford University, echoes this thought. Bernholz writes a yearly review of trends and forecasts for philanthropy and digital civil society. In her Blueprint 2021, she argues passionately for deep reconsideration of the roles of government and philanthropy in this current circumstance. “More philanthropy will not get us to a just or equitable society. Philanthropy done better will help, but more fundamentally, what is needed is an honest evaluation of what we’ve let philanthropy become and where it should fit in relationship to public responsibilities.” Bernholz is commenting on the U.S. context in which big philanthropy looms much larger and the state less central than it does in Canada. Nevertheless, she puts her finger on the same need for fundamental change as Susan Phillips. Governments must take the lead but hand in hand with citizens engaged through reinvigorated civil society organizations. “Philanthropy and civil society’s rightful role will be to support and sustain the infrastructure for broad, inclusive civic and political participation and leadership in setting public priorities...”
Can this come to pass? What is our new agenda for 2021? Will we walk through the pandemic portal to a different world? In my next blog I will comment on what that might look like.
I’m still thinking about some of the deep conversations that are going on in philanthropy today around “shifting” power. To me the word “shift” assumes a transfer of something from A to B. As I wrote in my last blog on this topic, I don’t see power as fixed, to be had only by one and not by another. Nor is power just about money. It’s about networks, and knowledge and access. Money, networks and knowledge don’t have to be thought of as fixed reserves but as currencies. Currency is a word that derives from the Latin “to run” or “flow”, which takes me to relationships. Perhaps, instead of focusing on shifting, our conversation about power in philanthropy can be more illuminating when we talk about being in flow, or in relationship.
I have come across some terrific reflections on the question of relationship in philanthropy this past month. Whether on the blog of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, or listening to the excellent Giving Done Right podcast from Phil Buchanan and Grace Nicolette, or the panel discussions at the November Philanthropic Foundations Canada (PFC) conference, these reflections have emphasized relationship, even if it wasn’t the first word uttered.
The conversation has highlighted two aspects of relationship: capability and accountability. A mutually satisfying relationship is one in which the capabilities of participants are developed and deployed in ways that bring value to the relationship itself. Such a mutually satisfying relationship also features reciprocal accountability. Each participant recognizes their accountability to the other, both in the sense of honesty and trust and in the sense of being accountable for the purposes of the relationship. The deeper conversation is about how these capabilities and accountabilities can be fully explored by funders and partners. The phrase used by Senator Ratna Omidvar in her PFC conference plenary to describe her goal for charities is that they feel both “empowered and responsible”. How can we as funders and community partners achieve relationships in which that is possible?
The Center for Effective Philanthropy has been studying the responses of US foundations to the pandemic emergency. Their data is telling them that “the crises of 2020 have catalyzed foundation leaders to reconsider their choices about how they conduct their work.” I understand that Canadian data being collected by PFC and others is telling the same story. Part of the reconsideration is how to rebalance their relationships with grantees who are suffering great stress on their capabilities. So, foundations are loosening restrictions, granting with few or no conditions, reducing reporting requirements and listening to what grantees are telling them about their circumstances and needs. These changes are working, at least in the short term, to empower community partners and to reinforce trust in the relationship.
Pushing further, some foundations in Canada are participating in an exploration of how to build “sustained, trusting and collaborative” relationships with grantees. The Foundation Academy for Collaboration, catalyzed by the Saputo Foundation and convened by Ashoka Canada and PFC, is bringing together funders and social innovators to figure out collaborative strategy together. The Foundation Academy participants spoke about their experience in working together during the PFC conference. One of the insights from their first report speaks to the heart of relationship: “we need to show up differently, prioritize building trusting and sustained relationships with one another, create alignment around a shared purpose (without being prescriptive or wedded to predetermined solutions)”. The emphasis is on purpose not power.
Of course, to be able to build relationship, we come back to the fundamentals of capability. Capability is the means to achieve purpose. Organizations dedicated to social justice and to making systemic change are often limited in their capabilities. Recognizing this, in 2015 the Ford Foundation made a 6-year $1 billion commitment to building institutions and networks (BUILD). The three aspects of a BUILD grant—long-term commitment, flexible funding, and institutional strengthening support—work together to help BUILD grantees be stronger, more resilient, and more effective. BUILD’s interim evaluation report of this year has many useful lessons already for funders who want to work on supporting capability to engage. During the PFC conference, some of these lessons were shared in a conversation between Kathy Reich the leader of BUILD and Jean-Marc Chouinard of the Lucie et Andre Chagnon Foundation. Jean-Marc Chouinard put his finger on something that is important for funders to consider. It’s not only about helping build the capability of your partners but also about developing your own internal capabilities as a funder: for listening, for flexibility and responsiveness, for expressing your values coherently in organizational structure and behaviours. If your values are inclusion and transparency and trust and respect, the fundamentals of any good relationship, this must be reflected in all of your behaviours as a funder.
And what about responsibility? This is as integral to relationship as capability, in my view. It means taking responsibility for the mutual setting of purposes and goals together, not at arms-length. And it means joint monitoring and shared responsibility for the outcome of evaluation. Finally, it also means being responsible for more listening and more feedback from both sides. Melinda Tuan, the leader of the Fund for Shared Insight, in her discussion on the Giving Done Right podcast, talks about the importance to funders and organizations alike of getting feedback and of asking questions about what really matters to people. One of the projects of the Fund for Shared Insight is Listen4Good. At the core of this effort is getting feedback from the people most affected on the things that matter most to them. And funders can help build capability for this feedback as well as using it themselves. The Center for Effective Philanthropy, Ford, Chagnon, Ashoka Canada, PFC and many others in philanthropy are providing insights and tools to engage funders and organizations working in the community in deeper relationship. These conversations help philanthropy in the tough task we have to keep the current flowing, to stay in relationship and to help get through a time of crisis for us all.
Shift the power! We hear this everywhere now. In politics, in the economy, in communities, in the justice system, in media. And it is being used by many, with sincere conviction, in reference to philanthropy. The exhortation to big donors and foundations is to shift the power they hold because of their wealth, their status, their connections. Hand over the funds, give without conditions, let others decide for themselves how best to help their own communities.
Is this a measure of good philanthropy, good giving? How much power you have shifted? I am not so sure. But then, what is the right yardstick?
This is the question asked by Tate Williams in a recent piece for Inside Philanthropy. And it certainly provoked some thinking on my part. He called his reflection Generosity and Impact Aren’t Enough. Let’s Judge Philanthropy on How Well it Shifts Power. The title gives you his conclusion. In his words, “we often gauge the success of philanthropists by some combination of generosity and impact...I increasingly think we ought to, if not completely replace those yardsticks, supplement them by considering as a measure of true philanthropy a funder’s success at shifting power out of its own hands and into others. This could involve funding program areas that challenge plutocracy, putting into place more diverse and participatory governing structures or simple grantmaking practices that yield power and control to recipients instead of funders.”
I agree with him that measuring philanthropy solely by how much is given, while important, is incomplete. The big giver is not inherently better than the small giver. Indeed, outsized generosity itself may be seen as an expression of privilege not of good will. Nor is it adequate to measure philanthropy by impact, defined as the achievement of intended outcomes. As Williams says, if a foundation achieves the intended outcomes, but it is focused on the wrong things, is it effective? Williams suggest that a better gauge of good philanthropy is the degree to which it lets go of control, in effect, letting go of power.
I agree that we should consider generosity, impact and power in gauging effective philanthropy. But here is a nuance. Power is not just about money or privilege. It’s about networks, and ideas and knowledge. Power is not fixed in my view, to be had only by one and therefore not by another. In this sense, I am not willing to share Williams’ framing of the effective philanthropy yardstick as how much power is handed over.
I am more persuaded by the language of shared power as suggested by Henry Timms and Jeremy Heimans in their 2018 book New Power. According to Timms and Heimans, new power is created by ubiquitous connectivity…in other words the devices we hold in our hands, and other technologies. New power is in the hands of the many, not the few. It flows like a current, not hoarded like gold. In my review of New Power in The Philanthropist, I noted that technology gives us all (or all of us who can access it) ways to participate, to collaborate, to create, and to engage in new forms of community, which can be not only virtual but evolve into actual human connectivity. New power models and thinking are certainly affecting and transforming philanthropy as much as any other domain. Participatory grantmaking is surely an aspect of new power. The possibility of building rapid feedback loops with beneficiaries and grantees; giving agency to the beneficiaries and to the nonprofits who support them; bringing multiple voices to the table; designing data collection directly with the owners of the data; and designing projects together rather than at arm’s length, are all instances of new power thinking and practice.
The key ingredient in keeping the current flowing in this new power model is trust. One of the reasons that funders may not be responding to the idea of shifting power is that it is presented as a “giving away” rather than as an affirmation. Using a framing that focuses on “haves” and “have nots”, donors and grantees, us and them, diminishes the power of both. Funders may think that in giving up the control offered by foundation-managed and self-designed grant proposals, reporting requirements and restrictions of various kinds, they lose control over impact. But what if funders and grantees have agreed first to enter into relationship? In other words, what if they have done the work to build understanding and trust with each other?
When you sit around the table rather than across it, you are going to be sharing the space not wondering about who gets what. And listening to each other to build understanding and to share in shaping the work and the outcomes you want to achieve together. Indigenous approaches to being in relationship and in a circle of trust have much to teach philanthropy, in my view.
To sum up, effective philanthropy is more about sharing and exchanging power. The Center for Effective Philanthropy has launched a terrific podcast series, Giving Done Right, where you can hear the voices of community organizations and funders who are reflecting on the measures of effective philanthropy today. Listening to their episode on Making and Measuring Impact with Tiffany Cooper Gueye, the Chief Operating Officer of Blue Meridian, a funder collective, I was struck by her comments on the importance of “proximity”. What she is saying is that to have impact you must trust and to trust you must get close. Close to people, close to issues, close to organizations. She also put her finger on the nature of the funder-grantee relationship. It’s not about simply handing over funds without conditions. “Unrestricted (money) is not unaccountable (money)”. In other words, funders and grantees must work with each other in a relationship of reciprocity and mutual accountability. This is a yardstick I can agree with.
How can philanthropy confront the harsh syndemic we face today? Yes, I wrote syndemic, not pandemic. The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals, describes a syndemic as “characterised by biological and social interactions between conditions and states, interactions that increase a person's susceptibility to harm or worsen their health outcomes.” In other words, being poor, hungry, homeless, and/or suffering from a condition such as heart disease, obesity or diabetes, makes your experience of a virus such as COVID-19 much worse. So, if you tackle the conditions affecting vulnerable populations, you lessen the impact of the virus enormously. As noted by The Lancet, “the economic crisis that is advancing towards us will not be solved by a drug or a vaccine… Approaching COVID-19 as a syndemic will invite a larger vision, one encompassing education, employment, housing, food, and environment.”
What does philanthropy have to do with this? A good deal. Foundations, as I have often argued, can be key players in systemic change. Philanthropy can work upstream to change the systems that create social and economic conditions for ill health. The de Beaumont Foundation, a US private foundation that focuses on the social determinants of health, noted in a 2019 blog that “increasing health care costs and worsening life expectancy are the results of a frayed social safety net, economic and housing instability, racism and other forms of discrimination, educational disparities, inadequate nutrition, and risks within the physical environment. These factors affect our health long before the health care system ever gets involved.”
De Beaumont Foundation uses the metaphor of the stream as a way to think about how to intervene on health issues. It’s a metaphor that applies to other social challenges as well. Downstream are the medical interventions that treat illness. Midstream are the social interventions such as social workers and community health workers who work on connecting individuals to various supports (housing, child care, skills training, food security etc). Upstream are the interventions that change conditions in communities, including public policies, government actions and community-level collaboration. The upstream interventions over the long term will certainly improve the health and social consequences far downstream.
If we think about what we are experiencing today as a syndemic, what does this imply for how foundations rethink their strategies? Many Canadian foundations were using a mix of strategies before the arrival of COVID-19. The majority probably focus downstream on responding to urgent community needs for food, shelter, medical treatment, skills training, and supports for families and youth. The immediate consequences of the virus have been a sharpening of these needs and a corresponding increase in demand for philanthropic support. Depression, anxiety, loneliness are probably more urgent mental health needs than ever, for example. Does this mean that all resources should be allocated to downstream work?
I think there is a case to be made for swimming upstream. The syndemic perspective underlines the importance of not abandoning efforts at systemic change. And there are many strategies, usually employed in a portfolio, that Canadian foundations can employ to pursue change. In 2018, FSG, the US-based consultants who work on social impact strategies, issued a useful guide that listed nine strategies for foundations wanting to work upstream:
In practice, foundations use a mix of strategies, including supporting community programs, generating knowledge (sometimes to inform policy), catalyzing collaboration, and building capacity. More foundations are practicing the convening of communities of interest and of peers and considering collective funding tools.
Since the beginning of the crisis, we have seen many Canadian foundations deploying these strategies and working upstream:
These are all remarkable examples of foundations swimming upstream to address the inevitable changes to systems that we need to cope with and to prevent the worst consequences of a future syndemic. Let’s face it, it’s on the horizon if we think about climate change, let alone another virus.