January rolls around once more and we try to make sense of the year behind and the year ahead. Last year, I avoided predictions, as did others, given the turbulence of our world. Instead, I listed some hopes and fears for 2023. It turned out to be a roller coaster year, with more downs than ups. Both the hopes and the fears were relevant and relatively accurate. As we move into 2024, which I expect to be no less of a roller coaster, I would like to venture some hopes but also reiterate some fears for foundations and philanthropy.
Before I get to that, I want to frame my thinking, as I did last year, around the nature of effective foundation philanthropy, which I see as an act of relationship. Not just a handover but an exchange. Not all about control but about combining resources. In this frame, both funder and “doer” (a description I like better than grantee or fund recipient) bring their value (and values) to each other in an ongoing relationship. The challenge of this is that it takes communication skills and accountability responsibilities.
In late 2022, Phil Buchanan of the Centre for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) expressed this view of philanthropy as relationship in a long public essay about big changes and big questions for philanthropy which is still very much worth reading. Commenting on what he and I and others see as the false binary of strategic versus trust-based philanthropy, he noted that “thoughtful donors and foundations reject the notion that there need be a dichotomy between strategy, assessment, evidence, and learning on the one hand and trust, listening and flexible support on the other. They recognize that trust develops over time. They embrace mutual accountability. They realize that, while the knowledge and expertise of those closest to issues should be respected, foundation staff and donors do often possess useful knowledge, too.”
Buchanan was addressing the debate that is very much on in the foundation world around the pressure to shift to “trust-based” philanthropy, or flexible giving, or unconditional funding, such as that practiced most famously by the American philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. She has been giving unsolicited and unconditional large gifts to nonprofits for several years, in an ultimate act of trust. Buchanan’s organization is studying the impact of Scott’s giving, which has up to now resulted in over US$ 16.5 Billion given to more than 1,900 nonprofit organizations. CEP’s research indicates that “Scott’s unconventional approach, unusual both for the size and unrestricted nature of the gifts, is resulting in dramatically positive effects for both recipient organizations and the work they’re doing.” While convincing on the merits of trusting recipients, this is not a model of relationship philanthropy. Scott herself and her team do not seek ongoing relationships. Her team identify recipient organizations in a quiet and anonymous process, and surprise them with offers of large and unconditional gifts. Her approach requires expertise, evidence and evaluation on the part of her team, but there is no dialogue. It’s not likely to be replicated widely, no matter how positive the outcomes for the recipients.
What is clear is that flexible or unconditional giving still needs to be based on some understanding and support for the goals, leaders and work of the organizations receiving the funds. And this to me suggests that funders, if they want to be effective, must move into closer relationships with partners, cede some control and develop the trust needed to work together. So, why are many funders and recipients resistant? Many reasons are suggested: lack of staff, time or data, desire for discretion, wish to maintain control (on both sides). But if you are interested in making social change, in having an impact on the problems you choose to focus on, you surely also want to be in dialogue, to learn, to share and to develop through greater proximity. And that means talking to the organizations you might count on to implement the strategies you believe will lead to change.
What does it take to become more comfortable in relationship? No easy answer. It takes time, attention, perseverance and yes, trust. If funders want to commit themselves to building relationships in 2024, they could start with some of the questions that Kathy Reich of the Ford Foundation posed in her recent blog Funders and NonProfit Leaders: Can We Talk? Here are some of them:
Some useful questions to begin your board discussions in 2024!
Turning now to this coming year, I hope that…
I fear that…
Let 2024 be a more hopeful than fearful year for everyone.
It has been a very tough summer for the world, weather-wise. Heat, storms, floods and fires affected countries across the map. The changing climate convinces many of us that these are partly human-made, not just “natural”, disasters. This could be cause for despair. But there is still room for hope. And philanthropy can be both part of and a contributor to that hope.
We are told by ClimateWorks that philanthropy worldwide contributes less than 2% of its giving to climate mitigation funding. That suggests significant opportunity.
For many in philanthropy, the question isn’t why but how to engage in what is a very complex and quickly worsening problem. Peer sharing and encouragement can help. A global foundation movement, #PhilanthropyforClimate, is showing how through its International Philanthropy Commitment on Climate Change.
In Canada, where warming is happening twice as fast as the rest of the world, Canadian philanthropy is joining the international movement with a Canadian Philanthropy Commitment on Climate Change, which is gathering speed with almost fifty foundations signing on.
This is reason for hope. And there are many ways in which foundations can make a difference, even with limited funds. As interest and urgency grow, so too does the availability of the models and resources.
A March 2023 report from the Aspen Institute and Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, Funding Climate Action: A Pathway to Climate Philanthropy, takes an interesting approach to helping foundations and philanthropists think about options for climate change funding. It describes five climate funder « archetypes » to show how the various tools of philanthropy can be used according to these types. Several foundations are profiled in the report to demonstrate the ways in which archetypical funders are intervening on climate. The archetypes are: climate explorer, climate lens applier, climate philanthropy leader, investment-led philanthropist, and climate action integrator.
The report suggests that many family foundations are increasing their climate engagement by moving into the climate lens applier archetype. “Climate Lens Appliers have recognized that climate change is an important global challenge and that their own philanthropic mission will be impacted by the changing climate. While they may not have shifted their mission to focus exclusively on climate issues, they have explicitly decided to apply a climate lens to their giving.”
While it uses mainly American references, the report offers as an example of this archetype a Canadian family foundation, the Trottier Family Foundation. Eric St-Pierre, the Executive Director, describes how the Foundation is using its approach to climate in its healthcare work. “We are maintaining a focus on healthcare in Quebec, but intentionally looking at the relationship between health and the environment. We are launching both an adaptation and mitigation strategy in the context of health.”
Another very useful guidance report for climate funders was published in August 2023 by the Bridgespan Group. Winning on Climate Change offers a summary of past progress funded through philanthropy and a set of practical suggestions to climate donors. Like the Aspen report, Bridgespan interviewed many funders who are active in the climate change fight. And like Aspen, Bridgespan’s report suggests some guiding principles for climate change funders at any stage of their exploration: Invest now and early, even in small-scale efforts; collaborate with others through intermediaries and pooled funds; support the equitable implementation of existing laws, treaties and policy changes. You don’t have to do all of these things to be effective as a climate funder. But starting somewhere is the key.
Many funders will say that it is easy to get lost in the multiplicity of initiatives and efforts. How to know what is going to be most effective? On this point, one of the funders interviewed by Aspen, Chris Kohlhardt, recommends that “you have to decide if you are more afraid of analysis paralysis or potentially wasting money. Err on the side of moving money sooner and learning from your experiences.”
For those philanthropists who do want to see the pathway to a low carbon energy economy before they decide on what will be most effective, the best approach may be to fund the development of the energy transition roadmap. A great example is the German Energiewende or energy transition strategy, which was developed by an independent nonprofit think tank, Agora Energiewende, in the 2010s. Agora is a public policy consultancy which convenes stakeholders from government, political parties, universities, labour unions and industry to discuss policy solutions. According to an article by Paul Hockenos in the Fall 2023 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Plotting the Path to Carbon Neutrality, Agora’s work “over the course of a decade…has definitively framed the climate-protection agenda in Germany and Europe”. Agora’s work was funded by private philanthropy - the Mercator Foundation and the European Climate Foundation. Today, “roughly 80% of its budget comes from private foundations worldwide”.
This is another example of philanthropy’s opportunity to drive a successful climate agenda, even in the face of accelerating climate-related disasters. The Ivey Foundation in Canada, arguably an example of the climate action integrator archetype sketched by Aspen, has taken the approach of going all in on climate. Like Agora, it is working on the roadmap to transitioning to a low carbon economy. The Foundation collaborates with experts across the spectrum of academia, government, industry and NGOs and has supported many policy advances. Its role as a non-partisan funder of policy think tanks and collaborative funds shows how private philanthropy can spur public progress.
There is plenty of hope in the midst of 2023’s climate-related gloom. I take heart from the way in which philanthropy is rising to the opportunities. The tools and ideas are available. The key is to start. Note: I write about how Canadian philanthropy is rising to the challenge of climate change in my book From Charity To Change. So much more has happened since it was published in 2022!
January, as always, is a time for forecasting by philanthropy observers and “opiners”. But during this never-ending pandemic period, as I read and listen to blogs and podcasts about the year ahead, I notice that no-one is being definitive about their forecasts. Uncertainty is greater than ever. People don’t want to make predictions. They would rather express hopes or, more gloomily, voice fears.
I think that hope is a better starting point. This is shared by Phil Buchanan of the Centre for Effective Philanthropy who posted his first 2022 blog with five hopes for philanthropy and nonprofits. Phil points out that there has been more change over the last two years in how US foundation leaders approach their work than in the previous two decades combined. As he says, “for all the suffering and loss it brought — and continues to bring — the pandemic has shown that deep change, even at institutions often derided as insulated and slow to evolve, is possible when it’s necessary.” In my view, this is also true in Canada, in all sectors.
In early January 2021, I wrote about a new agenda for philanthropy and for what I called the “social good sector”. As I reread my words from twelve months ago, I realize that I was voicing my hope that funders and nonprofits would ask and answer challenging questions that might set them on a new path post-pandemic. Questions such as:
These are all questions about doing things differently…and, I hope, better. I acknowledged then that thinking about these questions is tough and answering them through action is even tougher. But I believe that at least some of them are taken seriously, demonstrated by the conversations at various nonprofit conferences and webinars that took place through 2021, and the funding practice changes that have not been rolled back or discarded. These questions are just as important as we head into a new year, with the pandemic still over our heads.
For 2022, I want to put out two hopes, two fears and one wild guess. Perhaps these could be provocations for discussion at board and management tables along with the still important questions that I suggested for 2021.
Hopes
Fears
A Wild Guess
How much does language matter to philanthropy? Deeply, as it turns out. A stimulating piece by Rhodri Davies from the Charities Aid Foundation on the uses and misuses of philanthropic language got me thinking recently about how much it affects us.
I can’t count the number of times that I have seen the word “philanthropy” defined in various articles and books. While people can agree on its linguistic derivation, and that this derivation points to both goodwill and humanity, beyond this the application of the word is very broad. It is used to describe small gifts and large ones, almsgiving and social change, institutional and personal giving, social obligation and elite display, public and private interest. It has both positive and negative connotations, both engaging and exclusive elements. It is about both transactions and relations, about the exercise of power and the creation of equity, about spending and investing, about amassing and disbursing. What a remarkably elastic term!
Its elasticity is both an advantage and a disadvantage. It can be adopted to fit many different activities. But it also creates difficulties for policy makers and regulators who want to define and control it. So, they revert to more technocratic and legal language. In Canada, as in other jurisdictions, for reasons of history and policy our policy makers and regulators, as well as lawyers, do not think about the broad universe of “philanthropy” but about the narrow world of “charity”. They use the term “charity” to define both the activity of giving and the organizations which pursue missions deemed to be charitable. Many of the terms that we might use to describe the context and work of philanthropy are not to be found in law. The key federal statute that governs philanthropic and charitable organizations is the Income Tax Act. What this means in practice is that the lexicon of government regulation constrains thinking and understanding of the practice of philanthropy to a narrow focus on the transaction of the charitable gift. The language of the law and regulation focuses on a giver and a receiver, on the disbursement of funds to “qualified donees”, on the conditions that permit and shape a donation.
Why does this matter? Because if those who practice philanthropy are caught up in the language used by government and law, they too will focus on the transaction and its conditions rather than on the relations and the impact of what they do. Language shapes our mindset. As Davies points out in his piece, “many of the words we use are laden with historical baggage, and carry implications about the nature of philanthropy and the relationship between giver and receiver that shape our approaches even if we are not aware they are doing so.” He cites the implications of using words like “grantee” and “beneficiary” with their hidden connotations of passivity, recipient of largesse, implied gratitude, and of course the underlying imbalance in power between giver and receiver. If the activity of philanthropy is described as grantmaking, and the measure of philanthropy is the disbursement quota, then we limit ourselves hugely in terms of our thinking about the roles and value of philanthropy.
Similarly, if the focus of philanthropy’s regulators is on the transaction and the accountability of philanthropy is defined as its management of the transaction, then the practice of philanthropy narrows and excludes. Must all grants automatically require applications and reports? Must communication between grantor and grantee be in written form? Must certain costs and certain activities be avoided because they are not defined as charitable? Does our language of transactions and accounts inhibit the creative and expansive appreciation of philanthropic action?
Davies suggests that “the language we use not only describes our world but fundamentally shapes our ability to experience it. Not having the right words doesn’t just mean that we cannot convey the full richness and value of civil society, but that we may not even be able to grasp it in the first place.” In the Canadian context, we can reflect on the meaning that languages other than English can bring to our understanding of philanthropy. In French, the word “bienfaisance” is used as a translation of “charity” when it comes to applications of the federal law to the definition of what is charitable. But in practice, the charitable sector in Quebec does not define itself around the term “bienfaisance” but more often around the term “communautaire”, putting the accent on collectivity, acting together to change or improve community or society. The idea of an “economie sociale”, of co-operative action for mutual benefit is more familiar to francophones than the concepts of charity or “bienfaisance”. These are more relational than transactional terms. Similarly, in Indigenous languages the term “philanthropy” would not be familiar; the Indigenous worldview and spiritual and cultural practice are based on reciprocal exchange of giving and receiving, of being in relation. Languages reflect the underlying assumptions and ways of thinking about the world and about how to act in it.
I agree with a final comment made by Rhod Davies: “Broadening our linguistic horizons [in philanthropy] is vital. It can help us to move away from reliance on forms of language and communication that entrench asymmetries of power, or which privilege certain forms of experience over others…it may even help us to experience our world differently (or at least understand the different ways in which others might experience it)…This is clearly important in the present, but it is perhaps even more so as we look to the future because limitations of language may become limitations on our ability to imagine alternative ways for our society and world to be.”
I am the granddaughter of a historian and I grew up in a family that valued history for what it can tell us about our present and possibly our future. So, I am intrigued by what history might have to say about our responses to the current pandemic. More specifically, I am interested in what history might tell us about the implications for philanthropy and foundations as they struggle to make sense of today.
As a Canadian historian, Prof. Mark Humphries of Wilfrid Laurier University, has noted, “what history teaches us is that in the moment, we don’t always get it right.” Ian Austen of the New York Times interviewed Prof Humphries for a reflective piece on the parallels between the so-called Spanish flu of 1918 (which actually originated in China) and the pandemic of 2020. Dr Humphries wrote a 2012 book “The Last Plague: Spanish Influenza and the Politics of Public Health in Canada.” In 1918, people had a hard time seeing clearly what the implications of the pandemic were for the societies that they lived in. This is true in 2020. None of us have crystal balls. However, it was quickly obvious in 1918 in Canada that in the absence of national data and standards of healthcare, the virus was hard to fight. Provincial responsibility for health care led to fragmented and localized governmental responses and a lack of information which individual philanthropy could do little to fix in the moment. Philanthropy limited itself to providing local relief. The 1918-1920 pandemic led directly to the creation in Canada of the federal Department of Health and the Dominion Bureau of Statistics. Over time, government built a stronger public health system, although it took another epidemic, the SARS crisis of 2003, to create the Public Health Agency of Canada. And we still have gaps in our data that limit effective response. Using hindsight, philanthropy could have focused more over the past century on advocacy for stronger public systems of data, care and prevention.
On a global scale, history tells us that pandemics can lead to huge civilizational changes. According to Parag Khanna and Karan Khemka, in an article on the possible implications of the COVID 19 pandemic for the world, “the 14th-century Black Death caused millions of deaths across Eurasia, splintered the largest territorial empire ever known (the Mongols), forced significant wage growth in Europe, and promoted wider maritime exploration that led to European colonialism.” History helps us see these changes, although we must have some great distance sometimes to see clearly. But even if we can’t begin to see yet all the ramifications of the COVID 19 pandemic over time and around the planet, we can see the vulnerabilities and inequalities in our own society which the virus exposes.
Rhodri Davies of the Charities Aid Foundation in the UK has written a thought-provoking recent article on the lessons of pandemics for philanthropy in British and European history. One key lesson is that government focuses more on its relationship with civil society. According to Davies, past epidemics of plague, cholera and other infectious diseases have led to state efforts to rationalize and centralize charitable relief for the suffering, just as they have led to efforts to build stronger public health systems. The plague years of the late 16th century led to parliamentary criteria for poverty relief (the first stages of a legal definition of charity in 1604 in England).
Plagues highlight inequality and lead (in some cases) to public policy changes that address these inequalities. Davies quotes an English historian, W.K. Jordan: “these frightful visitations of epidemic taught the nation much regarding its own resources and disciplined it in the understanding that the poverty bred by plague must be instantly relieved lest even more terrible social consequences should ensue. Indeed it is not too much to say that men had come to understand that poverty itself was a kind of plague, epidemic in the industrial society.” This is drawn from a history of philanthropy in England, 1480-1660. But it is certainly applicable to today as well. While we have a welfare state that far surpasses that of Tudor England, we still have glaring gaps and inequalities. In many Indigenous communities for example, the gaps are there for all to see. Will this crisis lead to a renewed interest by government in how nonprofits and charities serve a purpose as agents against inequality? What might that mean for the web of rules and regulations that snare these organizations in outmoded ways of operation? Should we be thinking about what we want to change?
While governments cope now with what has been exposed by the crisis, what should philanthropy do? Philanthropy can be a tool for softening the worst impacts within the system as it is. Or/and it can be a tool for more fundamental change. As Davies notes, “philanthropy can be both a tool for maintaining and protecting existing social dynamics and hierarchies and also a means to break down societal divisions and establish new norms.”
What can history tell us about how react to this pandemic, even in its early days? It seems to me that we draw at least these lessons:
What will history say about what happened in 2020? Perhaps philanthropy has a chance to shape what comes next.
The COVID-19 emergency has faced private funders with an enormous opportunity for change. A week ago, I wrote about how groups of private funders are coming together to create and commit to pledges for a more responsive relationship with their grantees and communities. Four funder associations in Canada have now come up with a strong collective pledge of action that sets out five guiding principles for foundation strategies during and after the emergency period.
Canadian foundations are being urged to act quickly, flexibly and generously to meet the needs of their grantees and the community at large. This is consistent with the voices across the community sector that are appealing for a commitment from their funders to continue their grants, to lift any conditions on them and to put faith in their grantees to use the funds as necessary. Funders are also being asked to increase their overall funding and to direct it to the emergency as it grows.
The demand for funds will certainly exceed what any one funder can supply, even if foundations take more from their endowments as they are being urged to do. How do you know where to target your limited funds most effectively? It seems obvious but the best thing to do is to ask them. The always thoughtful Phil Buchanan of the Center for Effective Philanthropy in a series of three recent blogs has suggested that funders must reach out across their entire population of grantees, to quickly identify those in the most precarious positions — and then target their near-term resources to those organizations accordingly. CEP suggests a quick survey of grantees to ask them: how have your operations been disrupted? What do you need most from us? What are you in danger of having to stop or abandon as the crisis continues? A proactive reach out to grantees (unless you have hundreds of them) should be a relatively simple thing to do.
But there is more to think about than maintaining support and communication with grantees, although that comes first. As I read through the commentaries that are coming fast now from observers of philanthropy, I notice how the crisis is sharpening the prevailing debate about the role of private philanthropy in society. Should foundations dedicate all their resources to address social injustice, to advocate for the least advantaged, to change underlying and systemic conditions? Or are they unable to do so because they are part of the very power structure that creates injustice? Does their commitment to the perpetual endowment model prevent them from acting effectively, with enough of their resources, on the here and now? Some even within the foundation community are critical of the response to the crisis so far, suggesting that it reveals, as it does in so many ways, the inability of foundations to react effectively.
I don’t believe this is true. We have not yet seen what Canadian foundations can and will do. It is encouraging that the fourth and fifth principles of the joint funder association statement address head on the question of social justice. The statement suggests taking action for equity now in the emergency and in the long term.
In the now: “Support and amplify community-based organizations so that their needs are heard and met. This is particularly true for equity-seeking groups.”
In the longer-term: “Invest time and energy to notice, make visible and share with others new ways and norms of approaching our work that result in deep change and can be scaled up toward equity and justice in the months and years to come.”
Actions are the ways in which we make credible our words. So what to do?
Does the COVID 19 pandemic offer an opportunity for change in Canadian philanthropy? And if so, what and how? It’s much too soon to tell, probably. But it’s interesting to note the observations made in the last week by U.S foundations that this is the time for radical response. It’s not too soon to say that the shutdown of our society and economy by the pandemic will lead to major shifts in the non-profit sector, certainly in the short to medium term. There will be a need to rethink financing structures, work practices, collaborations etc. This forces a response not only for the next two months but probably for the next year and beyond.
Seizing the opportunity, the Ford Foundation and the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project of which Ford is a sponsor proposed a “pledge of action” for changed practices among foundations. This pledge commits foundations to 8 principles for funding and relationships with community partners and grantees:
Remarkably, this pledge has now been signed by over 200 foundations (and counting). It’s a stunning example of collective response from the foundation sector. Funders can provide desperately needed funds…and do so much more!
(By the way I would add a 9th principle: Commit new funding to the umbrella and intermediary organizations that help to lift up the collective voices of the sector at national and regional and local levels.)
What is fascinating about this is to see the rapid mobilization of American funders around a set of practices that funder organizations such as Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, individual foundations such as Ford, observers such as Vu Le, centres such as the Centre for Effective Philanthropy and collective projects such as the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project have been advocating for a few years. This is the reply both to the growing critique of elitist foundation practices and to the increasing realization of the effectiveness of diversity, inclusion and participation practices. So this may be the spur to fundamental change in philanthropic practice across a wide group of American funders. This is certainly what Ford (which led the way with its BUILD program) and others are hoping now. Note the 8th principle
“Learn from these emergency practices and share what they teach us about effective partnership and philanthropic support, so we may consider adjusting our practices more fundamentally in the future, in more stable times, based on all we learn.”
It takes a crisis to create a turning point. Is this a turning point for Canadian funders as well?
What stops us from creating (or adapting) and signing a similar pledge? What stops us from considering how to act collectively not only to support short term emergency response to community need but also to re-evaluate practices for the long term? Philanthropic Foundations Canada is informing Canadian funders about COVID 19 responses through a new weekly digest. It could work with Community Foundations of Canada and other funder groups to move us towards a reconsideration of giving practices during and perhaps after the pandemic.
Meanwhile we are seeing some creative examples of collective response to the pandemic. The National Center for Family Philanthropy in the US is offering an interactive map and continually growing list of resources for funders re COVID 19. We can do this for Canada! Here are just a few funds and resources already available for Canadian funders:
Locally
National and Issue-Based
International (for Canadian funders)
Charity Village is putting together a list of umbrella and intermediary groups working on COVID 19 response for the charitable sector as a whole.
“The path forward is to realize that we do have power, even in the face of something that makes us feel incredibly small, and that it lies where it always has—in remembering that we are in this thing together and in finding ways to embrace our collective responsibility and accountability to each other.” – Grant Oliphant, Heinz Endowments.
We are in this together. This is the key message of what is happening in this pandemic. Governments and public health experts are asking us to do what is necessary for us all not just for each of us. This is a remarkable time. People are realizing in very specific ways how important their actions are to the welfare of others. Most who work in the charitable or community sector think about this in their daily work. But it isn’t front and centre in the public awareness. So it’s a shock when we are all confronted at the same time with the need to behave for the public, not the private, good. We are in this together…..and we are called on to give up something for others. Freedom of movement, social gathering, collective enjoyment. It’s mind-bending but necessary.
More than this, philanthropy is called on to do what is necessary, what must be done for the public good. As my colleague Krystian Seibert in Australia has noted, this is the time for philanthropy to be at its best. This is scary. And for foundations especially as the stock markets wipe out enormous value in endowments, it is very scary. This is as challenging as in 2008. Perhaps more. But just as we were summoned in 2009 to step up and commit to community partners, not to reduce funding commitments but to maintain and even increase them, we are called on again to step up. And we have so many tools and supports today that we did not have even in 2009.
“Maintaining community lifelines and safety nets are one of the most important contributions of the philanthropic community”. This is from an excellent webinar on the pandemic and how philanthropy can respond , from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy. The CDP offers great resources to help foundations think through their strategies in this unprecedented situation.
Foundation leaders are also giving us some moral direction as they step up their leadership. Comments from the Barr Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the Heinz Endowments, the McConnell Foundation, the Hallman Foundation, the Lawson Foundation tell us: What must philanthropy do in this crisis?
This last point is so crucial. Infrastructure strengthens the organizations that weaken in the face of this terrible barrage by providing information, creating connections, advocating and lobbying. Imagine Canada, the Ontario Nonprofit Network and others are doing everything they can to keep the sector informed and to remind governments that sector organizations need extraordinary support to get through this crisis, just as small businesses and individuals do. They need help to do this work.
The financial and economic consequences of this crisis will fall heavily on the charitable sector. Foundations must be there to help for months and maybe years to come. We got through 2008-2009 together. We can get through this together too. But with courage and commitment. We must not flinch or fail. We are accountable to each other.
I was intrigued by a recent Twitter thread from Rhodri Davies, Head of Policy at Charities Aid Foundation(CAF) in the United Kingdom and leader of CAF’s think tank, Giving Thought. Rhodri is a thoughtful and experienced observer of philanthropy and the big questions that foundations face as social actors. In his thread, @Rhodri_H_Davies notes that he is trying to tie together various strands of current critiques of plutocratic philanthropy in the 21st Century and possible responses to those critiques. He came up with an acronym RECODE, to set out six criteria for “good” philanthropy: a philanthropy that counters the critique suggesting that it is only the sphere of an elitist group of plutocrats trying to whitewash their wealth through an arrogant deployment of philanthropic resources for their own benefit. The acronym stands for: R, risk-taking, E, enough (scale), C, contextualised, O, open, D, democratic, and E, environmental (urgency of climate change).
Rhodri invited comment on RECODE from observers and practitioners of philanthropy. He acknowledges that no one example of philanthropy needs to meet all six criteria. But these do provide some guidance to what one should be considering if one was a philanthropist of any scale, interested in being effective rather than merely self-interested. So, I gave this some thought in a Canadian context. I agree that these responses to philanthropy’s critique would apply in a Canadian philanthropic context, even without the prominence of plutocrats that we see in the US. But I wonder if we need to reflect more on the question of power in philanthropy: who has it? Can it be shared? Does it need to be deliberately addressed for philanthropy to have as much impact as it should? Using this lens, and staying with RECODE as an acronym, I propose that E could stand for empowering (partners and grantees) to address power imbalances, and C could stand for collaborative, or taking a power-sharing approach to working together.
Taking this speculative thinking further, the more compelling acronym instead of RECODE but something much simpler and more direct: REAL. REAL takes into account the power imbalance between funder and grantee and tries to mitigate it. R for Resource, or ensuring that any initiative is resourced enough, in as open-ended a way as possible, without unnecessary conditions; E for Empower, or enabling community partners to have greater agency and voice; A for Adapt, or focusing all philanthropic efforts on the critical need for adaptation to the transition that our world faces away from unsustainable growth based on carbon; and L for Listen, or for keeping an ear open constantly to the views and voices of communities.
Does this line of speculation resonate? Would you have a different acronym to suggest?
A note about E for Environmental:
Philanthropy needs to get REAL these days about the urgency of the disruption and need for adaptation posed by climate change. Rhodri Davies is right in suggesting this as his final “E” in RECODE. As an eminent Canadian such as Mark Carney, former Governor of the Bank of Canada and Bank of England, now UN Special Envoy on Climate Change and Climate Finance, has noted: “A question for every company, every financial institution, every asset manager, pension fund or insurer: what’s your plan?” I would add that this is a question for every foundation or philanthropic organization in the face of climate crisis: what’s your plan for contributing to net-zero (carbon) by 2050?
As an environmental funder (and maybe all foundations should be today, at least in part) you can: fund work to promote policies or to contribute directly to preservation of natural carbon sinks such as forests, oceans, and sustainable agricultural lands; commit to building resilience in communities facing the consequences of climate change; work on strategies to manage the stresses on food, water and housing that will inevitably occur. Even if your work doesn’t have an environmental focus, as foundation you will be faced in this decade by the disruptions caused by climate change to communities, jobs, and most aspects of life. What can you do as a funder to face and ease the transition? As Carney and others repeat: transition, transition, transition. This is the word that will resonate most in the years of this decade. And it is the word that philanthropy must grapple with, in a REAL way.