“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.