New Link for Cohen Report
July 16, 2008
Rick Cohen, long-time executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and now national correspondent for the Nonprofit Quarterly, sent an e-mail the other day alerting me to the fact that the NPQ has created a new home for his "blog-like scribblings." We ran a nice Newsmaker interview with Rick a few years back, and I've enjoyed his hard-hitting work for the NPQ.
Rick is a thoughtful critic of philanthropy, and many of his concerns about its practice in the U.S. are captured in "Philanthropy and the Role of Social Justice," an essay in Giving Well, Doing Good, a new anthology of philanthropy-related readings edited by Amy Kass. (The essay was adapted from a piece Cohen wrote for Dialogues On Civic Philanthropy, a 2005 program sponsored by the Hudson's Institute Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal and the Council on Foundations.)
Here's the money quote:
Foundation grantmaking is a relatively small part of nonprofit finances compared to government funding and individual giving. Foundations typically cite their 10 percent slice of nonprofit revenues as a defense against too much scrutiny and criticism. But foundation resources are distinctively different, both as philanthropic rather than charitable dollars, and as funding ventures potentially more flexible and more risk-oriented than what a government agency will support or an individual donor will contemplate. A grantmaking regime based on principles of distributive justice should lead both grantmakers and nonprofits to formulations that do more than simply attach foundation dollars to attractive issues and "isms" deemed to benefit disadvantaged groups -- rather philanthropy must recommit itself to supporting the democratic instincts of community-based, community-responsive and constituency-led organizations, and provide them with the capital to bring community perspectives to the halls of powers. Without philanthropic support, community voices are drowned out in our current din of high-priced lobbying. Social justice philanthropy cannot be reasonably pursued if the groups representing socio-economically disadvantaged populations, due to a reluctance of funders to support their public policy advocacy, 'speak with a whisper that is lost on the ears of inattentive government officials, while the advantaged roar with a clarity and consistency that policy-makers readily hear and routinely follow.'"
That, I think, is the crux of the "diversity" conversation that has been unfolding in California and other parts of the country. While that conversation might seem, to some, to be narrowly focused on the skin color of the people in the room and at the table, it's about more than that. PhilanTopic contributor Michael Seltzer put it well when he said the real issue was "the growing economic and social disparities affecting low-income and minority Americans, and the undercapitalized, community-based organizations that have been created in an attempt to make health care, education, and housing available and accessible to all Americans. Michael then wondered, What would happen if all U.S. foundations agreed to put poverty alleviation and the elimination of economic and social disparities based on racial, ethnic, gender, and other differences on their agenda and allocated a portion of their grant dollars toward that end?
It's an excellent question -- and one that more foundations should be asking themselves.
-- Mitch Nauffts
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