Philanthropic practice

Christine Yoon, senior program officer, Arts, at the Wallace Foundation sat down with Imagine This Podcast to discuss “navigating culture shifts in the workplace, the philanthropic community's shifts over the last year, leadership development in nonprofits, managing uncertainty, and more.”

Farhad Ebrahimi, founder and president of the Chorus Foundation in Boston, MA, writes for The Forge on the subject of private philanthropy's future, and the structural reforms that are needed:

Philanthropy as it’s conventionally understood is the product of racial capitalism. As a result, I see progressive — or even radical — private philanthropy as, at best, a transitional form. If we seek to support transformational work, then we ourselves must be open to transformation. I like to think of this as a “just transition” for the philanthropic sector: we must directly challenge the conditions that produced the wealth inequality that allowed for private philanthropy in the first place.

The full transcript of this podcast is published below.
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The Opportunity Fund announced support totaling $1,112,500 in grants to arts and social and economic justice organizations, the largest cycle in its seventh year of grantmaking. "The increase in amount awarded is a result of the Board of Directors decision to release funds at a rate of 6% of its endowment annually, rather than the minimum requirement of 5%," states the announcement.

In a recent Nonprofit Quarterly webinar, participants including Natalia (“Nati”) Linares, coauthor of the "Solidarity Not Charity: Arts and Culture Grantmaking in the Solidarity Economy" report, commissioned by Grantmakers in the Arts, discuss "Remaking the Economy: Core elements of system change."

"The idea behind participatory grantmaking is both simple and powerful: What if we shifted decision-making power away from supposedly expert grantmakers and investors? What if people with lived experience had the power to devise and implement solutions to the problems they face?" write Ben Wrobel and Meg Massey in Nonprofit Quarterly.

In a recent article published in Generocity, Bread & Roses Community Fund and Philadelphia Black Giving Circle discuss why large grantmakers are "beginning to think like their much smaller counterparts."

In "Buffering Against Uncertainty: Working capital and the resiliency of BIPOC-serving organizations," Rebecca Thomas principal at Rebecca Thomas & Associates, and Zannie Voss, director of SMU DataArts, delve in working capital levels of arts and cultural organizations, emphasizing on BIPOC-serving organizations.

"Amidst both a catastrophic pandemic and calls for reformed funding practices (especially in support of BIPOC communities), philanthropic giving to arts and culture provides a unique opportunity for funders to reevaluate their funding, evaluation, and decision-making processes," writes Michael Sy Uy at the Center for Effective Philanthropy's blog.

In "Building Trust Through Grantee Feedback," Charlotte Brugman of the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) explores the importance of trust between funders and grantees in a conversation with leaders of India's Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies.