Radical Practice: Turning over power in foundations (Podcast Transcript)

The full transcript of this podcast is published below.
Explore the full GIA podcast.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Welcome to a podcast by Grantmakers in the Arts, a national association of public and private arts and culture funders. I'm Sherylynn Sealy, GIA's program manager. GIA is a community of practice with a shared vision of investing in arts and culture as a strategy for social change. Since 2008, GIA has been elevating racial equity as a critical issue affecting the field. To actualize this work within the sector, GIA published its Racial Equity in Arts Funding Statement of Purpose in 2015. Since then, this journey has reaffirmed the many intersections at play as we leverage our dollars for the deepest impact and continue exploring new ways to be agents of change. This podcast is part of the 2020 Grantmakers in the Arts Racial Equity Podcast series.

Sherylynn Sealy:
In this podcast episode, we are glad to have Denise Brown, Executive Director of Leeway Foundation and A. Sparks, Chief Executive Officer of the Masto Foundation. We're glad to have them joining us. Today we will hear from two foundation leaders on what it looks like to live a commitment to challenge power structures that are deeply rooted in the philanthropic sector and keeping community needs at the center. So Denise and Sparks, thank you for joining us today. How are you both showing up?

Denise Brown:
So again, my name is Denise Brown. I'm the Executive Director of the Leeway Foundation in Philadelphia. I use she/her pronouns. How am I showing up today? I am excited to be part of this conversation and I'm excited to see the ways in which Grantmakers in the Arts is continuing this work around racial equity and really taking that lead in the field. For myself, in the midst of this pandemic and with so much going on related to the Black Lives Matter movement, I'm showing up as someone who is excited and concerned at the same time about so much that I'm seeing going on around me.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Great. Thank you.

Denise Brown:
So that's how I'm showing up today.

A. Sparks:
This is Sparks. For me, I guess I'm showing up to this space today with all parts of my identity. So as a queer, mixed race, light-skin privileged next generation woman in the field of philanthropy and as the Executive Director of my family's foundation, the Masto Foundation, which is a foundation that's rooted in the Japanese American community. I'm also showing up here with my experience of working in philanthropy for 12 years before I took on my family's foundation and with all of those learnings. With reflecting on my family's history, with learning about my grandfather as a Japanese American man shortly after World War II and how he created the foundation and started doing his philanthropy, and what I learned from hearing that story, talking to folks that he worked with and then trying to implement a lot of those values into our work in grantmaking today. So showing up with that history of my ancestors as well.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Great. Thank you both. We are glad to have you both. This episode is part of the larger Radical Imaginaries series. Can you tell us a bit about how you would define radical or radical action? What does it even mean to you?

A. Sparks:
As I was thinking about and reflecting on this question, my answers to it didn't come as naturally as some of the other answers or questions. I think part of that is that in philanthropy, particularly family philanthropy, you don't often see the words radical action. For me, I really think the beginning of radical action is having radical thought and not just finding yourself paralyzed in a cycle of thinking and processing and doing evaluations and not that analytic way, but really stepping outside of the system of philanthropy that is so pervasive that we don't even realize that we're swimming in this pool of normativity that in many ways has been imposed on us and ducking your head above the water and looking around and reflecting on that and diving back under and reflecting again. All of those steps, I think, are really important to lead to action, but I do see that action really is the last step in what should be a big shift in ways of thinking.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Great.

Denise Brown:
I agree. I'm thinking about it in the ways in which it relates to people within organizations and institutions that are really looking to shift systems of oppression and white supremacy. Certainly as we think about this context, this philanthropic context that we're talking about, there's room both for the radical thought that Sparks is talking about, which provides the grounding that we stand on to move us towards some sort of action within our organizations and institutions and thereby shifting the field.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Great. With that in mind, and thinking about how one must begin with the thinking and then go into the action, in terms of your work how are you prioritizing and practicing radical action?

Denise Brown:
I think for Leeway, a lot of it had to do with really thinking about the communities that we wanted to make ourselves accessible to and as a result of that, thinking about how we meet people where they are and change processes and structures related to our philanthropic practice and process to shift power and engage with the community in different ways. To actually have them engage as decision makers and as part of policy makers within our organization as well.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's great.

A. Sparks:
For me, I'd say that, how are the… As I reference the way of practicing radical action and recognizing that grantmaking and the systems that we use and what's seen as normal in philanthropy are actually just a way of doing things, not the way of doing things and things that were created in a system of homogeneity and extreme white dominance. A lot of what we're doing right now as a family foundation is one, we're very much a huge part of our identity is by being a family foundation from a community of color, is we're trying to imagine what would family philanthropy look like actually, if instead of 99.9% of the family foundations being white, what if 99.9% of those family foundations were from communities of color? How might our giving look different?

For us that really has encouraged us in creating our practices to not look at the way philanthropy is done and try and shift it to be more equitable, but actually really start with and lead with culture. So whatever the culture of giving is in our family, in the Japanese American diaspora, in Japan and creating our practices. Really looking at throwing away the rule book completely and thinking, what do we need to do to still be legally considered a family foundation, but also creating our way of giving that is actually coming authentically from culture and from our family. So that's what we're trying to do.

Denise Brown:
I also think that often in philanthropy, we think about the action externalizing it. I think it's also important that we think about internally, how are we shifting things. Because we don't want to put things in place that are dependent upon a particular staff person or a program officer to carry them out. They have to become part of the intention of the organization and become embedded in practices so that no matter who's sitting in the chairs there, that this kind of activity and action will remain a priority.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah. No. I want to actually go back to what you were saying, Denise, about internal shifts and structures and changes that happened within a foundation. Leeway went through a change back in 2005, I want to say. 2005, right?

Denise Brown:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yes.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Denise Brown:
Sure. Leeway was founded over 25 years ago by a Philadelphia-based artist by the name of Linda Lee Alter, really out of her personal resources and the intention was to support women artists because, in keeping with the feminist position of the Guerrilla Girls, like where are all the women artists. And going through what's being discussed as the largest generational transfer of wealth, her daughter became involved in the foundation and became interested in the idea of what would it mean to support artists who were interested in community transformation, was the way that she talked about it. And so the foundation went through a very intentional process over a period of years with focus groups and interviews, and really engaged with the community about what that shift might be, which led to Leeway transitioning from being a family foundation to becoming an independent foundation with a community-based board of directors.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's great.

Denise Brown:
Both the board and staff of Leeway are majority people of color and I think that we try to consider the intersectionality of arts and culture with a variety of different issues. We support artists who are working at those various intersections. That shift occurred in 2005.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah. That's great. With that in mind, what ultimately does it take to shift the status quo? You gave an example of what Leeway did just now, Denise, but thinking a little bit more broadly, what does it take? This is open to both of you.

Denise Brown:
I mean, I feel like there's often a reluctance to talk about power. For me, in order to make these kinds of shifts, we have to be willing to engage in those conversations because it really is about shifting power. Folks have to understand that in order to see the kinds of changes that we're talking about, some folks are going to have to be willing to step away and create space for new voices and people in constituencies to participate in the policy and decision making. I think there's been this tendency to engage folks from communities of color, what are often characterized as marginalized communities in programmatic efforts. But what really needs to happen is to really think about the ways in which those voices can be engaged in policy decisions. So I think that certainly Leeway's history demonstrates how that's possible.

A. Sparks:
I think for myself personally, a lot of that was recognizing and acknowledging that the status quo is the way it is for a reason, and whether we are actively aware of it or only subconsciously aware of it, that status quo is to maintain power and privilege for certain communities and individuals. I think in order to step outside of that, it really requires an acknowledgement that the status quo is not working and it's not working for all of us. So for myself, personally, a lot of that was connecting how the struggles of my community are tied, just inextricably tied, to the struggles of other communities. That skin, in a very tangible way, that actually involved a lot more of just being out, being vocal and visible with my identity.

So much of that is about the intersections of different identities and so me being able to hold all those intersections and talk about them. Also, just the power of calling people in and not calling people out. How in ways can you be reflective of yourself as an individual or your work and share as opposed to pushing as an individual foundation to do things different? Yeah. That's…

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah. No. That's great. As we think about how the funding is distributed so inequitably, what is the responsibility of funders to commit to justice for black lives?

Denise Brown:
I think it's a huge responsibility. I think that people really need to be looking at the ways they are holding up the structures of white supremacy and what kinds of, certainly in this moment, what are the things that can be done in the shorter term that are going to lead to long term shifts in these structures? We're seeing leadership from philanthropic institutions like the Ford Foundation and McKnight in this recent announcement about their commitment to increasing their payout. That's become a big topic of conversation. Look at what-

Sherylynn Sealy:
McKnight, you said?

Denise Brown:
Yes.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Okay.

Denise Brown:
McKnight, Ford, Mellon, Doris Duke… So the organizations that have come together to make this multi-year commitment, to not approach their endowments, but to find ways to structure the sale of bonds so that they'll be able to distribute more money in the next three years. Certainly they have amongst them a huge amount of resource to be able to do that. But I think even in the context of smaller foundations and funding institutions, people are really trying to think creatively about how to move money. But it can't just be about what we're going to be doing in the next six months or the next year.

Denise Brown:
It's really about what's going to be happening in 2021, '22 and beyond that, what people's commitments are. I've seen some really interesting responses from folks in the cultural community who are being called upon to be the face of a variety of different kinds of campaigns. Every other organization has put out some sort of support statement. I'm curious about what's going to be happening when things settle down a little bit. What are the ways that people are going to be demonstrating that commitment to black lives?

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah. Yep.

A. Sparks:
For myself, I think that really starts with funders recognizing that we have inherited an unjust system. I very much believe that there is a lot of funders can gain from learning about and acknowledging the past and, specifically in terms of our wealth accumulation, and understanding the practices and the policies that privileged white folks had this system of extraction and control and exclusion for black folks and communities of color. Just recognizing that history. Recognizing how in family philanthropy, when I talk to another next gen person who's in the fifth generation of their family's foundation, I do remind and am vocal about, we would not have had black family foundations five generations ago.

Sometimes within family philanthropy in particular, folks don't think back and reflect historically on that, when the wealth was accumulated and what was that system then, to tie it to how the system might still be unjust now. I think also recognizing and learning more about how foundations and funders are still benefiting from the monetary privileges of our taxation and legal system. That at a minimum funders should be committing to radical ways of giving and redistributing wealth simply because we literally have accumulated it. It's a huge amount. So it's something that absolutely must happen.

Denise Brown:
Yeah. I was actually reading something earlier. There's a remarkable filmmaker. His name is Arthur Jafa and a piece that he made a number of years ago called Love is the Message, The Message is Death is going to be available on a number of streaming platforms over the next few days. But there was a quote, when I was thinking about this conversation, there was a quote from the film that, "What would America be like if we loved black people as much as we love black culture?" We could say, "What would philanthropy be like if we loved black people as much as we love the culture as well?" Right?

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah.

Denise Brown:
What shifts might occur if we weren't constantly putting this marginal frame on black communities and thought of them more as equal partners in this work.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Right. Yeah.

Denise Brown:
But I think that, certainly as it relates to the recent crisis around COVID-19 and the pandemic, part of what seen in terms of how people are creating these mutual aid funds, they were the leaders and the first to step up, folks in Seattle and other places creating these funds that were targeted towards communities of color, BIPOC communities, really lifting up trans and gender nonconforming folks like that. That came out of these other kinds of traditions of supporting folks within their own communities. That did not come from philanthropy.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Right. Yep. Yeah. Appreciate you noting that. So then as we think toward the future, like present and going forward future, and we think about the term imaginaries, how does visioning or imagining the future play a role in your practice?

Denise Brown:
I think in terms of Leeway's philanthropic practice, part of it was using our vision and imagination to really think about how do we create a process instead of structures that really engages with the communities and constituencies that we want to support. For us that looks like imagining a very robust community engagement process. In terms of our support for individual artists, what is it we need to be doing in order to access folks in the community who may not identify as artists or cultural producers, who are actually out there and have been out there doing the work, in some cases for decades? This idea of imagining a hybrid kind of practice that is certainly about distributing the money in terms of grants and other things, but what are the other kinds of supports that the communities that we're involved with need access to, to help leverage whatever experience they have with Leeway for future opportunities?

Denise Brown:
So really thinking about what we do as providing that introduction or gateway for some folks and creating something that didn't necessarily exist elsewhere. So I think, again, I think this idea of imagination is vitally important. In some ways it's everything. It's what everything else rests upon for us. For sure.

A. Sparks:
For us, in terms of visioning the future, well, definitely part of it is trying to build more community. Just recognizing and a bit going back to your question of the responsibility of funders to commit to justice for black lives, it's the extreme amount of homogeneity in philanthropy. It is, if people really were honest about that, it would be impossible for people not to advocate for change. The spectrum of ideas and ways of giving or solutions or ways of working together better that we've thought about in philanthropy has been so limited by not having as much diversity or different ways of thinking or different histories. So a lot of our envisioning the future is trying to bring people in to generate new ideas. We are doing that a lot in how we support leadership development.

For the most part, all of the organizations that we fund are organizations that are led by folks of color or LGBTQ folks. That's a very direct way that we're purposely wanting to invest in the future, recognizing how leadership development has not been supported in many communities by philanthropy. So really, just doing what we can moving money to allow more visionaries to enter into the conversations as a huge part. And also I think recognizing for ourselves and being open to failure, but actually seeing that that process itself is critical and fundamental for us to achieve our larger goals. And also too, just taking action. Instead of over-processing and overthinking, if philanthropy took as much money as it put into data and evaluation and put it into visioning and imagining and collaboration with communities, that's so exciting to think about.

We just recently have started to work on something which we are just… If we were to call it anything, Trust Black Women, that we decided as a family to take a certain amount of money and reached out to different leaders in the community, black women inclusive of self-identified women, trans folks and non-binary folks, and just asked those leaders, "If you had $25,000 to give to an organization that you feel is promoting and supporting the leadership development of black folks and the movement right now, where would you give it?" and following their lead and then sending money to those organizations. But also in that process, learning from those folks about why they suggested the organizations that they recommended. We also learned things around folks then suggesting funding non-501(c)(3)'s or different types of organizations that we wouldn't have thought of thinking and that have also required us to change some of our grantmaking practices.

We don't know what's going to come from it. By typical philanthropy standards, it might fail. It might be successful. But a lot of that visioning is just being openness to other folks also having the ability and having the resources to imagine and also support the creation of a different future.

Sherylynn Sealy:
That's great. Really excited to hear more about that project, Sparks. So before we-

A. Sparks:
Thank you.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yeah. Before we go, are there any final thoughts that any of you have for our listeners?

A. Sparks:
As I was thinking of the final thoughts that I might say, I was actually looking initially at some quotes that are really important or have been impactful to me throughout my journey. If you'll humor me, one of them definitely that came to mind was an Audre Lorde quote and it's reflective for me of my own journey and that changing the system quo and envisioning the future. But the quote was, "For those of us who were forged in the crucible of difference, we know that survival is not an academic skill. It's about learning to take our differences and make them strengths, for the master's tools will never allow us to dismantle the master's house. It may allow us to temporarily beat him at his game, but it will never bring about genuine change."

That quote is something that I've held very close and continuously encourages me to both recognize my own identity and bring that forward, but also see the differences, being outside the status quo in philanthropy, really seeing and believing that those differences and the differences that I can share about in the field of family philanthropy, that those are actually strengths. And having more of those ways of thinking will actually strengthen philanthropy overall and then completely going out of the box and trying to come up with new ideas and ways of working that don't reinforce systems of white supremacy, but actually create whole new ways of pushing back and changing this system that we're stuck in. Yeah. That would be my final thought.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Great. Thanks. Denise.

Denise Brown:
I guess for me, I would really challenge people to reimagine their philanthropic practice in a way that invites more people into the process of redistributing the wealth, as was mentioned before. I think that we need to be thinking about the ways in which the kinds of decisions that we're making now in this present moment, the ways in which we're going to be able to reap the benefits or the results of that as we move forward and really think about what's important. There's a lot of discussion right now around participatory and trust-based philanthropy. I think if trust wasn't the basis of what we were doing before, what was? I guess I would ask the question and challenge people to think about the ways in which they can trust the people who are most deeply affected by the issues that concern us to have solutions, to be part of building those solutions.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Well, thank you both. Thank you, Denise and Sparks for this conversation and for participating in our Racial Equity Podcast series.

A. Sparks:
Thank you for having us.

Sherylynn Sealy:
Yes, absolutely. You are both making decisions within your foundations that center people and communities that have been ignored and it's great that we're able to learn more about the how and the way that you are doing it for others to learn from. To our listeners, we look forward to continuing these conversations so be sure to tune in to the GIA Racial Equity Podcast series and be sure to follow us on Facebook at GIArts, Twitter at GIArts, and Instagram at Grantmakers in the Arts. If you have any questions, you can feel free to reach out to me, Sherylynn Sealy, at sherylynn@giarts.org. And lastly, as Toni Morrison said, "If you can't imagine it, you can't have it." So listeners, keep imagining, keep taking action and thank you so much for listening.