As a senior program officer at the Tides Foundation, I was both excited and nervous when asked to provide programmatic advice to the Hill-Snowdon Foundation. Excited because I knew the Snowdon family was interested in funding young people, and youth organizing was my area of expertise – and inspiration. Nervous because up until that point, I had never managed a multigenerational family foundation of more than two family members. Ever.
I ended up working with this dynamic family for over three years, both as Tides staff and as a consultant. When we met, the family had begun revisiting their grantmaking to be more intentional about strategy and to think about increasing impact – as described in the funder profile on Hill-Snowdon in NCRP’s new report, Families Funding Change: How Social Justice Giving Honors Our Roots and Strengthens Communities. While family members had differing views and opinions about how to accomplish their goals, they were guided by a strong belief that they could collectively work towards creating a more just and equitable society.
With that strongly held belief as a starting point, I began to introduce youth organizing programs to the docket, which was then largely comprised of youth development and service programs. This was a way to expose the board to social justice strategies, and also explore the differences between service and organizing. We used board meetings to conduct site visits to grantee organizations and to listen to panelists who discussed how organizing and advocacy was “service-plus.” The Hill-Snowdon trustees learned that adding social justice strategy to youth development funding multiplied their impact by allowing organizations to meet day-to-day needs while bringing about systems change by influencing the public discourse and public policy.
One of our most memorable site visits started in Jackson, Mississippi. Four family members and I traveled along the Mississippi delta. We met in the homes and offices of our funding partners. We heard about and saw the conditions communities were fighting to change. We talked, asked questions, laughed and ate together. This deep level of engaging with grantees changed the way the Snowdon family thought about grantmaking and social change.
The Snowdon family used site visits, panel presentations and grantmaking allocation discussions to determine how they could accomplish their goals through a social justice strategy. In the words of Ashley Snowdon Blanchard:
“In some ways, it’s a lot easier for a family with divergent views to agree on community organizing and the basic idea that the people who are most affected by a problem should have some say in the solutions. We may not agree on education reform – whether charter schools or standardized testing are good or bad – but we can agree that the families with kids who are falling behind in failing schools know best about what they need to achieve.”
The paradigm shift from funding traditional youth service to youth organizing was not easy. It did not happen overnight, and it was not necessarily a direction that all the family members agreed on. There was concern among some family members about whether small grants could really have a big impact on the complex social, emotional, economic and environmental forces that shape young people’s lives and opportunities. Given this concern we agreed that instead of continuing to fund nationally, the foundation would focus on discrete regions where they could feel and see progress. During my tenure, I helped the foundation identify the South and Southeast as its target geographic focuses.
Today, the Snowdon family leads the philanthropic community in funding for youth organizing and economic justice.
What are the lessons the Snowdon family learned and how can these lessons inform your family foundation’s grantmaking?
- Social change happens in places where the people who are most impacted are included in developing strategies and playing a leadership role.
- Spend time in the communities you fund and meet the people in those communities who are actively involved in making change. Use the time together as an opportunity for the family to embrace adventure and to act boldly.
- Although complex, social change work is measurable and impactful. Find ways to feel the impact by focusing on defined regions or communities and put resources into connecting them. Share and discuss research and resources to help measure and assess the work.
- Small grants can make a big difference. Funding advocacy and organizing amplifies other efforts because it is proven that leadership development and policy change can lead to long-term, systemic changes.
I encourage other family foundation staff and trustees to read NCRP’s new report, Families Funding Change, and to consider how the Snowdon family’s embrace of social justice strategies can inform their own work.
Leticia Alcantar is a principal at Lighthouse Philanthropy Advisors.
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