Ever wonder why Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s profile appears on the ten-cent coin?
It’s a story of philanthropy, activism, and democracy, and it holds lessons for U.S. philanthropy on the cusp of a national election year — and at a time when the nonprofit world faces increased scrutiny and skepticism, as well as potentially roiling structural changes.
The Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) has worked in Detroit since 1990, investing close to $200 million in grants, loans and equity into neighborhoods in the city. Over the past five years, LISC’s work has focused on neighborhood investment around affordable and supportive housing, health clinics, grocery stores, safety initiatives, prosperity models and home repair financing for existing homeowners. While LISC continues to focus on housing as critical to stabilizing and strengthening neighborhoods, our work has evolved to reflect a more comprehensive concept of neighborhood revitalization that includes parks, public transportation, quality grocery stores, safe streets and access to good schools, health care, jobs and other amenities that make communities vital, appealing places to live, work and do business.
To do this work, LISC receives crucial support from the Kresge Foundation, the subject of a recent Philamplify report. I was excited to participate in NCRP’s recent webinar, “PIMBY: Philanthropy in My Back Yard” that connects the report to the practice of place-based grantmaking, and to discuss how foundation investment in communities is a prime strategy for long-term success.
In 2012, Detroit LISC began a place-based initiative to help build sustainable communities in five neighborhoods: two are in Southwest Detroit and have largely Hispanic populations (one of which is adjacent to the downtown central business district and has begun to attract entrepreneurs and people looking to move back to the city). One is a historically stable, middle class neighborhood in Northwest Detroit that was negatively impacted by the foreclosure crisis. Another is in a key location north of the city center along a new transit line scheduled to open in 2017. The fifth is a neighborhood in Northeast Detroit with a high concentration of children and returning residents but little real estate investment.
After years of disinvestment, Detroit is experiencing an influx of private and public dollars that’s reshaping the downtown area and drawing new residents in search of dynamic urban environments. As LISC continues to invest in place-based work in neighborhoods beyond the downtown area, however, the issue of equity is at the forefront. How can we work with other funders to ensure that their investments help neighborhoods offer a rich mixture of housing and better access to jobs and opportunity for people at all income levels?
First, we can recognize the grassroots leadership already embedded in communities and encourage those leaders to come together and create their own blueprints for change. LISC’s placemaking strategy begins with a four to six-month participatory planning process that engages neighborhood residents, business owners and institutional stakeholders in identifying priorities for neighborhood improvement, articulating measurable goals and objectives and creating a work plan. The planning process incorporates any existing plans and strategies to build a framework for long-term neighborhood investment and improving quality of life. We need to ensure that the process is inclusive and that a diverse range of stakeholders sit at the table. Too often, stakeholders leading community-based organizations may not live or work in the communities they represent or have little in common with the people who do. Finding and elevating neighborhood voices gives credibility to transformational community development work. Without that credibility, there is little buy-in from residents and any transformation taking place in their communities appears exclusive.
Next, what we measure matters. Residents and funders sometimes define success differently, so using two sets of overlapping metrics allows us to take into account both perspectives. Funders may emphasize market indicators while community stakeholders may emphasize other metrics. When LISC measures quality of life in a neighborhood, we look at indicators such as employment, the number of mortgages in foreclosure, housing tenure and changes in population. Residents and community activists, for their part, may define success as physical improvements to parks, increased use of public space, greater access to quality education and jobs and grassroots engagement in community safety initiatives. They may also place greater value on relationship-building or more inclusive development, led by developers from their own neighborhoods.
Finally, we can build reciprocal partnerships by asking for community assistance through formal meetings and one-on-one settings. All the members of a partnership benefit from acknowledging that equitable community development is hard work over the long haul: it can take more than five years before we see significant results. To that end, we can foster equity by moving away from funding disparate new initiatives and single-purpose transactions and focusing instead on investments that consider the community as a whole, and that connect real estate development with the cultural, social and economic needs of a neighborhood as well.
To learn more about place-based grantmaking, check out the recording of NCRP’s PIMBY webinar now!
Tahirih Ziegler is executive director of Detroit LISC. Follow @TahirihZLISC on Twitter and join the #PIMBY conversation.
#6 – NCRP’s executive director, Aaron Dorfman releases video footage of how difficult it can be to get an appointment with foundation executives. Philamplify, which is a project of NCRP, produced a report criticizing the opacity of the Hess Foundation and challenging it to evolve beyond “transaction philanthropy.” The only problem is they had no way to actually make sure the foundation ever saw the written report. You can watch the video to see the lengths to which Dorfman went to try and deliver the unsolicited advice. But the reason this is a highlight and not a lowlight is that the video and Philamplify have a sphere of influence beyond just the foundation in question, and it served as a cautionary tale here to others about why the “don’t call us, we’ll call you” approach in philanthropy is part of the problem and not a solution.
While it may not be evident to external observers reading about the Downtown and Midtown revival that takes up a good chunk of Detroit’s media attention, most insiders recognize the true need for reviving Detroit by helping and boosting the jobs, incomes, and living conditions of longtime Detroiters. This came up as an issue in a report by Philamplify (an initiative of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy [NCRP]) on The Kresge Foundation. A consistent theme in the NCRP recommendations for Kresge addressed a need “to continue recent efforts to forge relationships with neighborhood and nontraditional leaders to develop a more inclusive understanding of potential partners and levers for social change.”
On December 15, NCRP hosted “PIMBY: Philanthropy in My Back Yard.” The webinar explored how the grantmakers that invest in the places we call home can be better partners to folks on the ground and help make our communities a better place to live for everyone – especially those whose priorities and voices have been suppressed or cast aside.
The discussion, moderated by NCRP Project Associate Caitlin Duffy (@DuffyinDC), featured:
For her day job at Detroit LISC, Tahirih works with residents to transform distressed neighborhoods into healthy, economically vibrant communities. Laura and her team at Springboard for the Arts engage artists from all walks of life to strengthen community development in urban and rural Minnesota. And at the Aspen Forum, Sheri works with collaborations across the country to make sure progress happens community-wide, rather than just for a select few.
Caitlin kick-started the conversation by sharing feedback from NCRP’s latest Philamplify reports on the Kresge Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, which rely on anonymous surveys and interviews to deliver honest, unsolicited critiques. In both reports, place-based grantmaking emerged as a significant theme. Kresge, for example, has a strong social justice lens but can do more to embrace nontraditional leaders in Detroit. Knight would do well to rethink its fascination with innovative “shiny bright objects” and explicitly focus on the goals of marginalized populations in its 26 partner communities.
Kresge and Knight are of course not alone in their opportunities for improvement. For place-based funders broadly, both Laura and Tahirih discussed the need for philanthropy to work authentically and patiently with communities on the ground. Tahirih noted that the community needs to define what inclusiveness truly looks like, rather than the funder alone. Involving residents to define their own metrics of success on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis, she argued, works better than a “one size fits all” approach.
Similarly, Laura stressed that the relationships built within a community are a more powerful outcome than a single, tangible “product.” The most successful efforts, she said, will tap into the leadership abilities of local people who aren’t necessarily in traditional organizations, an approach that takes time, curiosity, and creativity.
https://twitter.com/beckyll/status/676831503410528256
Sheri went on to echo Laura and Tahirih’s call for longer-term funder-community investments. Funder goals, she said, should be aligned with the priorities of local under-served communities and consider unintended negative consequences, such as displacement. To be an honest partner, funders have to acknowledge the power they have and put in the work to build trust.
Yes! Pretending "we're all equal partners" doesn't make it so. Be real, be honest, do good. #philanthropy https://t.co/ycC606fZD4
— Laura Manning (@ljmanning) December 15, 2015
In Q&A with the audience, all three panelists emphasized that dynamics of race and class must be addressed in order to understand the “local change ecosystem.” Doing so isn’t easy—and it’s tempting to reach out to the same shortlist of leaders rather than engaging the community more fully – but putting those conversations off undermines the potential for real progress. Creating opportunities specifically for marginalized communities improves the potential for equity as well.
must talk about race, power and class within foundation structures, staff and board to be placed-based co-learners #PIMBY #ncrpchat
— Freddy Lee (@freddylee) December 15, 2015
It was clear from our audience engagement that discussion around this topic represents only one of many that need to happen in the nonprofit and philanthropic sector – so keep these conversations going with your friends and coworkers, and tell us at NCRP how they go!
Thanks once again to our panelists, and to those who listened in. You can catch the webinar recording and slides on our website. And let us know below, by email at bbarge@ncrp.org and on social media: How do you think place-based funding should be done to lead to equity? What do you want to see happening in your backyard?
Ben Barge is a field associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Follow @NCRP on Twitter.
“All organizing is science fiction … because whenever we envision a world without war, without prisons, without inequality, we are producing speculative fiction,” writes Walidah Imarisha in Octavia’s Brood. This ability to envision and work toward future worlds not bound by the constrictions of current reality requires the fervent cultivation of a radical imagination and a forward-facing faith. It is often our younger leaders who are most apt to engage in this kind of courageous and creative speculative thought and action. The Chronicle of Philanthropy‘s new 40 Under 40 list reflects this future-oriented leadership.
And the future these leaders are imagining and working toward is glorious. It is the dreamed-of time where the scourge of anti-Black structural racism is once and for all eliminated, because the Black community has built the necessary power to ensure that all Black lives matter and that the Black community thrives. It’s a tomorrow where we have perfected a true sharing economy that shares prosperity and the benefits of technological innovation with everyone, especially rural and underdeveloped communities. It is a future where welcoming communities are created based on a recognition of our common destiny, and newcomers and those on the social margins are not treated as if they are strangers in a strange land.
In the meantime, I think there’s also room for a future with greater recognition for those who are under 40 but under the radar. These unsung leaders embolden the vibrancy of our democracy and the prospects for our collective future through their work. In this future, people are honored and rewarded based on the worth that they bring to communities – not merely their net worth.
Philanthropy and the nonprofit sector can serve as foundational pillars of a bridge to the tomorrow envisioned by many of the leaders selected by the Chronicle, but it will require a fundamental reorientation of our priorities and approach in at least two areas:
We must work toward a future in which combating systemic economic and social inequity is the primary focus of philanthropy – showing that we recognize it as the unequivocal social and political imperative for our country. Another world is possible if we can but bring our radical imagination into reality.
Nat Chioke Williams, Ph.D. is executive director of Hill-Snowdon Foundation.
The sexual, physical and emotional violence perpetrated by Department of Corrections staff at the nation’s largest women’s prison, Ocala’s Lowell Correctional Institution — and facilitated by the corrupt officials who covered it up — revealed that Florida’s penal system is rotten to its core. It’s evident that change won’t come from within the system.
Florida needs a grassroots movement led by those affected by the state’s criminal-justice system to force desperately needed reform. And this movement will need support. As a former community organizer in Miami and the current director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, which encourages foundations to help those with the least power in our society, I call on Florida’s philanthropists: If you care about Floridians’ wellbeing, criminal-justice reform must be a top priority.