Earlier this month, a new law in the District of Columbia went into effect that will allow the D.C Council to study the possibility of reparations for Black residents descended from enslaved people or otherwise affected by Jim Crow-era policies such as discriminatory housing and employment practices. This law is yet another win for the reparations movement that comes at a time when public reckoning with this country’s past is under constant attack, and the law is the result of tireless grassroots advocacy fueled in part by funders who understand that they have a role to play in the reparations movement as well. That is the subject of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy’s report Cracks in the Foundation: Philanthropy’s Role in Reparations for Black People in the DMV which was released a little over a year ago, and which is just as important today as it was then.
The assessment of changes to the sector since the release of Cracks in the Foundation outlined below could not have been done without the learning and evaluation expertise of NCRP’s former Evaluation Manager, Adrianne Glover.
Since NCRP released the report, our staff has continued to be in discussion with sector leaders about our findings and the need for additional foundations to reckon with the harm caused by their philanthropic wealth origins, and we have also held conversations with foundation leaders who are curious about how to begin doing this work themselves. While it’s too soon to know how funding levels have changed since the time of the report, we do know that grantmaking for Black communities has been reverting to its mean since peaking in 2020, and philanthropy still has a lot of work to do to adequately fund Black-led grassroots movements. There are, however, some luminaries who are leading the way.
In 2024, our report advisor Liberation Ventures announced $3.4 million to 48 organizations across the country building power for reparations, and this year they publicly released their Reparations Grantmaking Blueprint. Additionally, since the release of the report we’ve had conversations with 13 foundations across the country who have shared with us their own efforts and internal conversations around redress, some of whom have hired historians to begin digging through archives and uncovering truths about their own institutional wealth.
Another shining example is a foundation who has been on a truth and repair journey since 2023 – the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, who recognizes that “transparency and accountability about RWJF’s historical legacy are key to the Foundation’s equity journey.” NCRP’s own Senior Research Manager for Special Projects, Katherine Ponce, has since been appointed to the Foundation’s Truth, Repair, and Transformation (TRT) Wisdom Council to support this important undertaking. As we stated in the report, in this critical time of national reflection on and reckoning with centuries of racial oppression, philanthropy must actively engage in conversation and respond with urgency, specificity, and targeted action.
Here’s what Dana Kawoka-Chen, report advisor and Justice Funders Co-Executive Director says about this:
“What does targeted action for philanthropy look like? Following the Just Transition Framework, any reparations process must address and transform the legacy of colonialism and racial capitalism through relational repair (acknowledgement, apology, accountability and amends); recenter the vision and leadership of those harmed; and reorganize for regeneration by changing who controls, stewards and decides how wealth circulates, and to what ends. This includes the return of assets and wealth to the people and places from where capital was extracted in a way that gives communities total ownership and stewardship over that capital as a step towards repair. For wealth holders and those involved in stewardship of wealth, reparations hold the potential for deep spiritual restoration and healing of the wound within white humanity caused by participation in or complicity with white supremacy, Indigenous invisibilization, and the harms done as a result.”
Back to the District, and the DMV more broadly, the eight studied foundations continue their individual journeys of accountability. The websites for two of the studied foundations – iF, A Foundation for Radical Possibility and the Weissberg Foundation – have been updated in the last year to reflect more detailed and honest accounts of their founding histories including harm caused to Black communities because of their wealth generation. Weissberg Foundation – which began uncovering its wealth origin story prior to the report – continues to explore reparative actions.
Transparently sharing wealth creation stories with community members, apologizing and committing to repair the damage is our first recommendation to the studied foundations in our five-point action plan, and it remains a crucial component of what philanthropy as a sector must do to cede power and resources to the people who need them the most.
iF Co-CEOs Temi F. Bennett & Hanh Le shared in the Cracks in the Foundation press release, “Addressing anti-Blackness is ground zero for racial justice in America. Given the backlash to the alleged “racial reckoning” of 2020, our sector is in fight or flight mode. iF is fighting, always. We invite others to join us.”
iF, a Foundation for Radical Possibility, who commissioned the report, continues to publicly share progress on their accountability journey.
iF Co-CEOs Temi F. Bennett & Hanh Le also shared:
– “Based on the findings and recommendations of Cracks in the Foundation, in 2024 iF developed and began implementation of a four-year Redress & Repair Initiative. Following the Reckon>Connect>Repair>Decolonize>Advocate framework developed in the report, iF is partnering with DC Justice Lab and RavensLight Pathways to design and execute this initiative that will result in the following:
– The identification of communities harmed by the Group Health Association (the HMO whose eventual sale endowed the foundation);
– Engagement of those harmed communities in a process to co-design our redress and repair plan;
– Repair made to the communities identified from iF’s endowment, along with program and policy recommendations for redress and repair as tools for economic mobilility and to serve as a blueprint for public sector reparations to address the Black wealth gap; and
– The creation of a blueprint for other foundations and private institutions to replicate the process of engaging in their own process of redress and repair.”
Moving forward, NCRP plans to further explore what the sector owes to communities harmed by wealth extraction, such as to Native communities who continue to be underfunded by foundations.
We have also learned that there are many challenges for foundations on this journey. The Horning Family Foundation, one of the foundation case studies, remains on an organizational pause while the remaining studied foundations have not yet publicly shared updates on how they will incorporate our recommendations. Power dynamics within philanthropic institutions vary and while some executives are inspired to do the work of reckoning and repair, they may face other senior leaders who are hesitant due to fear of what will be discovered about their history, or the impact that storytelling will have to the reputation of their founders.
It has always been our view that the difficult conversations caused by the report are necessary for accountability within philanthropy, and ultimately necessary for the sector to transform into a powerful apparatus for equity and justice. NCRP remains available as a resource to answer questions and connect funders with historians who can support a journey of uncovering wealth origin stories, and our partner Justice Funders offers opportunities for deep learning about repair in community with others. NCRP is also committed to exploring how this report can be a useful tool for movement leaders who are eager to have conversations with local funders about accountability and redress.
In this moment of attempts to revise history and exclude the contributions of Black people from public knowledge, the sector cannot be complicit and erase the history of its own extracted wealth. Now is an urgent moment for foundations to use their significant power to support Black-led grassroots movements, acknowledge the role our sector has played in taking wealth and opportunities from the people who have built this country, and fund the communities that they have harmed.
Trey Withers is NCRP’s Field Manager. In this role, Withers supports the organization’s relationships within philanthropy and brings extensive coalition-building experience to the role.
