Understanding equity: A sit down with Social Venture Partners Cleveland

NCRP’s Power Moves team chatted recently with Emily Troia, manager of partner engagement and communications for Social Venture Partners (SVP) Cleveland. As NCRP expands its focus beyond grantmaking institutions to influence individual donors, SVP Cleveland’s story offers insight into the ways Power Moves can be adapted by donor networks to inform and catalyze new approaches to giving with an equity lens. 

Emily Troia

SVP Cleveland brings together like-minded, engaged philanthropists to collectively give and support local nonprofits. A midsize affiliate of an international network, SVP Cleveland has 70 partners and has been active for 20 years.  

NCRP: What motivated you and the network to give more attention to equity issues?  

Emily Troia: For 20 years, SVP Cleveland has been a community of donor-volunteers (partners) committed to supporting local nonprofits through what we have historically called “engaged philanthropy.”  

When we were founded, the SVP model was innovative: Our grantees received unrestricted multiyear funding plus capacity-building support through collaboration with our partners.  

Since our founding and increasingly during the last 5 years, our organizational understanding of the inherent power imbalance in philanthropy, and at a societal level, has continued to evolve.  

In recent years, as the country has faced a racial reckoning and awareness of inequity has increased, SVP Cleveland’s evolution has accelerated.  

As an organization, we continue to examine, dissect and dismantle the power imbalance in our giving model and ways we partner with community nonprofits. We also continue to individually examine our personal power and privilege. 

This process of examination and deepening understanding has been profound for me. When I joined the SVP staff in 2017, the opportunities I had to learn about equity led to what I would call a personal awakening.  

My colleagues and many partners fostered my personal commitment to equity and racial justice. When I joined the staff, SVP Cleveland was just beginning to address these issues head on; over the past several years, SVP’s organizational growth has given me inspiration and space for personal growth.   

NCRP: What has been most effective in deepening the SVP partners’ understanding and commitment to equity?  

ET: When you have more than 70 people, what works for each person is going to vary. Some people are self-motivated and participate in various sessions and conversations locally and nationally.  

Others need to have issues brought to them in the partnership space. We realized we needed to foster a shared understanding of what equity is and the concept of power. Since 2017, every partner meeting has had some equity-deepening component.  

Variety has been key for reaching people in a way that fits them. It also takes ongoing, overlapping discussions over an extended period of time to guide people with multiple perspectives and varying degrees of engagement to get everyone on the same page.   

NCRP: How has Power Moves been helpful on your journey? 

ET: I was introduced to Power Moves at Philanthropy Ohio’s Philanthropy Forward Conference in 2018. Power Moves has been transformational in my personal understanding of equity, power and privilege, and has continued to be a model I turn to.   

I  took a stack of Power Moves’ executive summaries home from the conference and handed them out to board members, other partners and friends involved in philanthropy!  

The way Power Moves explains the dimensions of power resonated with me because it gives a clear framework for understanding both the idea of power and how the facets of power translate into concrete practices (or lack of practices).  

It helped me understand ways that I had power in my role as a staff member that I had never thought of before and ways I risked being a gatekeeper.  

It gave a roadmap for dismantling the power imbalance and truly partnering with nonprofits and community members. It asked questions that really made me think.   

The questions stayed with me. We even employed the Power Moves’ “kick-off” questions (designed to be used as part of a group assessment) in an exercise at our 2019 board retreat and, again, at our fall partner meeting — a session for the full partnership.  

These discussions engaged partners and also made us realize that, though the partners had many overlapping perspectives, they lacked a cohesive organizational understanding of what “equity” is and what it should mean for SVP Cleveland. It was illuminating in showing us some crucial next steps. 

NCRP: As SVP looks forward, what’s next for the work Power Moves has helped inform? 

ET: Currently, SVP Cleveland is working diligently to clearly articulate our values surrounding racial equity, social justice and inclusion, and we are thinking about how these values play out in all our engagements and actions.  

SVP International’s CEO, Sudha Nandagopal, spoke at our annual all-partner meeting about dismantling power structures in philanthropy and doing advocacy work around racial equity and justice.  

This past winter, we piloted a racial equity group for a small cohort of white partners focused on helping them be better anti-racists by exploring white fragility, privilege and supremacist culture. We are getting ready to launch the second cohort of this group. 

It’s an exciting time for SVP Cleveland. We stand at a turning point. We have laid the foundation and built tremendous momentum over the past 5 years.  

And, now, we are moving from an organizational shift to a transformation. Our partners and staff are continuing to grow personally and embrace collective action.   

We know there is much more work to be done, and our partners are committed to the long-term journey. 

NCRP: What advice do you have for other organizations that educate and engage donors? 

ET: It is valuable for boards and staff to read Power Moves. Even if you cannot use the tool as a whole, it offers a framework and deeper understanding.  

Also, stay hopeful. I have been so excited by people changing their perspectives who I was not sure ever would. It is the only way to bring folks through a transition.  

Seek outside advice from diverse voices. Listen to your grantees and members of the communities they serve. It’s so common for philanthropic organizations and donors to turn inward, but the value of outside perspectives from those whom your dollars are meant to support is immeasurable and can bring the most meaningful change.  

Lastly, meet people where they are. You may have to offer a diversity of opportunities to engage.  

Wynter Moore is NCRP’s program administration intern. 

As our nation struggles with how to commemorate the Thanksgiving holiday amid a pandemic, it’s important to remember that we humans have a natural propensity to share with one another even when our resources are limited.  

Despite the cynicism and judgments of the modern age, many of our ancestors understood that their wellbeing was dependent on the wellbeing of the collective group.  

In fact, it could be argued that the existence of the institutional philanthropy and charity that we recognize today is a modern representation of our inherent drive  to help one another.  

Yet, while the spirit of philanthropy may lean towards a community of support, philanthropic practice is often more guilty of hoarding the sector’s resources and maintaining a power structure that primarily benefits itself while excluding those whom it should empower. 

That’s why it’s so important, especially in this season, to lift up examples of those who push against this debilitating norm.  

When we hear examples of funders who understand this issue and take meaningful steps to address this unfair power imbalance, it’s a step towards creating a better world for all of us who share this planet.  

We created Power Moves, our self-assessment toolkit to help funders evaluate how well they are building, sharing and wielding power, to address this very issue. 

Today that funder is the Stupski Foundation. They recently teamed up with PEAK Grantmaking to relay how they have redesigned their grantmaking process as part of their broad effort to meaningfully share power with their grantees and the communities they serve.  

Power Moves describes the tenets of Sharing Power as “nurturing transparent, trusting relationships and co-creating strategies with stakeholders.” 

The Stupski Foundation, by redesigning their grantmaking process through a 3-pronged approach, did exactly that.  

They first focused on achieving buy-in from their board of directors and rethinking the ways they will be engaged in their grantmaking process. As their Chief Advisor Lalitha Vaidyanathan explained:  

“It was a question of finding a way to keep them involved at the strategic level and not involved in specific grants. As the new grantmaking experience reveals itself, we expect everyone to become more comfortable engaging at the strategic level.”  

In rethinking the role of their board, the Stupski Foundation also decided to shift grant decisions to their program staff in order to lean into their staff’s proximity and relationship to the organization’s grant-partners. Grants Manager Gwyneth Tripp notes:  

“Shifting power this way has made the grantmaking process more feasible and creative. When there are more of us participating, there is more potential to notice where we could make substantial progress, and where we have been limiting ourselves.”  

Last, the Stupski Foundation focused its efforts towards listening and acting on the feedback they received from their grant partners and community members to continuously learn and grow as an organization. Design Strategy Consultant Sasha Thompson said:  

“There is significant value in creating more opportunities and spaces for these conversations outside of the grantmaking process. These types of conversations are a powerful tool for building the trust necessary for great partnerships. It is important that grantee partners see us continuing to learn and improve, and finding ways to invite them into that process.”  

Sharing is in our DNA; it should be in our philanthropy as well. As the Stupski Foundation demonstrates, sharing power is possible and it can be done equitably in a way that promotes trusting, meaningful partnerships with those who should be empowered.  

Eleni Refu is a senior engagement associate at NCRP. Follow @peopleinaplanet on Twitter. 

Many of us are familiar with the Frederick Douglass quote “Power concedes nothing without demand…” But just before that famous line, Douglass uttered the following in his speech entitled “If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress”:

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground … This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle.”

Douglass calls those of us who “favor freedom” to directly engage systems of power; yet, many in philanthropy are still tentative. Concepts of equity and inclusion are more prevalent in the philanthropic sector’s rhetoric, but funders seldom take a hard look at the power they have and make courageous choices about how to build, share and wield power to achieve a more equitable world.

In the newest issue of Responsive Philanthropy, 3 funders who have taken on that challenge by incorporating the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy’s Power Moves self-assessment toolkit in their work tell their stories.

Equity isn’t a declaration, it’s a purpose that drives action

Amber W. Brown, program officer at Coastal Community Foundation in South Carolina, shares insights about how the evaluation resources in Power Moves helped to clarify “how effectively the foundation exerts power to accomplish [their] objectives.” Success hinged not only on their external engagement with stakeholders, but also with creating clarity among staff and board.

Moving power to advance racial equity

Hanh Le, executive director at Weissberg Foundation, explores how the outcome of their strategic planning process was a recognition that they needed “to be bolder in developing, naming and implementing our strategy to advance equity.” Power Moves has been a tool to help them operationalize a bold strategy in both governance and grantmaking.

Centering community power and feedback: The Colorado Trust on its new advocacy grantmaking program

Noelle Dorward, advocacy and policy partner at The Colorado Trust, shared the shifts they have made to strengthen community partnerships and support the community organizing infrastructure in their state with NCRP’s Lisa Ranghelli, Power Moves author and senior director of evaluation and learning.

In an age where social media pressures us to present a picture-perfect version of ourselves, it can be hard to remember that each of us have some source of vulnerability – that part of ourselves that makes us feel different, weaker or exposed.

Realizing our potential and bringing out the best of our communities often starts with learning how to face these issues and navigate those vulnerabilities in ourselves and others.

For those working on the frontlines of systems change, sharing those vulnerabilities, especially across lines of race, class, ethnicity and gender, is where the real work begins.

As an Ethiopian-Eritrean immigrant growing up in Idaho, I generally disliked being probed about my experiences because sharing my family’s deeply personal story of struggle and perseverance often meant bearing my vulnerabilities to complete strangers who had no intention of doing the same.

Without the expectation of reciprocity, it seemed like I was fulfilling a random curiosity instead of making an authentic or meaningful connection.

Achieving equity and social justice depends on people and groups connecting in authentic ways to operate through the silos that often divides us.

Yet philanthropy sometimes still feels like that helpful neighbor who is more curious than committed.

Well-meaning donors and funders expect their grantees to inform them about their progress, their failures and their results – in other words, to paint them a picture of their vulnerabilities – in order to prove that they can be trusted to accomplish the work they have been funded for.

Yet, we rarely expect funders to be as transparent about their vulnerabilities with grantees or impacted communities.

Old and new tools for change

That is why NCRP’s Power Moves toolkit is finding success in helping philanthropy to look beyond its grantmaking and examine how it uses its inherent power in our society.

The collection of self-assessment questionnaires, discussion guides and other resources was developed to facilitate organizational learning so that funders are able to not just analyze how they are using their power, but also develop the roadmap they need to implement improvements that ensures their work centers equity and social justice.

Two news tools unveiled last month by NCRP partners in the sector only add to this effort.

The Philanthropy Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE)’s “Grantmaking with a Racial Justice Lens” is a valuable practical guide for funders seeking an in-depth understanding of the context around examining their power before using Power Moves.

The guide does a commendable job of walking funders through the variety of internal and external factors they need to address as they strive to make transformational systemic changes that center racial justice.

It also incorporates an insightful collection of the first-hand experiences of other funders who have addressed those factors in their organizations.

Grantmakers seeking to improve how they share power with their grantees can also turn to resources being developed by the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project.

A collaborative effort between the Whitman Institute, the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation and the Headwaters Foundation, the project aims to work peer-to-peer with funders to remodel the funder-grantee relationship into one that is based on trust, humility and transparency.

After assessing how they are exercising their power through Power Moves’ assessment guide, funders who find that they have room to improve how they share power can turn to the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project to get an in-depth understanding of how to do that.

We’re delighted that these resources work so well together because it’s only by being collaborative and building on each other’s work that we can cement the kinds of fundamental changes needed to truly make philanthropy a driver for social good.

Change agents from the streets to the boardroom know that we can’t simply speak an equitable and just society into existence.

The difficult task of getting there depends on creating and maintaining honest, trusted spaces that facilitate mutual transparency and accountability across the lines that normally segments us.

In order to do that, funders must be willing to reveal their vulnerabilities in the same way that they expect their grantees and direct beneficiaries to be openly vulnerable with them.

The same truism for individuals hold for organizations: Only when we address and share our own vulnerabilities can we better navigate each other’s.

Eleni Refu is a senior engagement associate at NCRP. Follow @NCRP on Twitter.