As is becoming increasingly widely recognized, it’s not safe to be any kind of Black man today in America. Just years ago, “respectability politics” still held sway: the argument that persistent lower life outcomes among young Black men were the result of their failure to internalize middleclass, dominant culture White ideals of manliness, from having a regular job and “acting right” to saying “thank you” and “yes, sir” on cue.

But in the wake of Trayvon Martin, Henry Louis Gates, Thabo Sefolosha and many, many others, it’s become clear that  “doing” middleclass manhood does not and will not inoculate young Black men from the ingrained attitudes and harms of structural racism. What is needed now is to work on two fronts simultaneously.

First, a real national conversation about manhood ideals and the fiction that more respectable masculinities somehow protect young men from oppression. Like so many things involving race, that dialog is long overdue.

Second, although the promise of “respectability politics” stands revealed as empty, it is still worthwhile to interrogate the ways that buying into rigid codes of masculinity are tied to lower life outcomes among young men, including young men of color.

In mining both of these ideas, TrueChild and Frontline Solutions have developed a new report. Titled “Addressing Masculine Norms to Improve Life Outcomes for Young Black Men: Why We Still Can’t Wait,” the report was co-branded and distributed by the Association of Black Foundation Executives (ABFE) at its annual conference in Baltimore, Md., on April 9th, and the focus of a panel presentation.

The panel, “Policy Change and Systems Reform: Bringing a Gender Norms Analysis to Racial & Economic Justice Work,” drew a standing-room only crowd. Presenters included:

  • Carmen Anderson (The Heinz Endowments).
  • Allison Brown (Communities for Just Schools Fund).
  • Micah Gilmore (Frontline Solutions).
  • Jahmal Miller (California Department of Public Health).
  • Maisha E. Simmons (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation).
  • Riki Wilchins (TrueChild).

As Loren Harris noted in the Ford Foundation’s landmark 2007 report, “Why We Can’t Wait: A Case for Philanthropic Action,” “gender roles influence the way [young Black] men understand and engage educational opportunity, labor force participation, and relationships with women and other men … limiting conceptions of opportunity and success and exposing some to stigmatization, abuse and violence.”

That observation still rings true today. As does the argument by next-gen civil rights groups like #BlackLivesMatter and Dream Defenders for the right of young Black men to embody manhood on their own terms, whether or not it conforms to dominant culture, middle class ideals.

Despite this, funders and grantees are seldom challenged to do cutting edge work on gender like they are race and class. Yet all three continue to intersect in many pressing philanthropic concerns.

For instance, young men in low-income communities who buy into rigid codes of manhood are more likely to drop out of school early. If they are Black or Latino, they are also more likely to be expelled under school “push-out policies” designed to treat displays of urban masculinity as “oppositional behavior.” And as leading thinkers like Kimberlé Crenshaw note, similar dynamics of race, class AND gender are at work in the increasing over-policing and pushing out of young Black and Latina women for being too ” boisterous” or “unruly” – i.e., unfeminine.

This is one reason a core of leading foundations are beginning to embrace an “intersectional” approach that reconnects racial, economic AND gender justice to address structural oppressions. Isn’t time for more funders to do likewise?

Riki Wilchins is the executive director of True Child. Follow @truechild and @NCRP on Twitter.

Photo courtesy of Association of Black Foundation Executives.

This post first appeared on The Huffington Post on June 23, 2016.

After a gunman killed 49 people and injured dozens more in a horrific act of hate at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, many people are asking what they can do in response to this terrorism. For wealthy donors and foundations, there are two imperatives: Fund the ongoing struggle for the safety, health and full social inclusion of LGBTQ people, and bankroll a movement for sensible gun laws that can counter the outsized influence of the National Rifle Association and its funding base of gun manufacturers.

The attack in Orlando was an act of malice directed at lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. Throughout U.S. history, when a group of formerly marginalized people have begun to achieve fuller social inclusion, there has typically been a violent backlash against their progress: Lynching of African Americans increased dramatically in the South after emancipation. Attacks on abortion providers have increased apace with legal access to reproductive health. With the recent progress of the LGBTQ rights movement, we can expect violent acts against LGBTQ communities to continue and possibly escalate. This was not the only reported act of terrorism targeting LGBTQ people in the U.S. this month.

Now is not the time for donors to abandon this community. Only 0.28 percent of the $54 billion in grants given out annually by U.S. foundations goes to explicitly benefit LGBTQ communities, according to one recent study by Funders for LGBTQ Issues. Without the leadership of the Gill, Arcus, Ford, Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. and Open Society Foundations, those figures would be even worse.

Troublingly, after a victory at the Supreme Court in 2015, some donors have hung out a “mission accomplished” banner and have moved on to other causes. Nothing could be more dangerous.

Foundations and wealthy donors played a vital role in helping the LGBTQ rights movement get to where it is today, and they must double down on their support. Funding for marriage equality and anti-discrimination legislation is crucial, but the basic safety of some LGBTQ people across the country is still at risk. As cisgender gay and lesbian Americans have been increasingly embraced by the mainstream, the health and safety of trans people has unfortunately been made a political football. As white and wealthy LGBTQ people are given space to thrive, queer people of color and poor LGBTQ people feel the brunt of violence and inequity.

The intolerance that motivated this latest attack must be addressed, and we also cannot ignore the means that made it possible: Gunman Omar Mateen carried out the deadliest shooting in U.S. history using an assault rifle. That such weapons are still legally available in the U.S. is due to the enduring power of the National Rifle Association, which is significantly supported by gun manufacturers.

A few visionary foundations and wealthy donors have begun funding a mass movement to combat the NRA’s power. In 2014, Michael Bloomberg provided $50 million to bankroll Everytown for Gun Safety and other organizations that promote sensible gun control. Bloomberg has also backed candidates who support sensible gun laws and opposed candidates who do not. The Joyce Foundation, based in Chicago and on whose board of directors President Obama once served, has been another significant investor in this movement.

Yet funding for sensible gun laws is not nearly sufficient to counter the power of the NRA, whose annual budget is almost $300 million. By comparison, total foundation funding for gun control is approximately $8 million per year on average.

Imagine the potential of a well-funded, coordinated effort that leverages the existing momentum, leadership and political power of the LGBTQ movement with a push for sensible gun control. If donors step up now, they can capitalize on LGBTQ communities’ organizational might to accelerate change to our dangerous gun policies.

Empowering LGBTQ communities – keeping them safe and giving them a platform to demand respect and humanity – will be difficult even in the wake of marquee victories, but it can happen. Beating the NRA will not be easy, but it can be done if we invest in building people power among all those who have been impacted by gun violence. Which foundations and wealthy donors will step up to the plate to give these movements the resources they need to compete and win?

Aaron Dorfman is executive director of NCRP. Follow @NCRP on Twitter. 

Image by Fibonacci Blue, used under Creative Commons license.

Have you ever wondered how to best support transgender communities? Are you funding work for gay, lesbian and bisexual communities, but haven’t considered specific needs of trans* communities? Do you have questions you want to ask, but haven’t known where to turn? Then NCRP’s upcoming webinar How TRANSformational Is Your Work? on June 21 is designed for you.

With legislation providing a “license to discriminate” against the transgender community enacted in Mississippi and North Carolina and under consideration across the U.S., supporting the transgender community has become a critical issue. While there has been an increased acceptance of gay and lesbian people in the U.S., the transgender community is often overlooked. Transgender people’s lives intersect with every issue – on education, health, poverty, civil rights and beyond, transgender leaders have long fought for innovative solutions across the country. Yet few grant dollars support their efforts, to everyone’s detriment.

As Roz Lee of the Arcus Foundation noted in our most recent issue of Responsive Philanthropy, only 7 percent of all LGBT funding in 2014 was explicitly focused on improving the legal status and living experience of transgender people. Whether you are a funder who focuses on education, health or workforce development, there are opportunities to better support the transgender community.

In this interactive webinar, you’ll learn about more about transgender communities, their needs and how to better support diverse transgender leaders on the frontlines of change. This discussion will feature:

  • Rye Young, Executive Director of Third Wave Fund
  • Kris Hayashi, Executive Director of Transgender Law Center
  • Nakisha Lewis, Senior Strategist for Safety at Ms. Foundation for Women
  • Ryan Li Dahlstrom, consultant with Funders for LGBTQ Issues’ Trans Funding Working Group

Join NCRP and Funders for LGBTQ Issues on June 21 at 2 pm EDT for a conversation you don’t want to miss. RVSP here for this webinar!

Stephanie Peng is a philanthropy fellow at NCRP. Follow @NCRP on Twitter. Image by National Museum of American History, used under Creative Commons license.

Editor’s note: NCRP Senior Research and Policy Associate Ryan Schlegel and Field Associate Ben Barge recently visited the Alabama Black Belt as part of a listening tour hosted by Grantmakers for Southern Progress and the Black Belt Community Foundation. This is the second in a series of blog posts from activists, organizers and community leaders they met during their trip. NCRP strives to elevate the voices of grantees and potential grantees in conversations about philanthropy. This blog series will address topics relevant to the work underway for social, economic, racial and environmental justice in the Black Belt from the perspective of the people doing that work. Read Jackson’s first post here.

The Voting and Civil Rights Movement was never just about getting the right to vote. It was about people recognizing the humanity in all of us and our laws reflecting that recognition. However, we failed to finish the work of bridging divides and building the Beloved Community. This is the work of the Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth and Reconciliation.

I moved back to Selma from Nashville to lead this effort because I realized that all of the wonderful work that public defenders do, that I loved doing, didn’t mean much if we don’t have truth and reconciliation, if we don’t heal the cancer of racism and internalized oppression. In The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle Alexander explains that we have recreated a caste system through mass incarceration and that we have to change hearts not just laws. When Bryan Stevenson recently spoke at the Center, he said: “Slavery didn’t end. It just evolved.” In order for slavery and institutionalized racism to really end, we must each share our truths, and we must each listen. There can be no reconciliation and healing without truth.

However, while we are engaged in a longer, deeper healing process of truth and reconciliation, we recognize that people are suffering now. Therefore, we:

  • Help organize and mobilize institutions to show their power in numbers to address violence and other issues plaguing our city while training indigenous, neighborhood leaders in nonviolence and conflict resolution (including using the arts with young people) so they can lead the effort to change what most directly impacts their lives.
  • Advocate in and out of court for those who have less-than-zealous appointed attorneys and assist in counseling, job/financial stabilization and other services needed to achieve self-sufficiency.
  • File lawsuits to eradicate debtor’s prisons and police brutality.
  • Represent children who have been expelled from school while organizing the community to change the policies that require kicking them out for even nonviolent offenses.
  • Facilitate a collaboration started by the American Bar Association Commission on Homelessness & Poverty to address issues related to poverty like the lack of a homeless shelter in Selma and the need for community policing.
  • Are creating a farm-to-table cooperative where indigenous leaders, including those formerly incarcerated can be owners not just employees, a place where people cease to be “the other” while breaking bread together.

In the 1960s, many tried to persuade Bernard Lafayette from coming to Selma, declaring Selma hopeless because “Whites were too mean and Blacks were too scared” for anything to change. However, Lafayette came to work in Selma in 1962 determined to help make lasting changes.

Although many still consider the situation in Selma hopeless, Lafayette is still determined and a spirit of hope has emerged. He recognizes that there is still work to be done. Dr. Lafayette, who was instrumental in creating “Selma 1.0,” has returned to help create “Selma 2.0” as Master Trainer and Chair of the Board of Directors for the Center.

Selma has the social capital to make Selma 2.0 a reality, but we lack the financial resources to break the cycle of poverty and violence. We need funding for the people who are committed to creating Selma 2.0. New nonprofits are often reluctant to ask for flexible multi-year funding. However, foundations must recognize that the people who are a part of our organization have been doing this work for decades and since we’ve come together, change is indeed coming.

Now we realize that this long, tedious work may not be sexy to funders, but it is necessary to bring real and lasting changes to our community. These changes can then be modeled for other communities that frequently send people from around the world to Selma looking for answers.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The end of violence or the aftermath of violence is bitterness. The aftermath of nonviolence is reconciliation and the creation of a beloved community … the end is reconciliation, the end is redemption.”

The Center is committed to continuing the movement and finishing the unfinished business of bridging divides and building the Beloved Community. We invite you to join the movement! Invest in Selma as Selma has invested in the world!

Ainka Jackson, Esq., is executive director of The Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth & Reconciliation at the Healing Waters Retreat Center. Follow @SelmaCNTR and @NCRP on Twitter.

Image by toml1959, modified under Creative Commons license.

Editor’s note: NCRP Senior Research and Policy Associate Ryan Schlegel and Field Associate Ben Barge recently visited the Alabama Black Belt as part of a listening tour hosted by Grantmakers for Southern Progress and the Black Belt Community Foundation. This is the first in a series of blog posts from activists, organizers and community leaders they met during their trip. NCRP strives to elevate the voices of grantees and potential grantees in conversations about philanthropy. This blog series will address topics relevant to the work underway for social, economic, racial and environmental justice in the Black Belt from the perspective of the people doing that work.

Many in Alabama recently participated in the Reenactment of the Battle of Selma, where Confederate Lt. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest was defeated by Union troops on April 2, 1865. During the re-enactment, the Confederates are portrayed winning on the first day, and the next day is portrayed more historically accurate.

Before the battle, Dallas County, where Selma is located, was the fourth wealthiest county in the nation, largely because it had the highest number of enslaved people in Alabama and the fourth highest in the U.S. Dallas County was one of the South’s main manufacturing centers during the American Civil War.

Following the Battle of Selma, much of Selma was destroyed including many private businesses and residences, as well as the army arsenal and factories. Many lives were lost, more people were taken prisoner and even more saw their jobs disappear. Selma’s economy has never recovered and neither have the broken relationships that were intentionally created so the rich could stay rich and those in poverty, black and white, would believe that we are each other’s enemies; that all of this loss was for and because of black people.

In the 1960s, many battles were won and laws changed. However, we never got around to building the relationships needed to change hearts and minds. Because more white people were killed in the Selma area for supporting the movement than blacks, a clear messaged was sent about the consequences of supporting and associating with black people.

Thus, in 2016, when an African American woman attempted to pass out leaflets explaining a different perspective, a different “truth” than those who were re-enacting the Battle of Selma, wishes of death and injury were expressed about her on social media. “Maybe a stray confederate bullet will find its way.” “Someone needs to put crosshairs on it!!”

After the same mayor who was in power during Bloody Sunday, the day of unmitigated violence against marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965, was unseated in 2000 by black man, many leaders felt and expressed that the new mayor could not run the city. Some systematically attempted to make him fail by making Selma fail and even incorporated an adjacent town, Valley Grande, which takes needed tax dollars and resources from Selma.

When a group of black people protested for months in 1990 to ensure that their children weren’t tracked in inadequate and unequal classrooms and subjected to in-school segregation, almost all of the white children were pulled out of public schools for private or county schools. As one young white man said to me, “Now, no one is learning.”

It is seen in the united effort by some to keep industry from coming to Selma without losing the few businesses that are already here. Or their expressed effort to keep wages to no more than $8 per hour. Yet, because many black and white people view each other as enemies, we have not joined together for the benefit of all.

Therefore, in 2014, Dallas County was the poorest in the state and one of the poorest in the country. Selma remains engulfed with racial and class divisions that hinder the city’s progress. Selma, like most of the South, has never confronted years of racial violence and prejudice that keep the city from a healing path forward.

In 2015, Dallas County was named the most dangerous place to live in Alabama. This year on the day we commemorated Bloody Sunday there were two murders in Selma and have been five more since then.

It is not surprising that Dallas County was named the poorest and most dangerous county in Alabama in consecutive years. As violence increases, the economy suffers, and as the economy suffers, violence increases. We are in desperate need of help to stop this vicious, bloody cycle.

Although the poverty rate in Dallas County is nearly double the state rate, Dallas County receives less than 1 percent of grants in Alabama. However, I know from experience that we receive many more political leaders and foundations who come to Selma and learn our rich history and then leave us just as they found us: with great need and great opportunity. It is time for political leaders and foundations to do more than learn and leave. They must invest in Selma as Selma has invested in the world, enabling Selma to once again change the world.

The Battle of Selma may have ended but Selma is still battling. Selma is in need of truth and reconciliation. Selma is in need of you.

Ainka Jackson, Esq., is executive director of The Selma Center for Nonviolence, Truth & Reconciliation at the Healing Waters Retreat Center. Follow @SelmaCNTR and @NCRP on Twitter.

In an upcoming blog post, she’ll discuss the Center’s current work in Selma and how foundations can support it.

Image by damian entwistle, modified under Creative Commons license.

Early this month, progressive changemakers gathered together at the 2016 NCRP Impact Awards reception to celebrate the inspiring work of this year’s awardees: Consumer Health Foundation, Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, Patagonia and Sandler Foundation. The stories of these grantmakers encourage all of us to continue fighting for improving the lives of the underserved and underrepresented, and to be bold and fearless in this struggle.

The featured articles in this edition of Responsive Philanthropy highlight the continuing efforts of others in philanthropy who are taking up the challenge head on.

In “Join us on the leading edge of social change,” Roz Lee of Arcus Foundation, shares the story behind the Global Trans Initiative, a newly launched partnership with NoVo Foundation to promote acceptance and understanding of transgender people and improve their quality of life. She invites other foundations to look through a “prism” to see how a variety of issues such as health care, poverty and employment intersect with the challenges faced by transgender communities nationwide.

Ed Cain of Conrad N. Hilton Foundation writes about the importance of the Sustainable Development Goals and how these intersect with the work of numerous foundations across the country. In “Why U.S. foundations should take the global Sustainable Development Goals seriously,” Cain highlights how the SDGs apply to the U.S. and the chance to move the needle on the critical issues that grantmakers are tackling.

Next, NCRP’s Yna Moore had the opportunity to interview Geri Mannion of Carnegie Corporation of New York. In “How national foundations can support state-level policy and civic engagement,” Mannion shares her thoughts about the biggest challenge facing the country this election year and the role of capacity building in supporting civic engagement. She also offers practical tips for funding state-level efforts to change policy and engage communities.

And in “Learning what worked to support women and the community organizations that serve them,” The New York Women’s Foundation’s Erin McDonald and Elizabeth James share lessons from the RISE-NYC! initiative. They identify key “dimensions of impact” and offer three specific recommendations for other foundations that seek to effectively partner with underresourced grassroots organizations and the communities they serve.

Finally, we highlight the work of the National Housing Resource Center in “Member Spotlight.” This Philadelphia-based nonprofit mobilizes the housing counseling community to advocate on affordable housing and credit issues.

We hope that you find this and other editions of Responsive Philanthropy useful resources for your work. I encourage you to share this journal with your colleagues and invite them to do the same.

Aaron Dorfman is executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Follow @NCRP on Twitter.

NCRP’s work in the philanthropic sector urges grantmakers to prioritize those with the least wealth and power in society. Often that means persuading foundations to intentionally target their investments to benefit people of color, poor people, recent immigrants and refugees and other marginalized groups. NCRP’s nationwide focus recognizes that systemic deprivation and oppression are not evenly distributed: some regions and states have pockets of concentrated poverty and disenfranchisement.

JustSouth Index 2016, a recent report from Loyola University in New Orleans, illustrates this point well. The university’s Jesuit Social Research Institute found that on measures of poverty, racial disparity and immigrant exclusion, the five Gulf Coast states fare particularly poorly. The report is unsparing in its portrayal of a part of the South that continues to struggle with a long history of regressive economic policy, racial exclusion and entrenched poverty. The JustSouth Index utilizes a set of six indicator values, three each for the categories of poverty, racial disparity and immigrant exclusion. The indicators were chosen, the authors point out, because they are “clear, reliable and actionable.”

Indeed, the indicators point to some of the most deeply systemic issues facing Southerners in the 21st century: some of the lowest-in-the-nation household incomes, lack of health insurance coverage, segregated — and segregating — public schools, racial income inequity and the forced isolation and disconnection of recent immigrants. These problems are not unique to the South, but their most extreme expression can often be found there.

Although the authors call the index indicators actionable, the report contributes little to outlining context-specific action items for each. In other words, taking action on the gap in unemployment between white and non-white workers by “creating equal access to quality public education for minority children” makes sense in theory, but the report stops short of explaining the particularities of educational inequity in the South, nor does it point out the work already being done on this issue by Southern advocates. I think that the report could have benefited from an explanation of the challenges of educational access and equity in the South paired with a profile of grassroots efforts underway already would have readers with an opportunity to engage more deeply with that work. It could have provided “guidance regarding how citizens and leaders in the Gulf South can change this picture” of injustice, as the introduction stated.

I realize that the JustSouth Index 2016 sets out to be “a strong starting point” for addressing inequity in the South. And the report excels at framing the issues of poverty, racial injustice and immigrant exclusion as exactly what they are: policy choices. The lack of a living wage in the Gulf South states, the refusal to expand Medicaid, the resegregation of public schools, the lack of access to public services for immigrants; each of these is a policy choice made at the state and local level.

This is the “strong starting point” the philanthropic sector needs: The only way to achieve lasting change on issues of economic, racial and social justice will be with advocacy, organizing and, eventually, policy changes. Institutional racism is a gargantuan barrier to success for people across the country and the South. Foundations that care about equity and justice – especially in these Southern states – ought to invest in strategies to affect the machinery of policymaking that lets these conditions persist.

If the philanthropic sector hopes to have a role in moving the needle on important indicators of social justice, we need to find, highlight and invest in the South’s assets, not just point out its deep flaws.

And foundations also need to remember, as they approach their work in the South, that context – be it social, geographic, racial or cultural – matters, perhaps nowhere more than in the South. A history of systemic underinvestment from the philanthropic sector in the South can change – it must change. But it has to change on Southerners’ terms if it is to lead to lasting progress in the South that benefits all residents.

In 2017, NCRP, in partnership with Grantmakers for Southern Progress, will debut new research on this very question: How can foundations engage in the South so that more dollars will be invested in Southern communities that need them most, and so that the outcome of these investments will be equitable and sustainable? How can the philanthropic sector turn away from a history of fraught relationships with Southerners toward powerful relationships that benefits both funder and grantee? GSP and NCRP will build on the work of the Jesuit Social Research Institute and others who have examined entrenched inequity in the South to present the region in a new light.

The South is a place of opportunity for great change, a place with deep reserves of social capital and a history of world-changing social movements. If the philanthropic sector recognizes that reality, the South has great potential to address its unjust economic, social and racial systems and once again lead the country in a movement for justice.


Ryan Schlegel is senior research and policy associate at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). Follow @NCRP on Twitter.

Image by Mark Brennan, modified under Creative Commons license.

In the historic Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in June 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court found bans on marriage equality unconstitutional and that marriage is a fundamental right for all. To put this monumental victory for LGBTQ people in context, let’s rewind to 12 years ago.

The LGBTQ movement suffered a startling setback in the wake of securing equal marriage in Massachusetts. Among the 2004 wreckage, voters in 13 states banned same-sex marriage, bringing the number of states with such amendments to 17. A Pew research poll found that 61 percent of the U.S. population opposed same-sex marriage. This was a debilitating defeat for our community and it appeared only a small fraction of the population would ever have their same-sex relationships recognized under the law.

Around that same time, with the law and public opinion seemingly at odds with social justice, the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund became the first foundation to publicly support marriage equality as a major priority. They made a $2.5 million investment into Freedom to Marry’s national campaign for marriage equality. And in the few years since that initial gift, their insight about marriage equality has helped to deliver profound positive change and has provided equally profound lessons on effective grantmaking.

In the years leading up to the Supreme Court marriage ruling, nearly every large LGBTQ organization began working on marriage and hundreds of millions were spent in support of the issue ($44.1 million in California against Proposition 8 alone). In the same short period of time, public support turned in favor of marriage, and roughly 60 percent now support same-sex marriage.

The outpouring of resources and public support that energized the movement was not happenstance. Like many social movements, our LGBTQ movement owes much to the relatively few foundations that stood up for the fledgling initiative and made big bets on smart strategy. To that end, much credit is due to the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund. Their support came at a time when few would publically support marriage equality, let alone put money behind it.

Due to the investment by the Haas, Jr. Fund and others, our community was able to study why we were losing at the ballot box. Studies showed that to change the public opinion on marriage, we needed to change our messaging and communicate our shared values: love, family and commitment. These findings led the movement to portray itself in a new light and win dramatic gains in public support.

The Haas, Jr. Fund ultimately contributed $39 million to marriage equality and inspired other funders to contribute to the cause. Leading advocates credited the fund’s trailblazing support for the state-by-state and then national movement as pivotal in achieving our Supreme Court victory. Their investment paid off. And they aren’t finished.

Social change can move fast, but it can also take generations. Although marriage equality was achieved relatively quickly, history is replete with examples of religion being manipulated to provide a “moral” cover story for the most appalling actions. Recently our community has seen a swift and dramatic backlash from those who use “religious liberty” to take liberties with faith and cherished constitutional rights, all in the cause of legalizing discrimination. More than 100 of these anti-LGBTQ laws were introduced in state and local legislatures in 2015 alone. This tactic from the opponents of equality has done immense harm to the LGBTQ community, and it is time for the LGBTQ community to reclaim faith.

The Haas, Jr. Fund recognized early the fallacy and dangers of the “God vs. Gays” divide advocated by our opponents. In fact, “coming out” can be a profoundly spiritual journey. The Haas, Jr. Fund is one of the first foundations to focus on turning faith and religion into one of our community’s most valuable assets, investing in mobilizing LGBTQ and allied people of faith. Its support has been critical to the Task Force’s ability to build a vibrant, faith-based network for LGBTQ equality that will continue to shift public opinion and increase support for LGBTQ people of faith and against broad religious exemption legislation. With the Haas, Jr. Fund, our Faith Organizing program works to ensure that needs, expertise and resources of faith communities are respected and well-integrated into larger state-wide efforts.

Philanthropy is in a unique position in that their ability to make big bets can raise awareness and give legitimacy to otherwise invisible opportunities. Philanthropy is well-suited to work within the movement-building field, but it is an opportunity that many funders are not seizing. For example, Bridgespan Group reports that 80 percent of the country’s biggest givers articulate a powerful social change goal as a primary philanthropic objective. However, only a modest proportion of their biggest philanthropic gifts are focused on these types of social change initiatives. Between 2000 and 2012, only 20 percent of their giving was social change giving. The other 80 percent of large gifts largely went to institutional giving, primarily to schools, hospitals and cultural institutions.

We readily admit that making big bets on social change is a hard process that is often painful. They require a great deal of patience, trust and profound vision. For that, the Task Force is thankful for partners like the Haas, Jr. Fund. Our partnership is largely based on trust, and trust has been shown to almost always be the most important currency of any big bet. It has required the Haas, Jr. Fund to know us thoroughly and deeply; a relationship built over years. This kind of ongoing relational support is necessary because it may take years, if not decades, to see a gift’s full effects.

Sustained trust and longevity can give nonprofits and movements flexibility to experiment, fail, reflect, build on success and seize “movement moments” when the time is right. Such understanding is how philanthropy can serve movement building in a way that utilizes its resources to address systemic issues most effectively, respectfully and responsibly.

It is a rare gift to find funders who are unequivocally committed to challenging the pervasive negative attitudes toward society’s most marginalized groups. The Haas, Jr. Fund is one of those treasures that prove that philanthropy can play a key role in transforming social movements – and thus the world.

We wholeheartedly congratulate the Haas, Jr. Fund for its 2016 Impact Award and for achieving what so many initially thought was impossible.

Follow @TheTaskForce on Twitter.

Image by Elvert Barnes, used under Creative Commons license.

This post first appeared on PhilanTopic on December 3, 2015.

When I came to Surdna Foundation in 2007, I spent several months just talking with people about the foundation and what they knew of it. Thanks in large measure to the extraordinary family and executive leadership up to that point, Surdna had a stellar reputation for creative, impactful grantmaking. But as I dug deeper, I realized that Surdna staff and board didn’t have the language to explain why we funded the things we were funding. We couldn’t articulate why some things felt right, while others simply didn’t make the grade. I helped us get started on a process to carefully examine what we’d been doing for the previous twenty years — and to think together about what it was that was the glue that held that work together. Most of us could feel it and even identify which grants were bull’s eyes, and which weren’t.

Several concepts emerged from that examination, concepts that formed the basis of our new mission statement: family, community, sustainability, and social justice. These core concepts felt both broadly consistent with the values that had been set forth by our founder, John E. Andrus, nearly one hundred years ago, and relevant to the work we wanted to do going forward.

Our story suggests that sometimes it only takes the simple step of naming what it is that you care about to begin the journey toward more effective, responsive philanthropy. Since adopting our new mission statement, social justice has become the key to understanding who we are as a family foundation and what work we want to do to help communities thrive across the United States. We’re proud to have this process featured in a new report from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy: Families Funding Change: How Social Justice Giving Honors Our Roots and Empowers Communities.

We share with NCRP the view that empowering communities to solve the problems of poverty, injustice, and inequity should become more prominent in the work of foundations, especially family foundations. We have long supported the work of NCRP and the principles they stand for. We have done so even as we have been on our own journey as a funder working towards those principles. We have always believed that learning is a key part of who we are and, really, core to what makes good philanthropy. I encourage you to read the Families Funding Change report and consider how Surdna’s experience with social justice philanthropy, and the experiences of other featured funders, can inform your own work.

By choosing to frame our mission as one “grounded in principles of social justice,” the board made explicit their understanding that equity and social justice must be a frame of reference for all of our work. Indeed, this framework reflects the values of the family today. Of course, a mission statement is merely words on a page unless it is put at the center of the work. And with our board’s leadership, we have kept that mission in mind as we have built grantmaking programs and revamped the foundation strategies and staff. It has been a remarkable thing to see how our explicit naming of social justice has shaped the foundation from the bottom to the top.

Social justice helped us clarify our work — both our strategies and who benefits from those strategies. But social justice is so much more than a term; it is at the center of how we foster sustainable communities. Each social justice funder must define the term in a way that is consistent with their philanthropic intentions. Family funders especially have to find that expression of social justice most comfortable for them. At Surdna, when we speak about our work, we start by acknowledging that inequity exists in many forms, including country of origin, class, race, immigration status, sexual orientation and ability, among other group identities. And our grant strategies explicitly focus on restoring a fundamental sense of fairness; confronting structural barriers and systemic inequities; and changing power relations. This approach not only gets results; it’s in keeping with the Andrus family values that motivate all Surdna does.

As we built new programs and strategies that were consistent with the new mission, something remarkable began to happen. Not only did this process force us to reflect on what changes we needed to make in our work, but it also illustrated the urgency of bringing on staff members and new philanthropic partners and grantees that were committed to this work. It encouraged us to bring our now clearly stated principles into conversations about art, economic opportunity, and environmental work. This clarity about our social justice orientation also reshaped our board, attracting remarkable new members both from the Andrus family and beyond who brought with them fresh new perspectives.

I am optimistic that if more family funders take a step back to closely examine the role they want their philanthropic assets to play in the long-term accomplishment of their goals — whatever they may be — they will see the enormous potential for impact with more grants for nonprofit advocacy, community organizing, and civic engagement.

Surdna Foundation has a social justice grantmaking story to tell, and not because we have it all figured out or because we have done something unprecedented. Our journey over the past several decades has not been heroic or extraordinary, but there are experiences we’ve had and lessons we’ve learned that might be helpful to other family foundations considering a shift toward social justice grantmaking.

To some, dedicating ourselves to fundamentally combating systemic injustice may sound too bold or even misaligned with some family foundations’ missions. But if progress toward the type of broad social change many family donors envision is ever to be achieved, almost by necessity social justice must be an animating value in their giving.

Phillip Henderson is president of the Surdna Foundation.