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GO
In many important areas of
philanthropic work, social justice
philanthropy is all about effectiveness.
As a grantmaker, you’re simply
hallucinating if you believe you can
make a dent in generational poverty,
for example, without attending to
matters of race and class. The real
Pollyanna, in my view, triages the victims
that come floating downstream
never wondering where they might be
coming from.
To those who say that social
justice philanthropy aims to fundamentally
restructure society, I say,
Yes, that’s exactly right and it’s long
overdue. But there’s nothing radical
about this proposition. There are
many people of good will — rich and
poor, black and white — who share
this view.
PND: As a social justice advocate,
do you believe poverty, racism,
homophobia, and other forms of discrimination
can be eliminated?
AR: No, not completely. But I do
believe they can be eliminated far
enough to become the experience
of a few unlucky souls rather than
the destiny of whole communities of
people.
PND: Is it safe to assume that social
justice philanthropy will become a
hallmark of the Greater New Orleans
Foundation’s work? And if so, what
will that work look like?
AR: That’s my fervent hope, and that
of my board which added the promotion
of “equitable outcomes” to our
foundation’s mission statement well
before I signed up for the job.
Good social justice work, in my
view, begins with a framework for
thinking about social justice. My
framework is very simple: social
justice is about fairness and equality
of opportunity. After you’ve decided
on your goals — and there’s a lot involved
in these choices — the secret
sauce, if there is one, is the analysis
on which you base your theory of
change. A social justice analysis will
examine all the forces — current and
historical — that mitigate or abet the
problems you aim to address. These
forces include the effects of racism,
gender oppression, and other factors.
In the U.S. context, this analysis
includes looking at the ways laws,
policies, and institutions contribute to
racialized outcomes: better outcomes
for middle-income white children, say,
than for poor black children. Then
comes a bit of magic: translating this
analysis into a set of strategies and
tactics based on a sound theory of
change. The process is iterative, so
you need to evaluate as you go along
and, if you fail, modify your assumptions
and try again.
PND: Because GNOF is a community
foundation, many of the grants
it awards are donor directed. On the
discretionary side of things, does the
foundation have a theory of change
and systems in place to assess, on an
ongoing basis, the impact of its work?
AR: We have theories of change for
specific areas of our work. We’ve
published not just our goals, objectives,
and guidelines on our web site,
we’ve also published the rationales
for them, and we’ve invited the public
to criticize our thinking by adding their
comments just as blog readers add
comments to blog posts. You can
see that in action in the Community
Revitalization and Environment areas
of the site. We might be the first community
foundation to have done that
— I’m not sure. I’d love to hear from
others who have tried it.
But our overall theory of change
will be very much grounded in the
kind of social justice framework I just
described.
PND: What do you do in
situations where a grant
failed to make an impact?
AR: You learn something from it and
share it with others. And in most cases,
you roll up your sleeves and help
the organization in question do better.
I think it’s important for grantmakers
to think not in terms of individual
grants, but in terms of organizations
and cohorts of organizations working
toward clearly specified goals. An
individual organization might be the
key to meeting your goals. In a case
like this, you’d be a fool to abandon it
because of a failed grant.
PND: Acknowledging failure is something
many foundations seem to have
a difficult time with. Has that been
your experience, and do you think it’s
changing?
AR: I think it is changing, thanks
to trailblazers like the James Irvine
Foundation and others. Many foundations
are publishing evaluations of
specific programs, and many of those
evaluations show clearly that not all
the goals of the program were met,
or that they were only partially met, if
at all. That’s the trend.
At the same time, I think foundations
should be more forgiving of
themselves. That is, when you make
an investment in social change and
you don’t meet your specific objectives
but other good things happen,
you shouldn’t necessarily consider
that a failure. I saw that when I was
at New Ventures in Philanthropy. In
some cases, our work did not grow
the philanthropic pie very much but it
did bring in new kinds of philanthropists
that had never been involved
in philanthropy, philanthropists from
communities of color, for example.
That’s a victory. Maybe we didn’t
focus on it or intend to do it from the
beginning, but I’d hardly call it failure.
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