Philanthropic Equity: A New Way Forward For Nonprofits

Philanthropic Equity: A New Way Forward For Nonprofits

By Lindsay Jordan

Ok. I’m not going to bury the lead. I lovingly chastise my team all the time to bring the juiciest details to the top of our grant applications and fundraising materials and so I am not going to make you read through a long-winded soliloquy to get to the good part.

I made it up. The phrase “philanthropic equity,” that is. That’s where it came from.

I coined the term one afternoon as I was furiously drafting a now useless 65-page business synopsis for Write On in the lobby of my local YMCA. I had just 15 or so minutes left until the maximum two-hour free childcare window would close. Oh! That blessed 120-minutes of peace. I suppose I could have used it to take a class or run on the treadmill or lift weights. I did not.

For three solid months from 10 a.m. to noon, I cashed in my husband’s teacher-discounted membership to research, analyze, and work myself into a real tizzy on the state of philanthropy and the real-world consequences that antiquated “best practices” were having on mission work everywhere.

I would then go home, make sandwiches, read naptime stories, put my boys (then ages one and four) to bed, and simmer on all the injustice in the nonprofit sector. This was my sabbatical. Perhaps not the most healthy or relaxing way to spend one’s downtime. But I wasn’t exactly “down.” I was more like a dormant volcano. 

I had promised myself at the start of my sabbatical that I wasn’t going to try to solve anyone’s problems. I was going to be “still,” and I repeated this lie to myself, my family, and anyone else who would listen. My plan was to simply try to ask the right questions, dig deep into research to find as many answers as I could, and then decide how I could carve out a little helpful space in the world. A lovely sentiment. 

The problem, however, was that I was white-knuckle, flushed-face, heart-beating-in-your-eardrums angry almost every day, and I had been for a long time.

The most recent catastrophe had been when I blew the whistle on discriminatory hiring practices only to see the board’s impotence and cowardice on full display. In a truly spectacular showing of what NOT to do when grappling with long-standing accusations of racism and self-dealing, the board quickly dug a hole and jammed its entire collective head in it. Cheers.

But that was hardly the beginning of the cultural fallout I experienced during my 10 years in fundraising. No, I watched another board of directors meticulously destroy the reputation of their own CEO before showing her the door (as a consultant, I’ve now seen this happen a half-dozen more times). I’ve stood by as a number of my colleagues at other nonprofits have been filleted and then fired for missing fundraising goals that they had no voice in setting (nor chance of raising). 

I’ve been talked over, talked down to, kissed, groped, and lied to by donors and superiors more times than I would like to recall. I once had a superior direct me to falsify a grant report so that we wouldn’t lose the funding. I declined and was faulted in my performance review for “not making enough effort to get along with others.” The same superior mocked me for returning to work after the birth of my first son instead of staying home like “a woman should.”

I’ve watched talented fundraising professionals smack up against the proverbial ceiling, take a leap into CEO and ED roles, burn out, and suffer shame and humiliation for being pushed into a job they never really wanted in the first place. 

I’ve seen truly incredible people – those who think and care deeply about some of the most heartbreaking social problems facing society today – shrink under the weight of the nonprofit industrial complex, question their own value and worth, and, ultimately, leave the causes they care for to protect their own physical and mental health (and, sometimes, their families’).

The constant lack of proper resources and support; the requirement to speak softly and sweetly to folks who really seem to care nothing for you personally; the total abdication of responsibility by some board members; and the realization that there is precious little momentum to change any of this – no wonder most fundraisers leave their jobs after 18 months.

I had made it way past 18 months and I wasn’t ready to leave, but I wasn’t ready to engage in business as usual either. This is why, sitting in a hard, plastic bar top chair facing a swimming pool full of splashing, happy summer campers, I formulated the foundation of my company and a tool that I hoped might bring about change.

Philanthropic equity: a quiet dismantling of the barriers and norms that prohibit effective fundraising; the creation of new access points to funding for nonprofits no matter their size or mission; and the realignment of donors, volunteers, and nonprofit professionals toward respectful, equitable relationships.

The way I saw it, the frustrations that I and other nonprofit professionals were experiencing were not actually the problem – they were just symptoms. Terrible, degrading, soul-sucking symptoms, to be sure, but issues that would fall away once the root cause was addressed. 

My mistake was thinking that one tool would do the trick. The systematic degradation of nonprofit workers, the intentional devaluing of their work and the humanity of the people they serve, the way in which the system is designed to create power imbalances, these are the issues of a lifetime. And they will take a lifetime to fix. Maybe many lifetimes. 

Hands down, the reason that Write On has grown from a plucky team of one to a sophisticated shop of more than 30 professional fundraisers is because of our commitment to something greater than simply raising money. (We do that too, and we’re damned good at it) But it will take so much more than our collective commitment to grind the gears of the philanthropy machine to halt and reverse the damage done.

This is the reason for our Mission+ statement, which I am so proud to share with you here:

• Write On Fundraising brings equity and compassion to philanthropy by facilitating access and amplifying voices to increase capacity and impact, influence communities, and invest in people and organizations.

• We accomplish this by serving as a bridge between traditional fundraising practices and new upstream methodologies.

• Simply put, Write On Fundraising provides fundraising solutions for high-impact nonprofits through grant writing, individual giving, and capital campaign services.

Philanthropy is broken. It has been for a long time. But it will take more than just our team, our resources, or our innovations to fix it. We are proud to support organizations like Community-Centric Fundraising, the Building Movement Project, and the Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training, and to have launched our own programs aimed at democratizing philanthropy like Rally Point and Pathways to Philanthropy. We’d love to partner with you too. If you’re doing work in this space, we’d love to learn more and find potential ways to partner. Email our director of mission impact, Jonathan Weber-Mendez, to set up some time to chat. 

Of one thing I am certain: this machine was built by bolts and gears and intention, and it can be dismantled and re-engineered with the very same. Philanthropic equity is just one tool in our toolbox. More is required. I hope you will join us and create a better world for us all.