Dr. Marilynn Patterson Grant Program Director, Pre-K to 12, William & Sheila Konar Foundation
Kudos are extended to our organizational leaders for a thought-provoking conference. I also appreciate the opportunity to give a few remarks in response to the presentation given by Marcus Walton on Monday.
Several questions were posed directly to Marcus. I perhaps had fewer questions for him. Instead, his presentation evoked a desire to engage in a little self and organizational inventory. In discussions with a range of leaders and organizations, there has been almost universal agreement that while our current context of COVID, Social, and political unrest has been a most significant personal, life, and work altering challenge, it has also been a context that invites the wisest among our ranks to acquire new understandings, new perspectives, and opportunities to act and function differently. If nothing else, COVID and the analogous fallout and societal challenges have shown us that business as usual, and our natural predilection to smugly wrap ourselves in the familiar comfort of business as usual, will no longer suffice. If, as Marcus has been quoted in saying, “Leadership is all about how you respond to moments,” how might we enhance our work as funders or as leaders? As funders, we have rightfully been consumed by our traditional efforts to respond to our grantees’ needs and the various segments of our communities that have come to rely on such organizations with more significant needs. In some cases, we watch with great angst how our current societal context threatens the continued existence of some not for profits.
My friends, as a result of listening to Marcus on Monday, I believe he eloquently put out a clarion call to us as funders to join him and like-minded entities to become “more intentional in our respective organization’s racial equity and social justice work, and in so doing, more aggressively empower those we seek to serve. Indeed, he laid the foundation for us to critically weigh how we might be more effective with high impact philanthropy.
So, what types of questions did Marcus’ presentation evoke on my part? What questions might we pose as funders internally in our desire to do more around racial and social equity? What potential lessons might we learn by examining our current practices? Please allow me to share the questions that came to mind for a funding organization’s self-inventory? The questions are as follows:
- How does the traditional transactional nature of how we work as funders work to impede genuine efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in our respective communities?
- What assumptions do we make, and what policies do we continue to breathe life into that do little to engender the trust from the communities we seek to serve?
- To what degree or in what tangible ways do we endeavor to authentically center “humanity,” the people and communities within our grantmaking processes or protocols?
- In what ways do our current grantmaking protocols reflect, as Marcus has described, “the multi-faceted set of dynamics” impacting our communities, particularly those on the lowest levels of the socio-economic spectrum?
- How does our inherent anxiety as human beings to engage in crucial conversations impede our individual and collective efforts as funders to address matters of racial equity or social justice?
- How mindful are we as funders that our actions or inactions advantage some segments of our communities while inherently disadvantaging other segments of our society? Do we critique our privilege, or do we accept it as part of the status quo?
- Marcus challenged us in his own words, “to adopt a generational commitment to advancing the cause of equity.” My friends, is that the lens through which we currently define our work and commitment to impact our community’s issues that have an extraordinarily long and insidious shelf life?
- Does the current makeup of our respective Boards, staff, and networks adequately equip us to understand the context, the communities, and issues we confront as philanthropic organizations?
- What everyday rituals and routines do we design to provide the “direct engagement with the real recipients of our investment?” Is this even an object of our attention and efforts, individually or collectively, as a funder? Or is the status quo too familiar and again comfortable for us to dare to venture down such a path? As we make vital grantmaking decisions, is there any impetus on our part to pose questions such as: “Who is in the room? Whose perspective is being heard? Whose voice is overtly or covertly being silenced through omission or commission?
- Marcus articulated the wisdom in encouraging mutual dialogue among peers, CEO to CEO, Board Member to Board Member. Does our organizational ego invite or encourage such a discussion? Do we invest significant time building upon our individual learning to benefit the collective good? Or do our silos provide too great a comfort level for us to venture in such a direction?
Perhaps one of the most compelling aspects of Marcus’ remarks for me was his delineation between statistics and stories. If you recall, he highlighted what he called, “Our pervasive mindset as funders, and that is, “Only what you can measure matters.” He further articulated the idea that “Stats, increase awareness, but stories stick, and provide a lens to what he called, “Promising approaches to advocating for the work.” Do stats have such primacy in our respective organizations that we lose sight of the real flesh and blood behind each data point?
My Friends, these are a few of the questions that potentially invite us to a table of accountability, vulnerability, and the possible suspension of some of our ingrained certainty as philanthropic organizations/leaders. When confronted, these questions might better enable us to optimally support social change and racial equity through a more deliberate, substantive, and impactful manner.
Recently, the Boston Consulting Group, a global consulting organization, published an article entitled, “Transforming Beyond the Crisis with Head, Heart, and Hands.” They indicated three factors contributed to an organization transforming itself amid a challenging context and beyond. The first element for such a transformation lies with using our heads, envisioning the future, and infusing our stated priorities with human beings at the center. The second element is the use of our hearts to inspire and empower others, to build on whatever strengths are acquired in a crisis. And the third element is the use of our hands to execute and innovate with agility, to shape a new reality by being adaptable.
So, my friends, questions have been posed. It is now our decision if we will tenaciously seek the answers through an individual and organizational self-inventory. In the words of a beloved author who is enjoying posthumous popularity again, James Baldwin, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” Thank you!