Insights from “Responding to the Moment: Participatory Approaches in Philanthropy”
By Katy Love, Program Manager, Fund for Shared Insight
Participatory approaches in philanthropy are on the rise!
Inspired by the disability rights slogan “Nothing about us without us,” these frameworks center the leadership, wisdom, and voices of communities that funders seek to serve. They shift power from traditional power centers, like foundation boards and donors, to the people and communities directly affected by the funder’s work. Practitioners say that participatory philanthropy creates a strategic advantage – decisions more rooted in lived experience and embraced by community are more likely to be effective and sustainable. Many practitioners also believe that philanthropy has a moral imperative to involve people in decisions that impact them.
On June 20, I joined my colleague Jonathan Brack from Fund for Shared Insight, a national funder collaborative that promotes funder listening to shift power, to facilitate Responding to the Moment: Participatory Approaches in Philanthropy, an interactive session hosted by Philanthropy New York. Our goal was to introduce key concepts in participatory philanthropy and share our experience with our own participatory grantmaking initiative.
We were joined by Philanthropy New York members Eileen Farbman, Co-Founder of the Kolibri Foundation, and Sabrina Hargrave, Vice President for Programs at Brooklyn Org.
Brooklyn Org has been using a participatory grantmaking model for almost a decade, inviting local residents, many of whom may not be familiar with nonprofits or philanthropy, to help make grant recommendations. Kolibri, a family foundation, uses a different approach to involving communities, focusing on participation at the governing board level. Their board has included non-family movement leaders from the beginning, which helped shape Kolibri’s mission, governance, decision-making processes, and even bylaws, which include rules that ensure family members can be voted off the board. According to Farbman, this board-level approach has led to a more inclusive and dynamic grantmaking process, introducing the foundation to new communities and organizations they would not have known otherwise. The experience, Farbman says, has been transformative, leading to a deeper understanding of power dynamics and a more nuanced approach to philanthropy.
Based on these and other insights about participatory philanthropy raised during the Philanthropy New York session, here are some advice-to-funders takeaways from our discussion.
Get started with some clear parameters
Hargrave says it's important to understand just how much power a funder will shift and where community input should be integrated into the process. Funders first need to decide which steps in the grantmaking process are suitable for community involvement.
Farbman advises taking it slow and being open to making mistakes along the way. She says Kolibri was built from the ground up with movement leadership to ensure that movement voices are integral in decision making.
Think carefully about who should participate
To Hargrave, it’s vital to recruit people with diverse professional and lived experiences, to ensure a well-rounded approach to participatory grantmaking. While foundations may believe they have a good grasp on community needs, especially when they have folks on staff with lived experience, the truth is that the lived experiences of community members often provide a more honest and grounded view of what is desired by that community. Community voices can challenge the often idealistic or detached views of nonprofits and philanthropy, providing reality checks and a real level of honesty that can lead to more effective and relevant grantmaking.
At Brooklyn Org, community input has led to funding for groups that may not fit the foundation’s traditional criteria, but have been identified by community participants as essential to a community’s own goals.
Pay participants
Kolibri compensates a range of participants, from board members to job candidates, for their time and effort.
“We pay each of our board members an annual stipend, and then an extra amount to donate to whatever organizations they want. And if we want to talk to groups that we know we’re curious about but don’t end up funding, we give them some money. As another example, when we were hiring directors, we gave each candidate $1,000 just for their time,” Farbman says.
Brooklyn Org compensates their community participants, too, offering payment for their contributions, such as reviewing applications or attending meetings, and their time, including for travel.
Be prepared for challenges
There are real challenges to implementing participatory practices, including burnout, increased workloads, and navigating internal power dynamics with external stakeholders. Maintaining the integrity of community-driven grantmaking while balancing these pressures can be difficult. There are also logistical challenges, such as managing communications across diverse groups and among people with varying levels of comfort and skill using technology.
Farbman says challenges around power dynamics are the stickiest, even when all parties have the best intentions. As funders undertake efforts to build trust and create an inclusive environment across generations, classes, and races, they must actively and regularly tackle and aim to mitigate power imbalances.
Despite these and other challenges, participatory philanthropy holds enormous promise for building more authentic relationships, supporting solutions that are more responsive to community desires and preferences, and enabling a greater degree of community ownership. My colleague Jonathan and I appreciated the rich conversation with Eileen and Sabrina and program participants. You can watch the program recording here.
Fund for Shared Insight has also captured lessons and tools from our participatory initiative in our Participatory Philanthropy Toolkit.