TO RACIAL JUSTICE ADVOCATES

We need to speak the truth on the impact of grantmaking system and practices.  We can no longer protect our own resources by being silent when we know a funder’s unjust practices have devastating effects on organizations or in the communities where we work.  

Poor grantmaking practices, of any sort, can have a deep long-term impact on people of color-led organizations. This impact then multiplies in Communities of Color, most impacted by structural racism and white supremacy. 

We can no longer let fear of consequences deter us from speaking our truth about the impact of unjust practices by foundations. 

TO THE FUNDERS

We cannot address life and death issues and racial injustices while also being told how we should do our work, or prove our work is effective based on the foundation’s standards, or meet deliverables decided on by you and not by the community, or consistently witness the disparate funding between white led organizations and BIPOC-led organizations.

These critiques are not unknown by your sector, yet because the power differential leads to our silence, the many, many stories of racially inequitable funding and practices are not told publicly, which ends up lessening the urgency. So, the disturbing impact of the racially inequitable system of resource distribution continues to be maintained.