Giving Compass' Take:

· This article from Justice Funders focuses on breaking bad philanthropic habits in order to embrace your mission and achieve equity in the field.

· How can organizations create intentional practices that reflect their core values? How will this help achieve equity in philanthropy? 

· Check out this article about forming and breaking habits to see how they shape who we are and what we do


In the field of philanthropy, we often seek systems change, without asking: “What beliefs and thoughts lead us to the actions we take?” And, “what are the collective practices that reflect our values?” In their publication, The Source Codes of Foundation Culture, our colleagues at Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) note that “the assumptions, values and practices of foundations often reflect the cultural “source code” derived from banks, universities, and for-profits.” Resulting from these source codes, we believe that unconscious mindsets and corresponding habits from the for-profit sector and academia limit the impact philanthropy can have, especially when addressing issues of equity.

Last year, the Bay Area Justice Funders Network (BAJFN) launched a new leadership development program for grantmakers called The Harmony Initiative. This ten-month action-learning program is based upon the supposition that funders have acquired grantmaking habits that are reinforcing inequities. By replacing those habits with intentional practices based on social justice values, philanthropy can better achieve systemic and sustainable change.

So what are some of the specific habits that get in our way? And what are the intentional practices that could advance equity?

1) Habit: Believing “we can solve the problem alone!” One philanthropic organization generally can’t solve a chosen problem on its own. Yet many foundations have a habit of developing individualistic strategies that may not align with where there are expressed needs from the community.

2) Habit: Believing that “solutions need to go to scale.” A related habit is looking for a “silver bullet” solution that can be scaled, or a single approach that can be accelerated to reach more people. Yet the scale of any one organization or solution will never be sufficient to address the failures of multiple systems in any community. Too often, philanthropic leaders come to the false conclusion that Organization X or Strategy Y was not scalable, instead of realizing that a different mindset is needed.

3) Habit: Believing that “we need to maximize financial profits”. In for-profit companies, the imperative is to maximize profits in the short-term while providing the most opportunity for growth in the long-term. Translated into a philanthropic context, that means creating as much impact with the 5% required payout, while also creating the highest financial returns with the 95% of a foundation’s endowment investments.

Read the full article about breaking bad philanthropic habits at Justice Funders.