Giving Compass' Take:

• Ford Foundation discusses how to support social justice organizations and finds that investing in the long-term, with fewer restrictions on funding, is the best way to go.

• Are grantmakers too cautious when it comes to social justice? In what ways can we help foster more innovation in the field when it comes to racial and gender equity, LGBTQ+ rights, civil society and more?

• Here's how trust works in social justice funding.

Social justice organizations in the US and around the world are playing a very long game. Success in reducing political, economic, and social inequality is often measured not in minutes or days, but in years or decades. Progress isn’t linear—instead, it’s often interrupted by setbacks and defeats. And leaders, institutions, and networks fighting inequality typically face well-funded, well-organized opposition.

Unfortunately, the way that the nonprofit sector is currently financed doesn’t make the fight against inequality any easier.

Too often, nonprofits find themselves dependent on short-term, highly restricted grants, which keep them tied to rigid timeframes and deliverables. This can stifle investments in areas that are critical to impact, such as strategic vision, leadership, and management systems. It can keep nonprofits on a treadmill of short-term thinking, where they become reluctant to innovate, take risks, learn, and scale their efforts.

At the Ford Foundation, we believe that funders can do more to help social justice organizations become durable, resilient, effectively networked with each other, and better able to enact real change over time. And a growing number of funders share that belief.

Read the full article about changing funder practices by Kathy Reich at Ford Foundation.