Philanthropy Needs a New Normal: Here Are 3 Ways We’re Reimagining Our Grantmaking

As the director of programs at the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, I see the work that our grantee partners put in each day. They are advocating for people directly impacted by gun violence and/or the criminal legal system and offering material reprieve in a field that is constantly evolving. In spite of apathy, jadedness and overwhelm, they continue to show up and prove that another world is possible through consistency. The least we can do as funders is stop pretending that community organizing exists in a vacuum and meet our grantee partners where they are.

Over the last few years, we have become acutely aware of the ways standard philanthropic cycles often don’t account for the range of timely issues that our grantee partners are responding to: global pandemics, mass shootings, grassroots organizing, ebbs and flows in media attention, new legislative priorities, and so much more. When the majority of an organization’s budget is already allocated to existing programming and overhead expenses, little room is left for responding to emerging needs with speed and urgency. Yet, this is frequently the work that moves the needle and makes an impact.

We believe that philanthropy’s job is to ensure that those doing the real work get the resources they need as quickly as possible. To follow through on that, we had to look inward as a team and evaluate the role we wanted to play in this larger ecosystem of funders, advocates, providers and researchers. Even when we didn’t have all of the answers, one thing we knew for certain was that rigidity goes against the spirit of philanthropy because that’s not how impactful work takes place on the ground.

We needed a structure that was proactive and flexible enough to meet directly impacted communities’ needs. There are three opportunities we identified and built upon over the years:

1. Inflation-adjusted grants for multiyear giving

Inflation is at the top of everyone’s mind right now. Whether expressing outrage at gas prices or walking through grocery stores and seeing yet another shortage, we’re all affected, and nonprofit organizations are not immune. Community leaders — who have already been working with stretched resources and limited capacity since 2020 — feel the effects of inflation when booking team travel, shipping materials, and hosting programming.

In recognition of the burden inflation has placed on nonprofits, the Langeloth Foundation board approved a one-time, inflation-adjusted payment in fiscal year 2022 for current grants receiving installments. Specifically, a 4.5% increase was calculated on installments paid in June 2022, and 9% for installments paid in November 2022.

2. Rapid-response and trust-based funding

Part of our mission at Langeloth is to foster and support healthy communities, which has naturally lent itself toward a focus on preventing and ending gun violence. We recognize gun violence to be an urgent and ever-present threat, especially for communities of color. In June 2022, following the Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York mass shootings, we knew that while the rest of the country was reeling, our grantee partners were working on the ground.

Partnership should be responsive to emerging needs, and we knew we needed to do more to support the rapid-response mobilizing. As such, our board approved $100,000 in Rapid Response Fund grants for each of our seven core gun violence prevention grantee partners, for a total of $700,000. The Community Justice Reform Coalition used grant funding to plan vigils and memorials for people to access healthy forms of grieving. Cities United, an organization using a public health approach to reduce gun violence, regranted some of their funding to a Buffalo-based organization providing healing circles for men of color throughout the community. Advance Peace doubled down on existing support for families directly impacted by local gun violence with family counseling, groceries, transitional clothing and medical supplies.

3. Small opportunity grants dispatched at staff’s discretion (no board approval required)

Boards of directors are critical systems of checks and balances for philanthropic funders. We are incredibly indebted to our board for guiding our work through their expertise. At the same time, we’ve come to understand that our staff have the most intimate knowledge of grantee partner needs. Further, staff are aware of the innovative approaches that can and should be funded outside of typical funding cycles. Small opportunity grants are grants up to $25,000 which can be approved by the president of the foundation without board approval. These small opportunity grants are most often leveraged toward timely or discrete needs, as well as convenings and community-building.

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture leveraged their grant toward a project called Humans Out of Solitary, consisting of 30 video interviews of solitary confinement survivors. This storytelling series, among a few other digital projects, will be used as an educational and awareness-building tool.

Teams at the University of San Francisco and the University of California, Irvine, have more support from this opportunity grant to design a process and outcome evaluation of Stafford Creek Correctional Facility’s newly established Center of Excellence. HAVI, the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention, hired a photographer of color to capture images of front-line workers doing what they do best. The series of photos was intended to enrich community understanding of workers’ contributions and sacrifices.

At Langeloth, we have a mantra, “follow the field,” which is to say, our primary job is to be responsive to the needs of those working on the ground and acting in a timely manner. We’ve trusted our grantee partners to do this work before, and in times of emergency, our focus is on leaning into that rapport. These are three examples of how we’ve put that into practice. Additional grants and funding adjustments were deployed quickly and without typical reporting requirements that can be cumbersome to produce in rapid-response moments. This proactive approach may not be the norm yet, but we hope other funders will consider taking similar steps in order to give community leaders the tools and access they need when they need it.

In a country where mass incarceration continues to rage and at a time when people are being killed by guns every day, there are dedicated people working tirelessly to build new systems of public safety. The grantee partners that we work with are jumping through enough hoops. As deep believers in their missions and visions, we are choosing to roll up our sleeves and ask “how can we help?” by making our giving truly accessible.

Andrea Fionda is director of programs at the Langeloth Foundation.

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