There's a New, Extensive Guide to Sharing Power in Philanthropy. Will Funders Take Its Advice?

Readers with a cursory knowledge of the legal system — there must be at least a handful of you out there — might be familiar with the term “ignorantia juris non excusat,” which means that people can’t defend their actions by claiming they don’t know the law. I couldn’t help but think of this maxim when reading “Limitless Possibilities: A Guide to Power Shifting Approaches in Philanthropy,” an illuminating new report from the Center for Culturally Responsive Engagement at the Michigan Public Health Institute.

Ever since the transformative events of 2020 (and for many years before that, really), nonprofits leaders, academics and funding leaders have been calling on philanthropy to shift power to grantees and communities. Several reports on the topic have followed. Michael Hamill Remaley provided an extensive overview of the field in IP’s white paper on social justice and shifting power, for example. And the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) showed how MacKenzie’s Scott multi-year, unrestricted giving — which experts consider to be the lowest-risk power shifting activity — has had a transformative effect on nonprofits.

“Limitless Possibilities,” which includes strategic considerations, case studies and actionable recommendations pertaining to 24 power-shifting approaches, is the latest addition to this growing body of research, and it’s a big entry, clocking in at 93 pages. That’s why, as I read it, it occurred to me that funders can really no longer plead ignorance when balking at sharing power. The guidance is there if they’re looking for it.

At the same time, the report’s exhaustive and unvarnished rendering of what it takes to shift power underscores why some funders may still be reluctant to take the leap, especially when we consider how relatively few of them have embraced even the most basic version, multi-year general operating support (the report calls it MYGOS), which does not require substantial operational shifts. “Limitless Possibilities” affirms that meaningful power sharing requires a deep and unwavering commitment from funders, and if a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic and racial reckoning didn’t compel them to ramp up even unrestricted support, can we expect them to embrace some of the report’s more ambitious approaches?

“Core conditions”

In 2022, the Packard Foundation, which had been employing power-shifting practices in its racial justice work following the murder of George Floyd, asked the MPHI to take a closer look at the state of the field. A year later, the Barr Foundation and Wellspring Philanthropic Fund provided funding, enabling MPHI to begin work on what became “Limitless Possibilities.”

The report’s 10 contributors based their findings on a scan of the literature and 25 interviews of peer donors/foundations, grant partners, intermediaries proximate to local communities, and field experts. The finished product says that shifting power “means that funders change structures and processes within their organization to avoid limiting the power of grant partners and communities,” looks at how these activities can advance racial equity, explores a litany of power shifting approaches and lays out a series of recommendations.

In the report’s first dose of real talk, the authors lay out several “core conditions” that must be in place “to facilitate shifting power when significant structural or process changes are necessary.” For example, funders need to redefine “what success means by allowing grant partners and communities to define success rather than the funder being the sole determiner of outcomes and impact metrics within specified (often unrealistic) timeframes.”

Asking leaders to concede that their finely calibrated evaluation process exacerbates the power imbalance will be a bold proposition for some funders. But the authors make their point abundantly clear — if funders are unwilling to consider redefining success in this way, any effort to shift power is doomed to fail because, well, the funder isn’t shifting power. Viewed through this lens, the report’s core conditions act as sort of a funnel that winnows down a larger pool of readers who may be willing to make more potentially disruptive decisions.

A continuum of risk

It goes without saying that grantmaking leaders, on the whole, are a risk-averse bunch. Even the most ardent power-sharing adherent must contend with a host of internal obstacles, including organizational inertia, intransigence from board members, program officers looking to protect their turf, the need to adhere to donor intent, and the fact that it costs time and money to uproot and redesign internal processes with an eye towards greater community involvement.

In light of this challenging context, another important finding from “Limitless Possibilities” is that by laying out the the operational changes required to implement power-shifting approaches — see page four in the report for the list — leaders can determine which ones won’t rock the boat too much. Or, as its authors more diplomatically put it, “at the beginning of the journey to embed power-shifting approaches into their work, funders may want to implement power-shifting approaches that require minimal structural changes.”

For the authors, that means embracing MYGOS and ramping up funding “for underresourced organizations most approximate to local communities.” These approaches, the authors note, involve “few grantmaking policy/practice shifts and less staff effort relative to other power shifting approaches.”

But a majority of the report’s approaches require more pronounced shifts. For instance, approaches involving evaluation include “participatory evaluation” and “rural participatory appraisal.” These tactics, which echo the core condition requiring funders to define success collaboratively, require the funder to abdicate more power compared to just providing MYGOS. Another approach calls on funders to use the foundation’s financial capital to share power, while participatory grantmaking asks leaders to outsource one of their most important roles — deciding who gets the money — to outside parties.

Here, some foundation staff may start to get a little squeamish, but the authors don’t suggest funders turn over every grantmaking dollar to community members right out of the gate. Instead, they note that the level of participation in participatory grantmaking can be “limited to minor involvement in grantmaking decisions at the ‘inform’ or ‘consult’ end of the spectrum, to significant decision-making power, ‘including co-deciding with the grant partner.’”

Of course, some participatory grantmaking advocates may criticize taking half measures, but the sliding scale of options is an important element of this report. This theme — that power-shifting isn’t a zero-sum game — runs throughout the document and enables leaders to calibrate their approach in accordance with their appetite for risk.

Recommendations

The authors’ first recommendation listed toward the end of the report — to provide and expand MYGOS — also acknowledges that funders don’t need to take a huge bite of the apple. Instead, they ask leaders to develop a “public-facing commitment statement” on MYGOS and “set a pilot threshold,” noting that foundations with $25 million or more in assets should consider having at least 30% of grantmaking dollars earmarked as MYGOS.

The second recommendation stipulates that leaders who want to advance beyond MYGOS must understand the “core conditions” necessary to embed the more boat-rocking approaches in the report. These include allowing grant partners to define success, developing policies and practices “that enable a range of resources to support power-shifting,” and “having a culture open to experiencing failures, which involves redefining risk.”

Both sets of recommendations left me feeling uncertain about foundations’ ability or willingness to significantly shift power moving forward.

The set pertaining to MYGOS seems reasonable until you consider where most funders are starting from. A report from the Center for Disaster Recovery and Candid found that the percentage of funding earmarked as unrestricted by independent foundations and public charities in 2021 was 11% and 23%, respectively. That latter group should easily be able to hit the 30% goal laid out by the authors of “Limitless Possibilities,” were it not for the fact that some funders are even walking back 2020-era reforms, and one leader I spoke with alluded to a horrible phenomenon called “racial equity fatigue.” The sense of urgency is far less acute now, and aside from trendiness and the diligence of committed advocates and philanthropic staff, it seems like we’re currently lacking such powerful forces that might convince a large number of funders to revisit their ambivalence to something so obviously impactful as long-term general operating support.

The second set consists of more ambitious and resource-intensive power-shifting approaches that might not resonate with overworked and risk-averse leaders. In some ways, their reticence is understandable, since they recognize that rolling out an inclusive evaluation or participatory grantmaking process can be an arduous, disruptive and costly undertaking.

This leads me to wonder if “ignorantia juris non excusat” isn’t the likeliest explanation for why grantmakers haven’t embraced power-sharing practices. After three years of absorbing grantee feedback, reading breathless analysis on MacKenzie’s Scott’s no-strings-attached giving, and seeing research reports cycle through their inboxes, leaders know all too well what real power shifting entails. Maybe that’s the real sticking point.

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