Social Justice and a Relevant Philanthropic Sector (Part 2)

Miles Wilson is a philanthropic professional with nearly 30 years of experience supporting the U.S. social sector as well as past efforts in Northern Ireland, the Netherlands, and South Africa. Miles’ work has covered a broad spectrum of core social sector activities, and he currently serves as the Deputy Director of Education Grantmaking at Ascendium Education Group. Miles was most recently a Senior Fellow with the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions. This feature,

Social Justice and a Relevant Philanthropic Sector, is the second in a six-part series of blog posts about his experiences in philanthropy. A version of this blog series is running on the Center for Effective Philanthropy website. Access the entire six-part series here. The inequitable power structure and underlying systems in philanthropy are, in fact, part of the same systems in our larger society that were designed at our nation’s founding to enshrine power, control, and prosperity in white America. These underlying systems have undone many hard fought efforts to create a more just and equitable society. Despite decisions such as Brown v. Board of Education, and passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, America’s schools and neighborhoods remain largely segregated. It’s also why in 2013, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s dismantling of core elements of the Voting Rights Act, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg described an evolution of “first generation barriers to ballot access” to “second generation barriers to ballot access.” It is not lost on me that as I write this paper, deeply troubling, and frankly, dangerous issues of either implied or overt racism are regularly leading news headlines in America since the election of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States. Various analysts suggest the President’s comments appear to be providing encouragement to white supremacists to bring their racist views out in the open. In fact, most Americans believe race relations in America are worse under the current administration. America is far from dealing with its issues on race, and that an underlying system driving old social norms around race appear to be alive and well. These underlying systems are both persistent and overlapping supports to a particular social norm, and philanthropy is not immune. My colleague Gwen Walden, San Francisco Managing Director of Arabella Philanthropic Advisors recently wrote that: We should also accept that philanthropic efforts have frequently, in practice or effect, perpetuated and extended inequitable power structures that they should have sought to undo.