By reimagining their role as 'funder organizers', those who work in philanthropy can build the power that’s needed for lasting transformation, write Leanne Sajor and Neda Said.
“Philanthropy is where organizers go to retire.”
For those of us who transition into the world of charitable giving from roles in organizing and advocacy, it’s common to hear this sentiment shared — half-jokingly. While it may not hold true for all, it highlights the critical reality that social justice groups lack sufficient resources to sustain leaders and the mass movements we need. To address this issue, some frontline activists are stepping into a new strategic role: funder organizing.
One aim of this growing trend in philanthropy is to foster a new understanding of what it means to be not just an ally to movement leaders, but a force for change that reduces harm, fosters repair, and contributes to strategies that shift power. In reimagining our role in this way, we situate ourselves in the broader work of systemic transformation, examine the stories we’ve been told about grantmaking as generosity, and see that collective action is a necessary part of power building.
At Funders for a Just Economy, a national funder organizing hub at Neighborhood Funders Group that believes in building worker power and advancing economic justice, we operate with a systemic analysis of philanthropy that builds on the scholarship of Ruth Wilson Gilmore.
Applying the lens of racial capitalism, Gilmore observes that the money philanthropy controls is “stolen social wages.” First, it is accumulated through the exploitation of land and labor, particularly of Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color. Second, it is shielded from taxation through vehicles like foundations and donor-advised funds. Finally, it is reinvested in the market, typically in extractive industries, to perpetuate the cycle of capital accumulation and control by a wealthy few.
Within this framework, funder organizing isn’t simply about resource redistribution; it is about reckoning with the contradictions of being employed in a sector that should not exist in the first place, while also doing the work to return capital to the people from whom it was taken, historically and in the present day.
It’s about: behaving in true solidarity; easing the burden of movement organizations in being able to access the resources they need; leveraging the opportunity and obligation that comes with working in philanthropy to disrupt the sector’s harmful norms; mobilizing like-minded colleagues; and affecting operational changes that improve the material conditions of our movements and communities.
Amid a hot summer for labor organizing, Nina Luo published a call-to-action for progressive philanthropy to “get serious about the role of money in our movement.” She wrote:
“To cultivate funders, we should bring them into live campaigns where they can experience what it’s like to struggle together. There is nothing as politically clarifying as a campaign where people can learn and practice organizing skills, build deep relationships of trust, see directly how money sustains or kills work, and develop the political discipline that comes from making complex decisions with real consequences.”
Luo shared a powerful demonstration of how a group of organized high-net-wealth individuals (Resource Generation) aligned with grassroots organizers to facilitate a campaign victory for Good Cause Eviction protections in New York. This case is an inspiration for what is possible to achieve when progressive philanthropy steps out from the sidelines and gets in the game. It urges us to overcome the well-known and frequently lamented barriers of thematic silos, transactional relationships, competitiveness, and insistence on attribution that have long prevented the sector from working together to advance shared aims.
Organizing our workplaces creates an enabling environment for us to exercise our collective power when it’s needed to better serve our grantee partners.
As any labor leader knows, where there is a common set of workplace complaints, there is an opportunity for worker organizing — and though it may not be their first inclination to say so, funders are workers.
While many in philanthropy fund organizations that advocate for worker’s rights, rarely does it occur to them that an answer to their own struggles might be found in worker power building within their own institutions.
Most workers in philanthropy don’t share the same class realities as the majority of unionized workers in the United States, and they are even farther removed from the countless workers who are more vulnerable due to not having access to the protections of a union. If anything, philanthropic workplaces tend to be relatively comfortable ones, with salaried positions, living wages, comprehensive benefits, and perks that range from daily meals to support with student loan repayment to the status that one is unduly afforded by working in close proximity to capital.
Still, this should not preclude us from embracing our role as workers and practicing class solidarity. We are workers within the machinery of the donor class, but make no mistake, we are not of that class.
Although it’s just a few, there are examples of organizations that have unionized in the philanthropic sector; for example, our organization, Neighborhood Funders Group, as well as Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, Groundswell Fund, and Open Society Foundations. Unionizing is one way that workers in philanthropy can sharpen our organizing skills and build the trustful relationships we need to organize and move together toward a common goal.
On an institutional level, supporting staff unionization is one way that philanthropic institutions can live their values and build the capacities that are needed for broad-scale collaboration with other funders: deep listening, role clarification, moving through disagreements, negotiation, and power sharing.
While organizing philanthropic workplaces is not revolutionary work, it is one way to leverage our influence in a sector with few formal systems of accountability, and to demonstrate our commitment to worker organizing and power building in a way that supports funder organizing more broadly.
Building workplaces that have stronger worker protection policies and cultures of fairness also support marginalized employees in speaking and acting boldly in response to harmful practices and areas for improvement. It is common for workers in philanthropy to be pushed out for asking questions, raising concerns, or making complaints. Organizing our workplaces creates an enabling environment for us to exercise our collective power when it’s needed to better serve our grantee partners.
Transformational change will not come simply from reforming philanthropy, but our proximity to power, wealth, and other resources should be used to benefit movements — and our efforts would be more successful if we get more prepared, attuned, and actively engaged as organizers.
The philanthropic sector is rife with valid frustration, and while building individual relationships with our colleagues might provide temporary relief, it is not enough. By reimagining our role as funder organizers through the lens of worker power building, we can create pathways to repair philanthropy’s relationship to movements and build the power that’s needed for lasting transformation.
___________________________________
Leanne Sajor (she/her) is the director of the Funders for a Just Economy program at Neighborhood Funders Group.
Neda Said (they/she) is senior program manager at Neighborhood Funders Group, working across the Funders for a Just Economy, Democratizing Development, and general member political education programs.
The Myths of Philanthropy series is being published in collaboration with the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Elemental, and VITA.
Get involved
Elemental is a funder learning and grant-making initiative that cultivates conditions to resource narrative power. Find out more about this collaboration opportunity on the Funders Collaborative Hub.
The Funders Collaborative Hub publishes a range of perspectives. The views expressed here are those of the authors, not necessarily those of ACF.
