People-centered philanthropy

The Case Foundation's Make It Your Own program has announced the winners of its Final Four awards of $25,000 each. They are:

Citizen Participation - New Orleans, Louisiana
Crossing Borders - St. Paul, Minnesota
Juveniles 4 Justice -  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Leaders of the New School - Chicago, Illinois

The Final Four were determined by a vote open to anyone who cared to check out the Make it Your Own website and select from among a list of Top 20 finalists. Traditionally, that's not how philanthropy works.  But in a new essay on the Make It Your Own website, Cynthia Gibson writes about how citizen-driven grant-making like this "reflects a slow, but simmering, movement away from expert rule to citizen-driven efforts that are bringing wide swaths of communities together to decide what's important and what to do about it."

Gibson, the author of a report issued last year, "Citizens  at the Center: A New Approach to Civic Engagement,"  goes on to explain how the Case Foundation brought everyday people into the process at every step, from getting input on the program guidelines from diverse groups of residents in several cities to recruiting people from outside the philanthropic community to narrow nearly 5,000 applications down to 100. Next, leaders from the civic engagement community were asked to help winnow the field to 20 before the Final Four website vote.

Pointing to similar efforts by Grassroots Grantmakers, the Knight Foundation, and even American Express, Gibson notes how these programs "are laying groundwork for what many hope is a full-scale trend across philanthropy -- one in which foundations move from being the arbiters of what gets done to serving as facilitators of a process in which they partner with other community institutions and residents in designating priorities and crafting actions."

Gibson concludes:

No one is arguing that philanthropic institutions don't have the right to decide what to do with their money. Nor are they suggesting that there is no role for experts and intermediaries in making decisions, especially in processes that threaten to dovetail into popularity contests or politically motivated shortcuts.

What's needed is more of a balance between the professionals and the public, as well as more discussion about how to achieve that goal. Let's hope that philanthropy makes it a goal worth pursuing - now and in the future.

Read Gibson's entire essay here.  And for more discussion of how everyday people are taking leadership roles in local government, philanthropic action, and more, don't miss next Thursday's water cooler here at DemSpace, which will feature Matt Leighninger talking about his book, The Next Form of Democracy: How Expert Rule Is Giving Way to Shared Governance - and Why Politics Will Never Be the Same. The event is set for 1 p.m. Eastern on May 15 right here at DemocracySpace.

Comments

[Janis Foster]

Thanks for pointing to this important follow-up essay to Gibson's "Citizens at the Center" white paper.

As Executive Director of Grassroots Grantmakers, I applaud The Case Foundation's work to demonstrate what can happen when philanthropy is more open and accessible. I also applaud The Case Foundation's interest in asking funders to rethink conventional funder behavior and its relationship to impact.

Because our network connects and supports place-based funders who are working hard to "lead by stepping back" - creating the civic space and support needed for ordinary people to connect with their neighbors and use their collective voice and passion to make a difference right on their block - we think a lot about questions such as "who decides" and "who sets the rules" when it comes to funding.

What I hear from our network members - especially where residents are the designers and the decision-makers of grassroots grantmaking programs - is that decisions are wiser and accountability mechanisms work better when people who will be most directly impacted by the funded activity are at the decision-making table. And, I hear that participating in decision-making process helps those involved discover and strengthen their own leadership abilities.

Thank you for calling attention to this article and this discussion. I invite you to visit our website (http://grassrootsgrantmakers.org) to learn more about the practice of grassroots grantmaking.

I invite you also to visit my blog, Big Thinking on Small Grants (http://janisfoster.blogspot.com) to join in the discussion about the opportunities and challenges associated with working from a "we begin with residents" funding stance.