Despite increases in grantmaking for racial equity and racial justice, funding remains inadequate to the scale of longstanding racial disparities and does not address the needs of the movement, a report from the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE) finds.

Based on data from Candid, which worked with PRE over the past year to expand Candid's definition of funding for racial equity, the report, Mismatched: Philanthropy's Response to the Call for Racial Justice (92 pages, PDF), found that between 2011 and 2018, funding for racial equity — which is focused on the prevention of harm and the redistribution of benefits within existing systems — grew from $2.12 billion to $5.15 billion, while funding for racial justice — a subset of racial equity funding that is focused on building power and explicitly seeking to generate enough power among disenfranchised people to change the fundamental rules of society — grew from $331 million to $926 million. Yet in 2018, only 6 percent of philanthropic dollars supported racial equity work, while only 1 percent supported racial justice work.

According to the report, there also remains a mismatch between the kind of support the movement for racial justice is calling for and what funders are supporting. Between 2015 and 2018, the largest share of racial equity dollars went to education and more than half of racial justice funding supported human rights, while only 1.3 percent of racial equity funding and 9.1 percent of racial justice funding supported grassroots organizing. Moreover, preliminary 2020 data indicate that much of the large increase in overall funding for racial equity last year did not reach grassroots groups and movement organizations led by and for communities of color.

"Given the importance of grassroots organizing for changing power relations and winning enduring change," the report's authors write, "these numbers indicate a lack of clarity among philanthropists about the role of organizing."

The study identifies other "mismatches" in and mischaracterizations of the philanthropic response to calls for racial justice, including the perception that grantmaking for racial equity and racial justice surged overnight; in fact, after growing steadily from 2011 to 2018, confirmed racial equity grants awarded account for only 3.3 percent of total foundation and corporate giving for 2020. The report also notes that "equity," "justice," and other movement language have been widely co-opted and used to advance projects that support their own organizational diversity and inclusion efforts but do not support building power with or in communities of color. Similarly, wealthy white donors often impose their own priorities instead of supporting the priorities of movements, believing that they have better solutions than those embraced by activists.

To address those mismatches, the report outlines five recommendations: devote more resources to racial equity and racial justice, sustain funding for racial equity and racial justice, engage communities of color and movements in strategy and funding decisions, fund transformational change beyond an equity framework, and improve data about racial equity and racial justice grantmaking.

"There are real negative consequences for activism when philanthropy doesn't get the data on racial equity and justice right, or when it propagates the myth that surges in racial justice funding in particular are larger or more temperamental than the reality," said PRE senior fellow Malkia Devich Cyril, a, veteran activist and a co-author of the report. "When philanthropy gets it wrong, it not only results in diminished funding for those on the front lines of racial justice, it also dangerously diminishes the perceived scale and impact of movements like the movement for Black lives in public debate, and fuels the kind of conservative backlash we are witnessing today. Bottom line is, philanthropy needs to put in the work to get the data on racial equity and racial justice right."

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