Programs

Ecosystem Grantmaking: A Systemic Approach to Supporting Movement Building

In order to fulfill our mission to support the development of powerful social change movements that will eliminate structural racism and create a racially just society, at Akonadi Foundation we focus our funding on what we call “ecosystem” grantmaking. We hope that through this document, Ecosystem Grantmaking: A Systemic Approach to Supporting Movement Building, we can explain how and why we fund the way we do, and also open up a space for dialogue—perhaps especially among funders—about how we can best support the movement building work of racial justice organizations. We believe that the approach to funding we call “ecosystem” grantmaking provides the most effective, comprehensive, and values-driven way to support the work of successful movements for racial justice and social change. Through the stories of several of our grantees, we illustrate what we mean by ecosystem grantmaking and highlight the vital work of people of color-led organizations that are leading the way in implementing smart, innovative, and effective challenges to structural racism

We are hopeful that this description of our ecosystem grantmaking framework will provide a launching point for further discussion and collaboration, especially with other funders. We welcome feedback, as we know we have much to learn from others, and we hope that such dialogue will lead to increased resources and collaboration. We believe that this commitment to relationship building and collaboration will support the creation of ever-more-powerful social change movements and, ultimately, we hope, a racially just society.

Read the full report here.

Race and Place (RAP) Fund: Building Racially Just Communities  

Race and Place (RAP) Fund: Building Racially Just Communities

The Race and Place Fund supports groups organizing a broad base of people of color to exercise their collective power to create and advocate for public policy solutions to common social and economic problems, to promote healthy institutional customs and practices and to build vibrant and thriving centers of culture. We view this process of empowerment and action as critical components of a transformative movement working to weave racial justice into the social and political fabric of Oakland. In order to help this movement thrive we will carry out our local grantmaking through a multi-pronged strategy which includes (1) funding grassroots community-based organizations/base building organizations; (2) local think/act tanks and research and advocacy organizations; (3) cultural centers; and (4) local capacity building intermediary organizations. These grassroots organizations are making changes from the ground up and are gaining traction and exposure beyond Oakland by being connected to regional, statewide and national alliances to dismantle structural racism.

BAM Building A Movement (BAM) Fund: Racial Justice Movement Building  

The Building A Movement (BAM) Fund supports a range of social justice work, encourages a diversity of ideas, people of color-led leadership, and intersectional approaches that together make up the building blocks of a vibrant racial justice movement. These groups are advancing racial justice in connection with multiple issue sectors and, through a “bottom up” strategy, shifting policy at the local, state, and national level. In order to successfully build a national racial justice movement, the BAM Fund focuses on a multi-pronged approached that includes (1) funding national “grassroots” alliances; (2) funding through collaborative funds; and (3) providing targeted support for research, communications, and intermediary organizations.

[See Our Building A Movement Grantees]

Racial Justice Philanthropy

Akonadi understands that its resources alone cannot achieve the vision it seeks and that it must bring in more partners, more resources and more commitment to the effort of creating a racially just world.

Racial Justice Communications

Akonadi will help tell the story of today’s exciting and inspiring racial justice work, thus increasing understanding and funding to the field.

Executive Summary

In March 2010 we published From The Roots, a progress report on the first ten years of activity at Akonadi Foundation.

You can download the full report (.pdf file) here.

From the Roots:

Building the Power of Communities of

Color to Challenge Structural Racism

Executive Summary

We believe philanthropy has a unique role in addressing structural racism.  Philanthropy has the ability and agility to articulate a framework focused on ending the inequities found in our society and to work in partnership with organizations operating at every level to address both the effects and the underlying causes of ongoing racism.  Working through strategic partnerships, philanthropy can endeavor to create structural reforms that positively impact communities of color and all communities.
--Quinn Delaney, President
Akonadi Foundation
January 2010
From the Foreword of From The Roots

In 2000, Akonadi Foundation was founded with the belief that racism lies at the core of social inequity in the United States and with the aim of supporting organizations focused on dismantling institutional and systemic racism.  We deeply believe that without a conscious and sustained focus on structural racism, the impact of social justice will always be limited and short-lived.

It is now ten years later and through this progress report we would like to share some of what we have learned along the way.  Through this document, we hope to:

•    Share how Akonadi Foundation is thinking about and acting to address structural racism;
•    Highlight the leadership of grassroots communities of color in shaping local and national thought and action on racism; and
•    Contribute to other grantmakers’ evolving understanding of structural racism.

>Evolution of Our Mission
After our first five years of grantmaking in the racial justice arena, we engaged in a new strategic planning process.  And in 2007 we emerged with a refined mission:

The Akonadi Foundation Mission:
To support the development of powerful social change movements
to eliminate structural racism and create a racially just society.

Within this new mission lie the Foundation’s core values:
Leadership of Communities of Color
Those most impacted by structural racism need to be in the leadership of efforts to eliminate it.
Intersectionality
Efforts to end structural racism must work inclusively with other social justice efforts.
Leadership from the Field
Foundations must support and be led by the ideas, innovations, and needs of organizations directly involved in the work of racial justice.

The Critical Nature of Movement Building
This new mission also specifically identified movement building as a critical strategy. Our continued belief is that the elimination of structural racism requires the presence of powerful and broad social justice movements. 

We define social movements as a collective action that challenges not only those in power but society at large to redress systemic inequities and injustice while promoting an alternative vision or solution.  This collective action can take many forms and can take many years, but social movements are the only process powerful enough to address a large-scale power imbalance and transform society in a fundamental way.

In philanthropic terms, this means identifying and supporting not only people and organizations that explicitly think, act and talk about racial justice, but also explicitly supporting the collaboration and coordination between those organizations.

>Structural Racism Today
This evolution of our mission came from our examination of what structural racism looks like today.  We examined cumulative impacts of racially motivated policies, such as previous U.S. exclusionary federal housing laws that have directly translated into wealth and power inequities of today.  Only a generation ago housing covenants and redlining were legal and prevented families of color from buying homes—and those policies have had continual and lasting effect.

We looked at how multiple public policies can combine to create compounded impacts and racialized outcomes—such as policies that tie home values to public school funding and how this can translate into inequitable distribution along racial lines of public education resources.  Such compounded institutional decisions do not have to intentionally discriminate by race to have a sharply negative impact along racial lines.

We also examined how mass media can reflect a racialized dominant culture through a constant stream of images and words that reinforce assumptions and stereotypes based on race.  The widely publicized photo captions during Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath describing Black people as “looters” and White people as “finding supplies” when they were engaged in the same activity was one of the most recent examples of these persistent negative stereotypes.




>New Funding Criteria and Programs
Through this strategic planning process, we developed new threshold funding criteria.  Two key criteria for grantees now include:

•    A basic level of structural racism analysis; and
•    Racial justice movement building practice. 

Of course, we at Akonadi fully appreciate that there is a wide range of capacity we would define as racial justice movement building, and organizations (including our own) fall at many points along that spectrum.

Three Spheres of Work
Along with our new funding criteria, our strategic planning process helped us define three spheres of work that we deemed crucial to our mission: Building Power, Changing Policy, and Nurturing Culture.  Understanding the importance of these three spheres, we then analyzed our grantmaking to see what each organization would identify as its primary sphere, even though many are engaged in more than one. Ultimately, this process greatly helped us refine our grantmaking process.

New Programs
After 2008 we launched three pilot programs through which we could generate grants for crucial work while continuing to fine tune our strategy and program in new areas.  These programs are:

The Strategic Opportunity Support Fund (SOS Fund)
This program provides small one-time grants for strategic opportunities in movement building.  A key element to these grants is our ability for a rapid turn around process.

The RAP (Race and Place) Capacity Building
This was a pilot program that provided grants and collective discussion opportunities to a group of Oakland grantees to enhance their ability to think, act, and talk in ways that build social change movements’ capacity to eliminate structural racism.  Through this process we have gained better understanding of the capacity building needs of key Oakland organizations, for example the need for popular education tools that “build up” to a structural analysis rather than rely on “top down” presentations of theory and statistics.

The Oscar Grant Fund
This fund specifically supported urgent local organizing and coalition building efforts after the killing of an unarmed young man by BART police on January 1, 2009, calling greater attention to the racial justice issues associated with the incident.


>Stories from the Field
In the full report From the Roots, you can read about compelling and inspirational grantees that have engaged in outstanding efforts to create a more racially just society.  These organizations and individuals have tackled some of the most daunting challenges facing the racial justice movement today and turned them into opportunities for change. 

In the report, you can read about:
The Color of the Mortgage Crisis
While the subprime mortgage crisis has been widely understood as an economic issue, people of color-led organizations in cities across the country have been building a shared analysis and vision of this issue for years.  This groundwork has put these organizations in a position to respond to this crisis from a local perspective with national implications.  And it is all accomplished with the issues of structural racism at the forefront.

Changing the Narrative of Violence
State violence against people of color is often framed and understood at best as isolated incidents—and at worst as evidence of criminality in communities of color.  But there is growing communications skill and strategy among organizations focused on racial justice.  By increasing their capacity to tell effective stories about structural racism, these stories can be captured and retold as part of a new narrative that shapes ideas and policies.  And through this effort, communities of color are being mobilized for change.

Calling for Racial Justice in a “Post Racial” Nation
At the national level, talking about racism is often considered taboo and even politically dangerous. With conservatives proclaiming our society “post racial” and free of discrimination, organizations may be tempted to shy away from direct discussions of race.  But as grassroots organizations come together across issues and set their sights on federal policy, their demands are often explicit about the need to challenge the structures of racism. As a result, new solutions are being tested out in national policy debates.

Bridging the Immigrant and Racial Justice Communities
Structural racism has played a role in dividing African American and immigrant communities in the U.S., fostering competition and a focus on short-term gains. Narrow definitions of civil rights fail to encompass issues of race and immigration. But interest and action is growing around how to surface the interconnections between racial justice and immigration. Organizations across the country are expanding discussions of structural racism to encompass these dynamics and creating new entry points for fresh policy reform efforts.

Tackling the Public Education Giant
Challenging the structures of racism in public education is an enormous undertaking that spans from individual schools to the multi-institutional “school to prison” pipeline. California offers one example of how incremental – but paradigm-shifting – steps can lead toward larger change.  A major victory a decade ago continues to serve as the foundation for efforts by local groups to increase quality and equity in public education.

Forging a National Agenda on Racial Justice
While the need for a comprehensive national racial justice agenda may be urgent, not enough thought and much less energy has been dedicated to the effort. During the 2008 presidential election, when national attention was focused on the racial identity of Barack Obama, the policy priorities of communities of color received far less coverage.  However one groundbreaking effort to forge a national agenda on racial justice did emerge in 2008.  And it garnered support from organizations and individuals from around the country.


>Closing Thoughts and Key Lessons
Reflecting on these stories and others from the field of racial justice, Akonadi Foundation sees some opportunities for the field to strengthen and grow.

Integrating Structural Racism Analysis
Good work is taking place that provides a structural racism analysis for understanding urgent issues like the economic crisis and immigration. More resources need to go to policy efforts that bring a structural racism analysis into issues of broad national concern (not just those deemed civil rights or minority issues).

Focusing on Outcomes
Calling attention to the existence and power of race-based outcomes (regardless of intent) is crucial to progress on structural racism. More resources need to go to policy efforts that are based on an explicit racial equity analysis.

Connecting Grassroots and Policy Efforts
Current policy development and advocacy continue to be limited by lack of connection to strong grassroots movements demanding real change. We need to continue to support both the growth and expansion of grassroots racial justice organizing and its capacity to address structural racism.

Bringing Structural Analysis to Local Movements
Research and thinking on structural racism is often detached and uninformed by locally grounded racial justice work. Locally grounded racial justice work continues to struggle with connecting individual and community level experiences with their structural racism context. More resources need to go to connecting structural racism research and thinking with locally grounded racial justice work. More resources need to go to local racial justice organizations to develop creative and effective political education and leadership development around structural racism.

Supporting Cultural Connections
Cultural work serves as an important vehicle for analysis and action on structural racism. More resources need to go to cultural organizations with strong connections to racial justice organizing, as well as to cultural work undertaken by racial justice organizing groups.

Using Real Stories to Support Real Policy
Current policy development and advocacy continues to be limited by lack of mass communications strategies that shape the policy debate. At the same time there is growing communications skill and strategy in the field of racial justice, with increasing capacity to tell stories in terms of structural racism, not just intentional individual or institutional discrimination. More resources need to go to support communications with a structural racism lens.

Bridging Local and National Efforts
Racial justice work at the local and state level is being woven together nationally in ways that elevate the structural racism implications and build power to move future policy. More resources need to go to local-to-national work using an explicit structural racism analysis.



>Akonadi Foundation Grantmaking
The Akonadi Foundation provides general support and project specific grants to organizations specifically working as part of social change movements to eliminate structural racism and create a racially just society.  

The size of a one-year Akonadi grants ranges from $10,000 to $75,000.   Because Akonadi is committed to long-term partnerships there are very few new grantees each year and we do not accept unsolicited proposals.

From 2005 to 2009 Akonadi Foundation granted a total of $12,859,809 to 515 nonprofit organizations.