Racial Backlash Roundtables: Takeaways for Our Final Session
Authors: Jessica Feingold, Co-CEO, Jennifer Njuguna, Esq., Co-CEO, Sandhya Nakhasi, Co-CEO
Common Future and Dalberg Partners discuss the global response to the racial justice backlash.
Through a series of private roundtables with practitioners, intermediaries, and funders in the first half of 2024, Common Future and Dalberg confirmed that the social sector faced a widespread “chilling effect” with wealth and power holders pulling back their support of racial justice. But rather than let the status quo prevail, we’ve decided to shed light on the many ways to push forward beyond the racial backlash and fight for something bigger for all of us.
We’ve spoken and written at length about the legal actions, particularly the Fearless Fund Decision and recent Supreme Court decisions. Still, we’ve also seen political violence infighting and have felt the harsh chill of uncertainty. This backlash is part of a broader conservative assault against various race-based initiatives, such as courtroom and legislative weaponization, using tools that are meant to provide remedies and address harm; attacks on education and culture and how we share narrative and history; threats to reparations and economic justice; dismantling of voting rights and political power; and attacks on our bodies, reproduction, gender, and sexuality.
“Many funders and practitioners have backed away from racial justice work entirely. Others have gone into a sort of stealth mode, and a brave few have actually doubled down and are expanding and becoming even more explicit about their racial, their work on behalf of racial equity. ” — Joe Dougherty
If anything, it’s clear that our sector needs actionable steps for funders, intermediaries, and practitioners to reset the narrative, defend previous gains for racial justice, and continue fighting for a multiracial economic democracy.
Moderator: Allison Jones, Common Future, VP of Brand and Storytelling
Panelist: Joe Dougherty, Partner, Dalberg
Panelist: Jennifer Njuguna, Common Future, CO-CEO
Panelist: Jess Yupanqui Feingold, Common Future, CO-CEO
Panelist: Sandhya Nakhasi, Common Future, CO-CEO
Panelist: Reggie Shuford, Executive Director, North Carolina Justice Center
Panelist: Cate Fox Director, AmbitioUS
What are we seeing?
External Challenges: conservative attacks, narrative distractions, and legal challenges against racial justice
For centuries, tactics like co-opting narratives of reverse discrimination have been used to uphold white supremacy and racial capitalism. In times of economic and social crises, these narratives gain traction by scapegoating Black and brown communities and obscuring the true villains: white supremacy, capitalism, and corporate domination.
Practitioners and intermediaries feel forced to defend themselves against these attacks, which detracts from the work. Seeing their peers attacked, like Fearless Fund and Hello Alice, makes them feel scared and vulnerable. They want support from legal and philanthropic actors with more power and expertise, but some expressed feeling alone in the fight. As a result, organizations may go on the defense for themselves, which distracts them from the necessary work of systems change, and can be extremely taxing and stressful, pushing them closer to burnout.
Internal challenges: the trend of pulling back support for racial justice
Given the attacks we’ve briefly outlined, it’s unfortunately no surprise some funders are becoming more risk-averse, moving away from explicitly supporting racial justice. Among the practitioners and intermediaries we spoke to, there was a clear trend in funders pulling back support for racial justice. This has looked different across the sector, but as a result, we’ve seen a range of effects from subtle shifts in language, such as moving away from using the term “BIPOC” and to the euphemistic “underrepresented”, to increased scrutiny by funders or more restricted funding that make it challenging to operate. Similarly, many program officers within philanthropy—mainly Black program officers—notice that internal leadership is shifting their strategies away from racial justice and face challenges in advocating for this work. These program officers aren't backing down but have to find new ways of working within the philanthropic system.
While it's been increasingly difficult to do this work amid external challenges and legal fights, experiencing pushback from those who have previously supported it is very concerning, particularly during an election year when so much is at stake.
“At this moment, it's critical for funders to double down on this work. And to be clear about that, more than just providing funding, philanthropy must interrogate their internal structural practices and the practices across the field. “
— Jennifer Njuguna
With a looming threat of losing funding and support for work that explicitly focuses on racial justice, practitioners and intermediaries feel pressure to water down their messages and potentially shift strategies to keep money flowing to their communities.
Some roundtable participants persistently asserted the importance of precise and explicit language in fighting racial justice. Still, others expressed the need to pick their battles and respond strategically to ensure they can continue fighting for the funding needed to keep operating.
We’ve heard a range of responses to the current climate: Some want to double down on language and intent to serve Black communities (e.g., re-educating people on why we won’t shift our language, lessen our stance, etc.), while others are willing to adapt language while keeping strategy the same.
Concerningly, though, we are also witnessing folks in the field silently shifting their language and their strategy away from racial justice. While it is not always necessary for everyone to respond in the same way, participants expressed the value of being able to discuss challenges, consider trade-offs, and develop strategies together.
“There has been a strong consensus in our conversations among practitioners, intermediaries, and funders alike. There's a lot of broken commitments out there. Philanthropy became a really vocal supporter of racial justice, and since that period of time, many funders have walked back, some more publicly, some quietly. And it's this retreat that is really hurting leaders, particularly leaders of color, employees, and our communities, as we have to continue going back to the beginning to make the case once again for this work and make it in different ways.”
— Jess Yupanqui Feingold
Critical Next Step: How must we respond?
What can we do together?
Reset the Narrative: racial capitalism is the problem, and a multiracial economic democracy is the solution.
We cannot let conservative forces set the terms of debate around DEI and push us into defensive positions when we know the real cause of social and economic inequity is white supremacy and racial capitalism.
It's crucial to recognize and name these dynamics in our narratives to safeguard gains for racial justice and fight the rising threat of authoritarianism. By being precise about the challenges, we will be better positioned to advocate for solutions centered on Black and Indigenous communities and show how a multiracial economic democracy has something to offer everyone.
“Racism is embedded in all of our systems and is actively present in practices we have today. In order to address those inequalities and inequities that we see in our economy, we have to approach it with, first, a nuanced understanding of how racial capitalism has created these inequities.”
— Sandhya Nakhasi
Coordinate to develop an offensive strategy to build durable power, especially in changing policies and administrations.
Almost everyone we spoke to emphasized the need for more coordinated efforts among practitioners, intermediaries, and funders to align around shared goals and identify roles that each actor can play. This also entails an analysis of infrastructure gaps across the racial justice ecosystem. For example, one participant raised the importance of developing a state-by-state strategy. Conservatives have been mounting a state-level strategy for decades, as evinced by a slew of recent state laws putting restrictions on how we talk about race and the history of racism to how we move our money in alignment with our values for a more sustainable world. Our challenge is to build alignment and develop a more intentional strategy that connects state and federal infrastructure.
Securely share resources and tools to align strategies and avoid duplicative efforts against legal fights and conservative attacks.
The organizations we spoke to often had their own legal resources and guidance on how to respond to ongoing legal actions on a state and federal level. While this guidance is often protected by attorney-client privilege and cannot be shared, it is possible to share choice points, decisions, strategies, and tactics and ultimately create opportunities for more organized responses across the sector.
“I know this one is sometimes tricky and one that we tend to shy away from, particularly considering the IRS rules for 501(c3)s, but it is okay to engage in advocacy work. Make sure to take the time to understand better what this looks like for your organization. That it is a tool that you can tap into and consider the different legal resources that are available and that you might be able to offensively use.” — Jennifer Njuguna
Similarly, funders can provide legal resources for their intermediaries and practitioners. For example, in California, a group of funders and legal experts are looking to provide organizations with legal guidance following the Supreme Court’s anti-affirmative action ruling.
How can we leverage our respective roles?
Funders:
“The communities that we partner with…have beautiful intersectional visions that recognize that racial justice is climate justice, economic justice, disability justice, gender justice, and more. However, the common approach of siloing funding areas and shifting focus from one to another restricts our ability to move forward as the united collective that we are.” — Jennifer Njuguna
Double down on funding for racial justice.
Now is the time to make an impact. There is always a need for multi-year general operating dollars, especially now that the winds have shifted. Instead of following trends, we need funders to help bridge the gap between the windfall funding that came after the murder of George Floyd and the drought we’re seeing today. When and where possible, there’s also a need to de-silo racial justice funding and integrate the principles of racial justice across all issue areas that an institution is tackling. Advocating for program or issue areas to be seen through the lens of racial justice is necessary in order to achieve the gains we want more broadly in society.
Use your power and privilege to openly advocate for racial justice and defend organizations from backlash and rising anti-black racism.
“Following the Fearless Fund ruling…the responsibility of philanthropy is to demonstrate that we will not operate from a place of fear and will not waver in our support for racial justice. Philanthropy has the moral responsibility to use our voice, power, and resources to support those committed to the ever-enduring struggle of a more just world, a fair and equitable democracy”
—Nwamaka Agbo, The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Whether your funding is best suited for early adopters or late-stage scalers, the time is now for philanthropic leaders to take a stand in support of this work. How this works in practice for folks within institutions can look different, but there have been and will continue to be groups organizing around these challenges and joining those coalitions for support and ideas can be helpful. One example brought forward from our network was Race and Equity in Philanthropy Group, which aims to be a place for peer learning and best practices around integrating racial justice principles into institutions.
Keep ringing the alarm.
For program officers and others who may not have direct decision-making power, you play a critical role in case-making and raising the alarm to those who are decision-makers. Continue leaning into your role as case maker, narrative weaver, and negotiator, and find allies in this work to support and sustain you.
Decision-makers should understand that risk analysis and legal advice may provide a partial picture of the actions they can take. Understand your risk to assess your leverage rather than simply mitigate risk at all costs. You are most equipped to take on risks.
“If you're a funder, and you're trying to make the case in your institution that racial equity needs to be embedded throughout all of your programs and strategies, please bring in your intermediaries. Please bring in your practitioners into that conversation. Help them dictate the terms of how that needs to look. Because that can be that can be a power shift right there.”—Sandhya Nakhasi
Intermediaries:
Advocate for practitioners, use privilege where possible, and serve as the bridge to improve coordination.
Intermediaries play a key role for funders in connecting the dots and providing the case-making needed to secure funding for racial justice work within philanthropic institutions. Make sure you are both creating and using existing opportunities to tell the larger story of the work of the practitioners you are reaching and lift up the challenges they are facing in being able to advance their work. Disrupt spaces where you know the voices from communities are not being recognized and heard.
For practitioners, intermediaries act as a buffer between potentially arduous processes that funders might be implementing—as a result of legal counsel/guidance—and are asking for intermediaries to use their influence and power to oppose these practices. In this shifting landscape, the role of intermediaries becomes even more critical and should explore ways to hold the line together with other intermediaries collectively. For example, what might it look like for intermediaries to push back collectively on restrictive funding that hamstrings organizations’ ability to be responsive to community needs?
Practitioners:
Prioritize organizational and individual self-care
Setting and modeling boundaries, explicitly discussing the harm we experience from systems, and leaning on the community are all valuable practices to sustain this work, especially as leaders.
Lean on your peers to develop and test strategies together
There is no best answer to how or whether to respond to the calls to shift language. Practitioners bear the highest direct accountability to communities, and their strategies to raise and safeguard resources are up to their discernment. The tradeoffs are challenging to navigate; having peers reflect on these hard decisions is essential.
Lift up what you’re seeing in communities to trusted partners
Practitioners are closest to the challenges that communities face when funding for racial justice work is inconsistent and are being asked to continue to uplift the data and stories to trusted partners, either in intermediary or funding roles. This includes shifts that are more subtle as they could demonstrate a landscape shift that, in the aggregate, is quite concerning.
“We have moments where we can pause. And racialized capitalism does not want us to pause. We have been fighting this for decades, if not centuries. So, let's just go ahead and say this will be a long fight [and pause to refuel]. And we have to. We have to stay fueled to have the kind of world that is possible.”
— Cate Fox
We’re in this fight together.
“In this moment where things feel really challenging, think about all we have at our fingertips to help us do this work. We now have the benefit of this historical perspective about backlash, which, again, is that it sucks right now. But it's not going to last forever. And how do we prepare, when the moment presents itself again, to be ready to seize that opportunity to do the things we need to do when the moment inevitably presents itself? We need to be ready when that happens.”—Reggie Shuford
“We are not alone. These pressures are difficult and frustrating. And sometimes, we might feel like we are on our own as we navigate these challenges. But this community here, the groups that we spoke to, are just the strongest indication that we are in community together. And there is something about bringing that community together to be able to talk about the challenges, consider the trade-offs, and think about how we coordinate our actions together…we know that racialized capitalism is the problem. We also know that a multiracial democracy and an equitable economy together are the solutions.” — Jennifer Njuguna
We’re committing to sharing what we learn as we do this work. We hope these resources can aid in yours.
Articles/Webinars:
- Forbes: Ways Philanthropic Foundations Can Respond to Costly Attacks on DEI
- Chronicle of Philanthropy: DEI Isn’t a Dirty Word. How Funders Can Fight Back
- Chronicle of Philanthropy: Civil Rights Are Under Siege. DEI 2.0 Is the Answer
- Chronicle of Philanthropy: Progress is Won By Pursuing Justice, Not Waiting Patiently in Line
- Common Future: Fighting Injustice with Hope and Action
- US News & World Report: As DEI Policies Come Under Legal Attack, Philanthropic Donors Consider How to Adapt
- Inside Philanthropy: Amid Attacks on DEI, This Tool Can Help Funders Further Their Own Journeys — and Push Back
- Inside Philanthropy: An Affinity Group of Big-Name Funders Aims to Combat “Backsliding” on Racial Equity
- MacArthur Foundation: Affirming Our Commitment to Racial Justice
- NBC News: Black Civil Rights Organizations are Rallying to Counter Anti-DEI Rhetoric
- Nonprofit PQuarterly: Anti-DEI Lawsuits Threaten Nonprofits, Philanthropies
- Nonprofit Quarterly: Racial Equity Backlash: The Response from Black Leaders & the Mandate for Action
- Shelterforce: Are Race-Based Lawsuits Affecting Community Lenders?
- Impact Alpha: McKnight Foundation’s Tonya Allen: Philanthropy has the right and responsibility to counter attacks on DEI (Q&A)
- Capital & Main: Defunding Racial Justice
- Black Equity Collective: Open Letter to California’s Philanthropic Leaders
- Mission Investors Exchange: What to Know: The Fearless Fund Decision (Upcoming)
Trackers:
- Anti-ESG Tracker
- Anti-DEI (higher ed focused) Tracker (need to sign up, but you can get a couple of free articles with a free sign up)
- Anti-DEI Legislation Tracker | BestColleges
- Book Ban tracker
- Anti-Critical Race Theory Tracker
- Anti-DEI Tracker with methodology
Legal explanations and resources:
- Baker Hostetler: Protected First Amendment Speech or Prohibited Racial Exclusion? Webinar + Slides
- Morgan Lewis: Courts Issue Three Significant DEI Decisions
- Law360: Why Corporate DEI Challenges Increasingly Cite Section 1981 - Law360
- Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: Affirmative Action Q&A
- Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: Protecting and advancing DEI pro bono, intake form (perhaps helpful to share with grantees)
- NAACP LDF: Equal Protection Initiative Guidance
Adasina Social Capital: Freedom Economy Legal Network & Community
