Foundations: The Enablers of Faux Justice,
The Learning By Giving Foundation which supports the InspireUp Foundation created in our capstone seminar, explicitly states in their mission they wish to “distribute capital to local communities in need.” This commitment should be more literally interpreted and separated from the goal of educating “the next generation of philanthropists”. The distribution of capital in communities should be primarily driven by the community itself, rather than by undergraduates who often do not represent the local communities. Large foundations excluded voices through selective board processes, but the decision of the Learning By Giving Foundation to allow students to distribute capital reveals an inherent lack of trust in the community. Instead of permitting students to define community needs for them, in accordance with the Theory of Change model Learning By Giving should encourage communities to advocate on their own behalf. Foundations seeking to distribute capital to local communities, such as Learning By Giving, must do so directly in order to truly allow communities to define and meet their own needs.
Approaches to community giving that acknowledge community self-efficacy do exactly what the Giving By Learning Foundation claims: act as “innovative problem solvers.” One such approach, direct cash transfers, has been utilized as an innovative solution for allowing communities to meet their self-defined needs in ways that mitigate existing foundational issues. Direct cash transfers, as opposed to regulated grants, allow community members to be trusted to be gatekeepers of their own capital, define adaptable processes for their own mobility, and be unrestrained by the conditionality that foundation boards often impose. The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) small-cash transfer program, which currently exists in the U.S., was a critical component of over 6,000 adults entering or re-entering the workforce and over 700 adults gaining education or training in our own DC community. Programs like TANF, which promote individual efficacy around when, how, and where capital is spent not only gives voice to individual-defined needs but trusts individuals in the process of meeting them. Scaling capital distribution programs to trust whole communities of individuals validates local voices in ways that eite-defined and conditional processes do not. Foundations hoping to meet the needs of the local community cannot divorce trust of communities and their direct, unregulated, funding.
The Learning By Giving Foundation has the opportunity to educate students about and require them to distribute their capital solely through direct cash transfers. This process would provide students with a deeper understanding of community needs, while simultaneously increasing the ability of the community to advocate on their own behalf. The Learning by Giving Foundation has the ability to foster educational dialog around the problematic nature of foundational giving as it currently applies in the field and reinforce the importance of trusting communities. In line with their mission to educate students about foundational process in ways that are innovative, educating students around Theory of Change and direct cash transfers provides an alternative firmly rooted in justice.
Additional Reading:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/12/private-charity-holidays-philanthropy-poverty-inequality/
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/philanthropy-charity-banga-carnegie-gates-foundation-development/
http://socialistreview.org.uk/402/philanthropy-capitalist-art-deception
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/11/dark-alliance-global-philanthropy-capitalism-151130113526176.html
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/mark-zuckerberg-and-the-rise-of-philanthrocapitalism
