Are you perpetuating inequity while engaging in Community-Centric Fundraising?

Hi everyone, the virtual rally to get nonprofits better representation within the White House, and ideally the Harris administration, has been changed from October 24^th to October 17^th at 4:30pm Pacific Time, so please note that in your calendar. It’s free; register HERE.

Over the past four years, one of the most heartening things I’ve seen is the rise of the Community-Centric Fundraising (CCF) movement. Organizations are doing really awesome and creative stuff, such as asking their donors to support other nonprofits, getting rid of long-held practices such as “raising the paddle,” and using nontraditional metrics for assessing fundraising success. You can read about a lot of the cool stuff colleagues are thinking and doing at the CCF Hub, edited by the brilliant Chris Talbot-Heindl.

It’s also been heartening for me and other CCF proponents to receive fewer annoying and misinformed comments on this topic: “CCF people don’t care about raising money at all; all they do write angry beat poetry about taxes!” “Woke is broke, and it must be true because it rhymes!” “Vu Le hates donors and thinks you should punch every donor you meet in the face!”

However, the growth of the movement has also come with some alarming feedback I’ve been getting from more than a few colleagues across different geographic areas. It seems that some organizations and fundraising teams have been using their engagement in CCF as a shield and an excuse from having deeper, more meaningful engagement with equity practices, and in the process perpetuating inequity. Here are some examples of that:

• Participating in regular CCF discussions, but still ignoring or ostracizing the voices of women of color and other marginalized people when they bring up dissonance with CCF principles
• Prioritizing easy CCF-aligned actions, while avoiding examining and resolving serious issues such as lack of diversity in senior leadership; gender and racial wage gaps; and other concerns
• White senior staff asking lower-seniority staff, who are more likely to be of marginalized identities and who are paid less, to take on unpaid additional CCF-related work

A while ago, I wrote about the concept of Equity Offset, where equity-aligned actions in some areas are used to justify inequity in other areas. It’s like carbon offset, where actions such as paying to plant some trees, in itself a great thing to do, risk allowing people and corporations to feel good about themselves and continue polluting the planet. This seems to be happening occasionally with CCF, and we need to do a better job recognizing and mitigating it:

Do an audit of your org’s current engagement in CCF: Go through the principles and have an honest conversation with your team about what you’re doing well and where you could improve. Are there principles—especially the first one, which concerns grounding the work in racial and economic justice—that you’ve been avoiding? Are you using an equity lens in all the actions you are currently taking?

Consider what voices are missing or being ignored: CCF was founded by leaders of color and is meant to prioritize the voices of communities of color and other marginalized communities in fundraising work. Allies are a vital part of the work, especially as fundraising currently comprises predominantly white colleagues and donors. It is important to regularly assess which voices have been dominating the conversation and which have been missing, ignored, and dismissed, and to make intentional course corrections.

Pay marginalized people who are expected to do extra work: CCF, like other equity-related work, can be fun and rewarding, but it is still work. Our field tends to ask staff who are already paid the least at their organizations to take on DEI responsibilities for free. And due to power dynamics, it may be difficult to say no. Assess how much additional responsibility you’re requiring of people and whether the workload distribution and compensation structure are fair and take actions to make it equitable.

Get some external perspectives and help: Sometimes, due to power dynamics, it may still be hard for lower-seniority staff to freely share their opinions, especially on things that need to be improved. And even if they do feel comfortable, it may be helpful to have perspectives from people outside the org. Consider hiring local consultants who are versed in equity and who are from marginalized communities. (Read this article on Outsider Efficacy Bias first though.)

Take actions to be better aligned with CCF principles: If you do find that you’re engaged in some equity offset behaviors as you explore CCF work, don’t panic and give up. Be honest as a team, acknowledge where there could be areas of improvement, and work together to improve things. Here is a list of CCF-aligned actions that may be helpful, though it is not comprehensive and is meant as a starting point.

As with all movements, there will be ups and downs and areas for growth. Changing decades of traditional fundraising practices takes a while and is iterative, and all of us will make mistakes from time to time. The key is to acknowledge where we need to do better, make plans, and take actions.

—

Donate to help people devastated by Hurricane Helene.

Donate to help people devasted by rain and flooding in Nepal.