www.grantcraft.org 2 Foundations and community organizing 4 What community organizing can FUNDINGFunding accomplish, and how it works 11 Getting acquainted and other early steps COMMUNITYCommunity 20 Managing grants and relationships over time ORGANIZINGorganizing 25 Evaluating the effectiveness of organizing grants In partnership with THE LINCHPIN CAMPAIGN A PROJECT OF THE CENTER for COMMUNITY CHANGE PAGE 2 PAGE 11 Foundations Getting and Community Acquainted Organizing and Other Some funders see community Early Steps organizing as a way to encour- The culture of organizing may funding age a more vibrant democracy; seem foreign at first to grant- others see it as a method for makers, trustees, and other community getting better, more durable people inside your foundation. solutions to deep-seated Likewise, the culture of phi- problems. For grantmakers in lanthropy may seem strange to organizing either camp – along with those people who see the field from who hold both points of view – the perspective of community funding community organizing organizing. Grantmakers com- can be a good choice. monly find themselves in the social change through role of translator, clarifying PAGE 4 expectations and opening up civic participation avenues of communication in What Community both directions — with grantees Organizing Can and inside the foundation. Accomplish, and How It Works These days, organizing uses a PAGE 20 mix of tried-and-true methods Managing and new techniques to bring Grants and people together and push Relationships for change. For grantmakers, Over Time the alignment between what Change is a constant in com- community organizing seeks to munity organizing, and it accomplish and how it accom- doesn’t stop once the grant plishes those things makes it is made. Priorities and tac- an attractive strategy – one tics evolve as the work goes that holds the promise of forward and the surrounding leaving communities stronger environment shifts. As time and individuals better able to goes on, grantmakers may see advocate for themselves. the need to help an organizing grantee build its capacity or, in rare instances, cope with a crisis or setback. PAGE 25 Evaluating the Effectiveness of Organizing Grants Good organizing produces outcomes, and those outcomes can be measured. Policies change, communities change, organizations change, and IN THIS GUIDE, people change. If funders grantmakers talk about how and are clear about the outcomes why community organizing works they’re after, any or all of those may be relevant. to build community, increase democratic participation, and SPECIAL solve problems. Experienced This guide was written by Craig FeatURES McGarvey and Anne Mackinnon. funders offer a grounding in GrantCraft wishes to thank Marjorie 10 The Organizer’s Fine, executive director of The organizing’s basics, describe how Linchpin Campaign, which seeks Lingo: A Quick to expand the field of community Glossary the field is changing, and explain organizing by building relationships with new and veteran grantmakers how they support relationships committed to building a better civil 17 Learning from society. She offered invaluable Site Visits (and manage tensions) with help and guidance in conceptual- izing this guide. It is part of the grantees. GrantCraft series. 18 Entry Points: Four Funders Underwriting for this guide was Make Their First provided by the Ford Foundation. Organizing Grants Publications and videos in this series are not meant to give instructions or prescribe solutions; rather, they are 23 When an intended to spark ideas, stimulate Organization discussion, and suggest possibilities. Comments about this guide or other Is Under Attack GrantCraft materials may be sent to Jan Jaffe, project leader, at j.jaffe@ 26 The Impact of grantcraft.org. Organizing To order copies or download .pdf versions of our publications, please 28 Mapping Resources visit www.grantcraft.org. and Power You are welcome to excerpt, copy, or quote from GrantCraft materials, with attribution to GrantCraft and inclusion of the copyright. © 2008 GrantCraft FundinG community organizinG 1 Foundations and Community Organizing any foundations are deeply committed to pro- moting a vibrant democracy: some see broad M democratic participation as an end in itself, while others see it as a way to get better solutions to complex problems. Our nation and society are built on democratic participation, said a grantmaker who funds organizing nationally, “yet we don’t do a very good job of teaching how the ordinary resident can participate fully in democracy.” Community organizing fills that gap by bringing people into the problem-solving pro- cess, including those who are least likely to raise their voices: members of historically marginalized groups, newcomers to the society, or people who don’t believe their participation will make a difference. Organizing can be a vehicle for people enthusiastic about democracy.” encouraging people to get involved Changes like that “may seem small in civic life, and for deepening their in the eyes of a foundation,” said a engagement over time. Here’s how a consultant, “but they build up, drawing program officer at a community foun- in more people as they see friends dation put it: “Sometimes what people and neighbors become political want on their corner are really small leaders and see a difference in things like a stop sign or speed bumps their community.” near their kids’ school. Being able to identify those things and then going Organizing can also be part of a wider through the process and having a vic- effort to advance policy change. In tory: there’s nothing like it for getting recent years, organizing in states WHERE THE EXAMPLES COME FROM This guide was developed by GrantCraft in collaboration with The Linchpin Campaign, a project of the Center for Com- munity Change. It draws on dozens of interviews with grantmakers working in many fields and all kinds of foundations, leaders of community organizing groups throughout the United States, and other consultants and advisers. We also learned a lot from people who generously offered comments — extensive, in some cases — on drafts of the guide. We are grateful, as well, to a small group of experienced funders who participated in an in-depth meeting in New York on the challenges of funding organizing. A list of people who contributed to the guide’s development appears on page 33. 2 FundinG community organizinG such as Massachusetts and Texas has executive, community organizing groups contributed to significant expansions have grown “less tied to opposing FUndInG AdvocAcy: in access to health care. Living wage change at all costs or to ’fighting back’ IT’S Legal, but Know organizing campaigns, supported by against something; instead groups are ThE LAW foundations and other funders, helped more likely to acknowledge that change Private foundations are allowed to produce increases in the minimum is inevitable but demand a say in whom to support many types of advo- wage in 26 states between 2004 and the change will benefit.” cacy, but they are not allowed to 2007, which in turn built momentum Foundations, too, are changing their fund activities that are closely and for the first increase in the federal stance toward organizing. Many grant- directly tied to electing a candidate minimum wage in ten years. To cite makers have added organizing to the or passing a law. Here’s the distinc- an example from the 1970s, organizing strategies they support to effect social tion: “Funding an organizing group was an important factor in the passage or policy change, and some participate to educate members of the public of the federal Community Reinvestment in funder collaboratives to leverage on wage issues is okay,” advised an Act, which barred the discriminatory national and local support for commu- executive at a private foundation, housing practice known as “redlining” nity organizing in education, immigrant “but funding specific activities to and mandated that banks make invest- rights, environmental justice, and other obtain passage of a minimum wage ments in their home communities. In areas. As an experienced grantmaker increase is not okay.” For community each case, national and local founda- explained, “You can fund experts, or foundations, however, the rules are tions provided funds that made the you can fund grassroots folks working somewhat broader. For more on sup- work possible. to build their own objectives — or you porting advocacy, see Grantcraft’s Through recent decades, community can fund both, in partnership, because Advocacy Funding: The Philanthropy organizing has matured, grown, and both play a role in getting change that of Changing Minds. diversified. Partnerships and networks communities really own.” Organizing involving labor unions and commu- coalitions, he argued, have also brought nity groups have spread, leading to new opportunities for leverage: “By the growth of organizing coalitions in supporting a few strong groups around large metropolitan areas, states, even the country,” he said, “you can help the nation. Leadership by women and build better policies that other groups people of color has grown dramatically. can take up.” Organizing among youth has caught The overall lesson is that community fire in the last decade, with dozens organizing has more power than ever of groups working on education, law before; it’s no longer a marginalized enforcement, and environmental effort. Community organizing groups issues. Immigrant organizing has also have enough