Beyond COVID-19: Refocusing the equity lens amidst disruption - a first hand perspective
What will happen to the millions of people who rely on the life-enriching services of the nonprofits that help us achieve greater equity and access to opportunities in our communities?
As we all struggle to come to terms with the sweeping impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in our lives, one silver lining has been the effort of the philanthropic sector coming together to aid nonprofit organizations (NPOs) that have been severely impacted by this crisis.
I am encouraged by the level of coordination happening to help maximize the impact of ever-scarce dollars to advocate for nonprofits along with small businesses. But, here is a pitfall I hope we will avoid as we strive to save as many NPOs as we can.
If we look at what is happening with many of the current available programs designed to support the survival of small businesses, I can tell you that many of the small business owners in my circle - immigrants, people of color, and those that have had to build their businesses with very little access to capital, have largely been unsuccessful in securing support.
Here’s one of the reasons why and I hope the nonprofit sector can do better in solving this challenge.
Many SBA loans are being provided by financial institutions to their existing clients - that means if you don’t have access to strong relationships with a bank or some other kind of SBA support provider, you will continue to have a much harder time accessing capital. This means that business owners, particularly those who are minorities and women who already have to work harder to start and sustain their businesses are at higher risk of being cut out of these funding opportunities. Sound familiar? It does to anyone who has ever worked in a nonprofit that has tried to “break in” to the wheelhouse of a new potential funder without any prior relationships into that funding organization.
Additionally, there haven’t been as many resources provided in different languages to ensure that business owners whose native language is not English are able to get the information they need in a timely way so as to be able to move quickly on funding opportunities. In fact, it has been the work of NPOs and community-based organizations that have been working expeditiously to translate and disseminate information to communities with diverse language needs. I’ve seen great resources produced by organizations like the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles (KAFLA), the USC Office of Civic Engagement, the Nonprofit Finance Fund.
This lack of access is not anything new, particularly in the nonprofit sector. As a career fundraiser and nonprofit sector professional, a woman of color who has had to fight really hard to get in front of funders and potential donors, I know the struggle of many nonprofit leaders like me who don’t always have the kind of access to the networks and people who may have the capacities to provide transformative, or in this case, lifesaving support.
Many philanthropies are prioritizing support to their grantees and there is a lot of news to be proud of. I have heard from many nonprofit leaders who have shared their experiences with funders becoming increasingly flexible with their grantmaking, allowing organizations to shift their grants to unrestricted operating dollars. Others have even reported that grantmakers have increased the amount of grants to help their grantees survive this unprecedented crisis. This is all great news.
But, as someone who has worked in and around those smaller, community-embedded nonprofits - the ones that are led by the most incredibly passionate and committed people who reflect the diversity of their communities - the ones that do not have star-studded or super high capacity board members and donors. I can tell you that it is even harder right now than it ever was before and it will continue to be for the foreseeable future. The concern that I’m highlighting here is the question of how diverse organizations and leaders are going to be able to gain access to the capital they need to survive through this crisis and beyond if we only work within our familiar circles, which is effectively maintaining the status quo.
I want to urge us, collectively as a sector that includes doers and funders, as champions of those who are tirelessly doing the critical work of bringing our communities closer to a vision of a more equitable future - to advocate boldly and relentlessly to ensure that work continues. This disruption is an opportunity to preserve and amplify the diversity of the nonprofit sector.
I started this piece with a question about what our communities would look like if life-enriching nonprofits disappear. I wanted to differentiate from the organizations that are currently providing life-sustaining services, which are and should be the focus of the funding community right now. So many of our neighbors need life-sustaining support from food pantries and community-based healthcare services. The organizations providing these services need to be supported to the fullest extent possible.
However, in focusing on the topic of preserving a diverse nonprofit sector, I want to bring the issue of diverse leadership and diverse causes to the fore.
In terms of causes, I hope we are not forgetting about those programs and organizations that provide after school enrichment, mentoring, civic engagement opportunities, and arts education. We cannot forget the NPOs working to fight for the rights of underrepresented neighbors. These programs are critical to ensuring that children and families have access to help close the opportunity gap. We cannot let these organizations fall through the cracks.
Additionally, we need to do better as a sector to support nonprofits being led by diverse leaders. We need to ensure that even through this pandemic, that we are striving for more than just maintaining the status quo because the norm before this crisis was still insufficient. Both nonprofit executive leadership and boards remain unrepresentative of communities being served. My hope is that through this crisis, that we continue to work toward deconstructing this narrative.
This is a matter of equity. It is a challenge of ensuring that we maintain and increase the diversity of those who have a seat at the table. It is an issue that needs to continue to be addressed, even as we deal with this historic crisis.
In a crisis, while the first priority is to “stop the bleeding”, I believe strongly that it is important to lay the infrastructure for whatever future outcome we are striving to achieve. It’s the kind of thinking that is embodied in the title of Nobel Prize winning economist, Daniel Kahneman’s book, Thinking, Fast and Slow. We have seen a great, “think fast” response by so many important cross sections of the nonprofit sector’s support system that has loosened up some funding opportunities to some NPOs. But, what can we do now to also initiate the slow thinking process about how we are going to emerge from this not having simply maintained a status quo, but as a better version of ourselves.
I believe whole-heartedly that as mission-driven leaders, we want to strive toward a future where we achieve greater equity and representative diversity across the nonprofit sector. While there is no shortage of competing priorities right now, I do think there is time for us to reflect on how we can emerge better from this, especially since there will always be a shortage of resources to be able to address every priority and need.
I acknowledge that it is overwhelming at a time like this to add yet another priority to the list when it feels like a ten-alarm fire is raging all around us. But if there is one thing I know to be true of leaders in the nonprofit sector, it is that we are experts at managing complex crises. What other group of people on earth wake up every day thinking about how to challenge some of our world’s most persistent problems of systemic injustice and inequality? We work on seemingly insurmountable “big picture” problems on a daily basis. In addition to this, many of us have to deal with living in a constant state of emergency. One of my fellow colleagues in the nonprofit sector once jokingly posed the question, “if you haven’t ever been told your paycheck may be delayed or cut because we can’t make payroll this month because of our cash flow shortfall, can you even say you worked in a nonprofit?” Let’s be honest - the struggle is real.
Joking aside, I hope we can commit to keeping equity as a central pillar of our conversations. I hope that as doers and funders, we can work together to hear what the immediate needs of our communities are during this time while also thinking ahead together about the kind of changes we want to see in our communities when we emerge from this crisis. I hope that even as we struggle to keep mission-driven organizations alive, that as we navigate this challenge together that we make the effort to invest at a future where the millions of people - children, families, and our elders who rely on those community-centered nonprofits, will still have access to the services and programs that they have reason to cherish that enrich their communities and lives.
Lastly, it is amazing to know that I am one of many in the nonprofit space who are thinking along these lines. Here are some great articles I’ve read recently from some amazing leaders that I think help further the above ideas around how we might pull together as a sector and create a multilateral plan forward to advance equity during these uncertain times:
Opinion: Joint PSO Statement: Keep Equity at the Forefront in Philanthropy’s Response to the Coronavirus, published by the United Philanthropy Forum, March 11, 2020
Why Should It Take a Global Pandemic to Bring Out the Best in Philanthropy?, by Farhad Ebrahimi, Founder and President of the Chorus Foundation, Inside Philanthropy, March 31, 2020
COVID-19: Using a Racial Justice Lens Now to Transform Our Future, by Lori Villarosa, Executive Director of Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE), published by Nonprofit Quarterly, March 30, 2020
COVID-19: This Is What We’re Doing; It’s Not Enough, by Hanh Le, Executive Director of the Weissberg Foundation
