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PEAK Grantmaking

Black Voices in Grants Management

About this issue

Racial equity is an issue that is consuming philanthropy, but even though the conversation is flowing, progress lags, and the fallout is ongoing.

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What's Inside

Letter from the Editors

 

As we planned together for the first issue of a new decade, and a new editorial partnership, we considered how an evolving PEAK Grantmaking Journal can best serve you.
Building on a legacy of in-depth reporting and insight critical for grants management professionals, we are proud to present this expanded Journal, your new member magazine delivered three times yearly in print to our Organization Members and accessible online exclusively to our membership community.
With this reenvisioned Journal, we’re staking out a space for members, experts, and the PEAK team to bring their best thinking forward. Our goal is to earn and hold your attention, giving you a place to unplug and focus on the issues that matter most to you as a grantmaking professional, team member, and sector leader.
Our partnership as coeditors begins with an issue that is consuming philanthropy and philanthropic organizations: the persistent lack of racial equity. The conversation is flowing, but progress lags. Meanwhile, the fallout is ongoing, limiting impact and potential in our work, workplaces, and lives.
Why is change so hard, and what are the obstacles we need to overcome? Our guest editor, Roland Kennedy, Jr., eight contributors, and a panel of professionals have courageously raised their voices to bring clarity to our present moment and light the way forward. Read closely: In their passion, frustration, buried anger, and seedlings of hope, they offer the keys to greater understanding. And from their ideas come the building blocks for inclusive cultures, equitable grantmaking practices, allyship, and mentoring.
Colleagues: Join us in rededicating yourself to your work in service of equity and raising your voice to accelerate progress within your organization and across our sector. Here’s to another year of internal growth and external impact for us all.
Betsy Reid and Melissa Sines
Coeditors, PEAK Grantmaking Journal

 

 

“I am in the business world, not for myself alone, but to do all the good I can for the uplift of my race.”

Madam C.J. Walker to Booker T. Washington in 1912

 

 

 

 

 

Opening from our Guest Editor

The perspectives of Black grants professionals have been largely excluded from the conversation. Here, guest editor Roland Kennedy, Jr., shares his vision for bringing these unheard voices and experiences to the fore.

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ANONYMOUS

What has been your experience navigating philanthropy as a Black person?

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by the numbers

Exploring the Black Experience in Philanthropy

Because of philanthropy’s roots in oppressive practices, it is vital to have a conversation and to take action aimed at creating organizations and practices that foster greater inclusion. This statistical snapshot of the sector paints a complex and often troubling picture of the Black experience in philanthropy while surfacing ways in which we can forge a path forward.

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ROUNDTABLE

Black Grant Directors’ Roundtable: Lessons from a career in philanthropy

Nicole Howe Buggs, Susan Hairston, Ify Mora, Miyesha Perry, and Timothy Robinson offer candid testimony on the challenges of Black professionals in the sector and the power of professional networks in supporting them to find their voice.

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Assimilation and Authenticity: Being Black+ in Philanthropy

“As if being Black wasn’t already hard enough, maneuvering through this world with additional identifiers like gay and gender non-binary makes every day feel like a battle,” Darius Soler writes in this deeply personal essay. Here, she shares her thoughts on how you can leverage even minimal positional power to cocreate organizational cultures that are equitable and inclusive to people from all marginalized identities.

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A Conversation with LaTosha Brown About Courage, Authenticity, and Healing

“What I think philanthropy often doesn’t do is give people the space to heal,” trailblazer and civil rights leader LaTosha Brown says in this interview with Genise Singleton. Through their conversation, learn about the qualities and practices needed to advance the state of equity in the philanthropic sector, create the space to hold difficult conversations, and allow people to heal.

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Mentoring for a Seat at the Table

Steven Casey and Roland Kennedy, Jr., share that being a Black grants management professional can be an intensely isolating experience. “Awareness and stamina are needed to address and redress institutional racism, and ultimately reduce the mental and physical toll it can take on Black bodies,” they write. But, as they also point out, mentoring has the power to spark understanding, courage, and resilience—and, ultimately, assist in navigating the challenges and norms that underwrite white privilege.

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How to Support Black Professionals Through Philanthropic Culture and Grantmaking Practice

Consider these recommendations for developing an organizational culture that clearly demonstrates how you value diversity, equity, and inclusion.

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So You Want to Be a White Ally: Healing from white supremacy

Caitlin Duffy shares her journey of reckoning with how white supremacist culture dehumanizes all people. “I believe this work can help move us beyond white-savior charity mindsets and performative allyship, and build a foundation for more authentic, accountable relationships, and collective liberation.”

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