Racial Equity Tools

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Resource Building

This section includes content about work that various philanthropies and the organizations that work with them are doing to promote investment and build capacities around racial equity, social justice and inclusion. It also provides resources on ways to fund racial equity and social justice work.

A Community Builders' Toolkit mentions some of "the more common funding sources for local reform projects: community, corporate, and national sponsors (when the efforts are administered by 501(c) (3) organizations); fees as reimbursement for services when groups are delivering services (through contracts with government or other service providers); revenues from products and services, such as training; membership fees; donor contributions and fund raising events." [A Community Builders' Toolkit, by IDR and Project Change, p. 24.]

Much of the content of this section is about philanthropy; however, philanthropy is only one of several ways that racial equity work gets funded, and there are of course many pros and cons for seeking and accepting funding from institutions for work aimed at disrupting institutional or structural racism. See Philanthropy section for more on this. In addition to information about foundations, including their social change and racial equity work, content for this section includes information on different fundraising strategies (e.g. special events).

• The Correct Use of Special Events
  Kim Klein
• Enough: The Personal Politics of Resisting Capitalism
  Enough
• The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond The Non-Profit Industrial Complex.
  Left Turn Magazine
• Resource Generation
• Grassroots Institute for Fundraising Training
• A Grassroots Fundraising Guide for Social Justice Organizations
  Vanguard Public Foundation
• Kim Klein
• Resources
  Indie Philanthropy Initiative
• Future Forward: An Experiment Between Funders and Activists
  Future Forward
• Underdeveloped: A National Study of Challenges Facing Nonprofit Fundraising
  J. Bell & M. Cornelius, CompassPoint and the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund
• In the Trump Era, Nonprofits Need a New Social Contract With Foundations
  Vu Le, The Chronicle of Philanthropy
• Fundraising Bright Spots: Strategies and Inspiration from Social Change Organizations Raising Money from Individual Donors
  Jeanne Bell and Kim Klein
• GrantAdvisor.org
• Fundraising Toolkit
  CAAAV Organizing Asian Communities

Also in this section:

• Community of Practice
• Organizational Capacity Building
• Resistance and Retrenchment