Last year, Inside Philanthropy looked at some of the biggest racial justice commitments made by institutional philanthropy in the wake of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. And while we were impressed with all 11 funders whose pledges we analyzed, the Democracy Frontlines Fund (DFF) was the only funder to earn full marks across the board.
An initiative of the Libra Foundation, DFF is a donor collaborative originally envisioned as a three-year, $36 million effort to provide funding for 10 Black-led grassroots organizations working on building power in their communities and advancing movements toward justice and a true democracy.
“We started the Democracy Frontlines Fund immediately after the murder of George Floyd and really tried to create an intervention in philanthropy,” said Libra Foundation’s executive director, Crystal Hayling. The initiative turned out to be a deep, collective learning experience for the funders involved, but it also moved some real money, and more than anticipated.
At the time of our analysis last year, DFF’s commitment had risen as other funders joined. Today, the fund is announcing that its work will be extended for three more years with an additional $35.5 million in support. Coupled with the $39 million it raised and granted during its first phase, DFF expects to award a total of $74.5 million.
DFF began with 12 partners, then grew to 15. Of these, 13 have recommitted their support for the next phase. These are: Libra Foundation, Crankstart Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, JPB Foundation, Kataly Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Schmidt Family Foundation, Sobrato Philanthropies, Someland Foundation, Stardust Fund, Tao Rising LLC, Tides Foundation, and an anonymous donor. An additional funder, Heising-Simons Foundation, has also joined.
The extension of funding represents a recommitment to 2020’s wave of philanthropic support for racial justice in the midst of a political and legal backlash toward such efforts, not to mention lagging progressive and democracy-related funding. It’s also a statement of patience and trust in grassroots-level grantees within a sector that is eager to second-guess, hungry for a quick return on investment, and perpetually looking for the next new strategic plan. By taking on this trust-based approach and ceding its decision-making power, in particular, DFF is building deeper relationships with grantees and allowing the organizations to focus their efforts on the work itself, rather than having to prove their effectiveness and worth to funders.
As it did before, the fund will provide multi-year, general operating support to its grantees. Each grantee will receive a minimum of $1.1 million a year with the exception of Vision Change Win, which will receive $1.5 million over three years for strategy and security support.
Organizing for democracy
The reasons behind Democracy Frontlines Fund’s launch were two-fold. First and foremost, DFF’s funders sought to move money quickly to organizations that were on the front lines of mobilizing people, particularly those in Black communities, to participate in the democratic process while also addressing some of the big barriers to doing so. The initiative launched against the backdrop of a racial justice uprising, as well as rising concerns over threats to democracy in the U.S. and abroad.
The selected grantees work across a wide range of related issues, including police brutality, voter suppression, election administration, land rights and access to polling places in low-income and Black and brown communities. The work involves “a lot of different ways of looking at… what are the tools that people need to participate in democracy and moving resources to the communities that are empowering and defining that,” Hayling said.
One of the big aspects of DFF has been its trust-based approach and ceding control in decision-making to allow grantees to do their work as they see fit. It is, as DFF states on their website, supporting the will and self-determination of Black communities’ priorities and then “getting out of the way.” A “brain trust” made up of seven grantmaking experts, all women of color, selected the slate of grantees.
Grantees include Black Futures Lab, Black Voters Matter Capacity Building Institute, Black LBGTQIA+ Migrant Project, Movement for Black Lives and Southern Power Fund. One new organization — Taproot Earth, which works to advance climate justice and democracy from Appalachia to the Gulf Coast — has been added.
“A learning journey”
The second reason behind DFF’s launch is that it provided a learning opportunity for funders to discuss and better understand democracy, the issues around it — such as voter suppression and the racist roots behind it — and philanthropy’s role in the movement.
“It’s also an intervention to try to deepen our understanding of what democracy means, to not make it something that’s just transactional and solely based on the vote, but to really understand how can we as philanthropy engage with communities in a learning process, because we have not necessarily been great at understanding a lot of different aspects of democracy,” Hayling said.
Notably, the members of DFF are not just your typical lefty or movement-oriented funders; they include huge, mainstream institutions like Hewlett and MacArthur. According to Hayling, one of the things DFF participants took away from its first three years is a better understanding of community organizing and why it’s such a powerful tool for change. Community organizing allows agency and power to grow in communities across a broad spectrum of issues. Power-building, she said, is at the heart of how change is created in communities.
Meetings with grantees, movement leaders and the brain trust have taken place both in person and online. In-person meetings included learning experiences in Montgomery and Minneapolis to visit the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Legacy Museum, and the George Floyd Global Memorial.
“We set this up as a learning journey for all of us,” Hayling said. “We’ve been meeting quarterly as a community and engaging with the grantees as well as others in their ecosystems to really grapple with some of the key issues of the time.” Among these are takeaways from recent elections, the movement to defund the police, intersectionality, the criminalization of Black communities, and reproductive justice.
“It’s been wonderful to hear people change and understand and grow in our community as philanthropists because that’s not actually often the task we put to ourselves.”
A recommitment to racial justice
During DFF’s second year in operation, a number of the collaborative’s funders began to raise the idea of continuing the work beyond the committed three years. For Hayling, this came as a surprise, as she saw the intervention as a time-limited operation. She had originally envisioned DFF as a three-year project because, while she wanted the funding to last longer than a year, she recognized that there is a lot of need elsewhere.
“I think people felt like they wanted to continue. They wanted to deepen,” Hayling said. “People really wanted to keep the support going, so that has been incredibly powerful.”
After going to Libra’s board and receiving approval, conversations began among funders as to what they saw for continuing the work. There have also been conversations around deepening staff engagement beyond funder leaders and board members.
DFF’s recommendation comes at a crucial time. Hayling said that many of DFF’s funders are concerned that funding for racial justice since Floyd’s death may be slowing down or that some of the funders who said they were coming out big either didn’t fully commit all of the resources promised or have repurposed those pledged dollars for different causes.
“We’re definitely concerned about a potential decrease in dollars,” Hayling said.
She added that the Supreme Court’s repeal of affirmative action has caused a number of ripples to spread and that a “chilling effect” may be taking place, and hopes that DFF can serve as a model for other funders, both for foundations and high-net-worth individuals.
“That’s what we’re concerned about because we feel like people need to continue to be full-throated in their commitment to racial justice and to continue this work in philanthropy,” Hayling said. “And that’s what we’re hopeful for, that this announcement of Democracy Frontlines Fund and recommitment by funders will help spark and ignite a kind of awakening.”
