As philanthropy becomes even more prominent as a part of the international development funding framework, philanthropic organizations have work to do to confront systems of oppression and colonization on which they were often built — and to break those cycles. A new report by grantmaking organization Grassroots International has concluded that one of the most effective ways of doing so in the current moment is becoming more of a partner to burgeoning social movements.
“There’s this feeling of things coming to a head in terms of the multiple crises that are upon us, especially the climate crisis, vis-a-vis rising authoritarianism and militarism. If we’re going to defend life, we really need to take a different way forward. Social movements are presenting these ways,” Christina Schiavoni, senior communications coordinator at Grassroots International, told Devex.
The report calls out “the harm done by philanthropy” over the decades — it references the likes of Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan who built their wealth during the Industrial Revolution but did so while exacerbating inequalities — and lists eight reasons funding social movements could be a way of “reversing wrongdoings by returning wealth to the communities from which it was extracted.” These include the fact that social movements are built upon root cause analysis, which means any solutions are likely to be transformative, often address issues pertaining to both people and planet, and have the ability to save lives.