This article was produced by Capital & Main, and is published in association with Rolling Stone with permission.
It’s a familiar story. After the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, there were protests and national soul-searching, and suddenly racial justice was in vogue. Money that had previously been trickle-down flowed into racial equity and anti-racism efforts in everything from corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Almost as quickly, the intensity of awareness began to fade as public attention was distracted by the Covid pandemic and other political crises. Predictably, the right escalated its criticism of “awareness,” especially calls to reallocate funding to the police, pointing—ironically—to street protests as evidence of rising crime that actually required more police.
While the white backlash is part of the historical ebb and flow of the racial justice movement, the fallout from 2020 is unique: Emboldened by the popularity of Trumpism and a right-wing judicial system hostile to racial equality, conservatives are now seeking to defund racial justice itself.
That means that by 2024, Black nonprofits say funders and foundations are on the back foot—either cutting grants for racial equity, toning down Black and anti-racist language, or both.
The fate of racial equity funding stands at a critical crossroads—a tipping point. Without money and, more important, without the public interest in equality, the fight for racial justice will continue, of course, but it will be severely marginalized and almost certainly diminished. What the movement now faces is a massive wave of right-wing determination, aided by a series of court actions in the past year or so, to not only defund but delegitimize the call for racial justice.
Funders fear the legal consequences, but they fear in a deeper, more existential way as the nation contemplates the political upheaval that a second Trump term would bring, which seems more than possible. For black nonprofits long invested in racial equity, the battle is not just about keeping the money but also about making sure donors don’t lose their nerve, now or in the future.
The shift away from equity funding takes courage—and resistance. Earlier this year, at the behest of the Black Equity Collective, more than 100 Black-led organizations signed an open letter to the philanthropic community, calling on it not only to stand firm in the face of conservative attacks, but to persist. Cassie Patterson, founder of the Black Equity Collective, a partnership of funders and Black communities that funds Black-led projects in Southern California (full disclosure: This column was funded by a grant from BEC), said nonprofits have been suffering from funders pulling back, leading to a drop in support that she describes as “mostly window dressing.” Patterson was forced to revise her own budget mid-year, citing a $700,000 drop in funds that had been pledged but not materialized.
In the letter and in her daily work, Patterson encourages nervous funders not to dilute the mission of black justice, but to redouble their commitment to it. The letter urges funders to read the recommendations of the California Reparations Task Force, the first statewide reparations task force in the country, and incorporate them into their mission. Taking such an unapologetically pro-black stance carries risks, for foundations but especially for nonprofits. Patterson firmly believes that for nonprofits on the front lines of the racial equality movement, there is no other choice. “Are we afraid of losing money? Of course we are,” she said. “But we have to do it. The work is not going to stop.”
The stakes are higher than ever because “the right has more appeal now than it has ever had,” said Mark Philbart, executive director of the California Black Freedom Fund, a state initiative that supports black-led nonprofits. “So we have to be intentional about telling the truth about power and injustice and how people are systematically trying to dismantle progress. The right’s agenda is white supremacy and fascism. This is not just an attack on black people, it’s an attack on democratic principles.”
Philbart is unusually candid for someone working in social justice, who tends to emphasize collaboration and visions of the common good. But he says the moment leaves him no choice. We’re a long way from the moment hoped for four years ago, when many foundations acted almost as one to dramatically increase support for racial equity. Of course, that increase hasn’t been nearly enough. A 2023 survey of 25 community foundations by the National Commission on Responsive Philanthropy found that while Black equity funding among these foundations has increased by $125 million, much of it has not been long-term. Overall, just 2.4 percent of foundation budgets have been spent on racial equity, though that’s doubled from 2016 to 2018.
Yet charities were reporting a new and critical understanding of the importance of racial equity, one that was not captured by funding levels. “We are finally ready to articulate and denounce racism as the fundamental root cause of the opportunity gap,” said one charity leader interviewed for another study on racial equity grantmaking published in 2022 by the Center for Effective Philanthropy. “You can’t talk about closing the opportunity gap without talking explicitly about race.”
But this new certainty has begun to shake as conservatives and even liberals have backlashed against the Black Lives Matter movement, particularly its calls to defund the police. Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance has attacked liberal foundations as “social justice hedge funds” with favorable tax status that should be eliminated.
Then the hammer fell when the Supreme Court ruled in June 2023 to ban affirmative action at colleges and universities. The ruling had nothing to do with philanthropy, and in California, the ban had been in effect since 1996. The state’s ban is limited to public universities, but the high court ruling applies to both public and private institutions. The expansion was seen as a warning shot, a preview of what the anti-racist judicial branch might target next.
Conservative groups have filed lawsuits against programs aimed at achieving racial equality, alleging that they are discriminatory (one such lawsuit was filed last year against the Black Student Achievement Plan, an educational equity effort by the Los Angeles Unified School District).
One closely watched case in Georgia centers on the Fearless Fund, which offered grants of up to $20,000 to black women entrepreneurs through a contest. A conservative group sued Fearless last August, alleging discrimination. In May, a federal appeals court upheld a court order suspending Fearless’s grant program.
To combat California funders’ growing concern about legal attacks and educate them about what is actually illegal (and not in support of racial justice) and what is simply scare tactics, the California Black Freedom Fund in May launched the Legal, Education, Advocacy and Advocacy Initiative for Racial Justice, a partnership with lawyers who do the same. Philbart said he’s already getting interest from out-of-state organizations to tap into LEAD’s services—another way California could set the pace for political resistance in the Trump era.
We need it. Eric Gorovitz, a tax attorney who advises nonprofits and works with LEAD, points out that groups like Students for Fair Admissions, which has been around for years—it started the affirmative action case in 2014—are reaping the benefits of being the right thing to do, at the right time. “The courts have caught up with them,” he says.
Patterson said this is all the more reason for the racial justice movement to stand its ground and increase its demands. “Martin Luther King said we are bound to follow the moral law,” she said. “The founders must follow that morality. It’s time to call on them to surrender.”
