Workshop description:

Making Philanthropy Anti-racist and Accountable to Grassroots Movements for Change

Appalachian Community Fund and Haymarket People's Fund, both long-time social change funders, have been working to incorporate anti-racist principles into their grantmaking and organizational practice. Representatives from these funds will discuss their own work, provide a historical framework for understanding the role of foundations in undermining social movements, and provide alternative strategies for making philanthropy accountable to the communities it purports to serve. They will also discuss ways that community-controlled foundation can work with groups to support national anti-racist movement building. Specific examples and strategies will be shared by workshop leaders and participants in a lively and interactive format. The workshop will be led by Tommie Hollis Younger, Co Director of Haymarket People's Fund and Gaye Evans, Executive Director of Appalachian Community Fund.

The workshop will be in English and will be a fully participatpry session involving people's experiences, popular edcation methods, and open space discussion. We will provide handouts in both Spanish and English and can provide oral interpretation.

The challenges the two organizations are facing include building progressive philanthropy, providing leadership among grantees and constiuents around building anti-racist movements and alliances, and adovcating and organizing among other philanthropic institutions about anti-racist strategies that include fundraising, grantmaking, and leadership development.

The concrete alternatives we propose have to do with incorporating and building on anti-racist principles among funding and grassroots organizations; and we further wish to understand other's experiences and visions in continuing to build in anti-racist principles, strategies and actions to all of our work.