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Reconceptualizing Gifts and Givers: The Transforming Philanthropy Project

The Transforming Philanthropy in Communities of Color Project (TP) seeks to change how philanthropy is defined, practiced and supported in economically disadvantaged communities and communities of color. Charles Price, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, is directing a participatory evaluative assessment of the multi-site Transforming Philanthropy in Communities of Color Project. Transforming Philanthropy is a project of the National Community Development Institute (NCDI) and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF). The NCDI is assisting in the implementation of the Transforming Philanthropy project in three communities/community organizations in eastern North Carolina and three in the San Francisco Bay Area of California. In North Carolina the CIRA-UNC team composed of Price and several UNC-CH graduate students is collaborating with three organizations: the Center for Community Action (Lumberton), the Migrant Benevolent Association (Salemburg), and the Sandhills Family Heritage Association (Spring Lake). In California the three partner groups are the Community Development Institute (East Palo Alto), One East Palo Alto (East Palo Alto), and the South of Market Community Action Network (San Francisco).

The CIRA-UNC team is conducting, with the six community organizations, an action research-oriented and process-focused assessment of the TP project. By working with community groups involved in the project they will document and analyze how groups go about transforming philanthropy, focusing in particular on how resources, activities and participant experience influence what happens (outcomes). The research team will provide ongoing assessment and feedback to project staff at NCDI and community participants, in conjunction with research that began in 2005 and continuing through 2006 and 2007. The project is specifically action-oriented in its perspective: collaborative, reflective and active learning components are embedded in its methodology and these are taken up by both researchers and stakeholders in the project.

In initiating the TP Project, the research team participated in a "co-design" process along with the communities and community organizations to identify key factors that stakeholders want the Project and the research to address. Stakeholders want to know the extent to which the TP project: 1) deepens the capacity of diverse, community-based organizations to attract, engage and sustain local "givers" -- community members from economically distressed and/or communities of color who donate time, expertise and other goods and -- who are not typically defined as philanthropists; 2) develops the skills and knowledge of givers and builds the capacity of organizations and communities of color to nurture givers; 3) connects givers, economically distressed communities, and community-based organizations through peer exchanges; and (4), informs the field of mainstream philanthropy regarding TP findings and best practices.

From Price's perspective, the TP Project speaks to three critical issues. First, the Project addresses the power imbalances between philanthropic organizations and economically disadvantaged or minority communities, and seeks to change these in ways that provide leverage to communities. Second, the researchers and community members will identify the range of assets and giving that occur in economically distressed or communities of color and valorize them as "philanthropic" and as "giving." Third, the project seeks to develop the needed organizational and community capacity in communities of color or economically distressed communities to harness local giving practices and to transform philanthropy. These issues are of vital interest to organizations and communities that have a social change or social justice agenda, as many of those do that are involved in the project.

The first goal of TP, as expressed by NCDI, is to increase the capacity of organizations serving communities of color to harness a variety of philanthropic resources (e.g., time, talent, money). Second, NCDI would like to change how funders and communities conceive of and practice philanthropy. A third goal is to pursue social change as positive social change is defined by organizations and their constituencies. Last, NCDI would like to inform the field of philanthropy as regarding lessons learned from TP.

These goals have been pursued over a series of participatory planning meetings between NCDI, the UNC-CH CIRA research team, community organizations, and community members. The project will continue over the course of 2007, working with communities to develop individual, organizational and community capacity building. One potential academic contribution of the TP Project could speak to how ordinary people redefine customary understandings, in this case, of philanthropy. Another contribution of the TP Project is its fit with the University's commitment to engaged scholarship, building relationships with communities, and providing experiential education to students through participating in community-based research projects.

For more information, on the National Community Development Institute, visit this link.