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There is a plurality of definitions of the term systems change, each contextualized within different cultures and purposes. Doing Good Better embraces systems change as an inter-sector process that addresses complex social problems nonprofits and funders confront with collective action centered on equity, mutual respect, and resilience. Systems change refers to changing the parts and their relationships within a system with the understanding that this change will have ripple effects. As grantmakers, we need to create an environment that enables grantee effectiveness, so they can deliver on their mission. Systems change in philanthropy focuses on structures, policies and processes, resources, values, power, mindsets and, infrastructure that is illustrated in three iterative phases. In time, we hope that the application of this model will result in collective impact and a more resilient social sector for all of New Jersey.
The first phase is structural (operational) change, which involves funders adopting new policies, practices, and resource flows. The second phase is characterized by new relationships and connections that emerge from structural change eschewing old power dynamic practices. Finally, the third phase is transformative change, which occurs when change becomes rooted in organizational culture and mores. We cannot underestimate the length of time and learning at each stage. Achieving transformative change can be a long journey, but it is a learning journey. One grantmaker stated, “One change led to another and another, like dominos. I started to see what people meant by systemic change. New energy and excitement surged among us as hope grew and the cloudy vision of what we wanted became clearer and clearer.”
Although the figure below displays the six developmental stages as linear and distinct, change is unlikely to follow a linear path. Any change in a system will seldom stay fixed at one of these stages but rather will shift back and forth from one stage to another on the path toward the ideal state. We believe just one organization can’t shift the conditions that hold problems in place; we all must share the same perspectives and move the sector together and simultaneously. We call for all of those involved in the sector to work together to build a better and more equitable nonprofit and philanthropy system for all New Jerseyans.
Graphic comes from “The Water of Systems Change” by John Kania, Mark Kramer, and Peter Senge.
Doing Good Better, a partnership of the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers and the New Jersey Center for Nonprofits, is a community of funders and nonprofits taking action against the power imbalances and racial inequities in philanthropy, nonprofits, and government.
Right Size Applications; Simplify Reporting
Affirmation: Paperwork hinders us all.
Duplicative or complex proposal and reporting requirements divert time and resources for both nonprofits and philanthropy, needlessly burdens nonprofit partners and siphons scarce resources away from where they are most needed. Funders can lessen the burden on grantee partners by streamlining the application and reporting processes, especially for repeat grantee partners; decreasing the required data to only the most necessary for decision-making; taking on some of the burden of data collection by gathering data from central repositories such as Candid (formerly GuideStar) and the IRS; and retain and use data already collected from repeat grantees. Funders should require updated information such as annual budget, staffing, board member changes, etc., in their grant applications only when the nonprofit is the only source for this information. Collaborate with other local funders and agree to common GOS application questions and budget templates; streamline tools through technology and offer innovative ways for organizations to apply for and report out on grants; limit written requirements to information that is relevant to the request, and which moves the needle on critical social issues.
Activities
• Reduce rigidity and increase the flexibility of what nonprofits must submit for their applications in creative, egalitarian, and less burdensome ways.
• All funders right-size their application and report requirements relative to the grant amount.
• Shift from reports to conversations or other lower time-intensive means.
• Develop agreed-upon common questions for use across the philanthropy sector for general operating support grant applications.
• Explore the efficacy of using common applications for general operating support grants.
• Change site visits for compliance to goals of learning.
• Consider developing a central data repository for New Jersey nonprofits and funders, where applicants can submit and update basic information once a year, and funders can access the necessary information.
Outcomes
• 75% of funders begin to reduce the size of applications and reports relative to the size of the grant.
• 75% of funders shift from reports to conversations or other lower time-intensive means, like site visits geared to learning and relationship building.
• 50% of funders making general operating support grants accept creative, egalitarian, less burdensome applications including other funders proposals.
• Nonprofits have increased capacity to dedicate time to other activities and efforts.
How to Begin Doing Good Better on Reducing Burden
Learning opportunities
• For funders who do not right-size their applications, what are the barriers to reducing paperwork?
• Who is making the decisions about the application and reporting requirements, and how can they be reached to encourage change? How can we involve more board members of funders in this effort?
• For funders who require reports, determine what is “nice to have” vs. what is needed and used and consider eliminating the rest; what are expeditious ways to collect data including accepting other funders’ reports?
• Which funders who make multi-year grants require a full application for the first year and updates for subsequent years?
Pre-Work
• For funders who already report tailoring their applications, consider how to further simplify processes for grantees; share these practices with other colleagues in philanthropy.
• Learn how information is collected without burdening the applicant.
• Review and implement recommendations already provided by nonprofit networks and philanthropy-serving organizations for concrete examples such as centralized document repositories; allowing nonprofit partners to re-use other proposals and reports; holding check-in meetings in lieu of written reports; and other helpful practices.
• Seek promising practices of funders who use site visits as opportunities to build trust and understand the programs and organizations they support instead of as compliance reviews.
Notes:
See, for example, SMU DataArts (formerly the Cultural Data Project), https://culturaldata.org, a nationwide research and data repository for the arts and cultural community. DataArts serves as a collector and clearinghouse for a wide array of data, which funders can access instead of requiring nonprofits to provide it separately.
President Obama's Hurricane Sandy Task Force released this rebuilding strategy to serve as a model for communities across the nation facing greater risks from extreme weather and to continue helping the Sandy-affected region rebuild. The Rebuilding Strategy contains 69 policy recommendations, many of which have already been adopted, that will help homeowners stay in and repair their homes, strengthen small businesses and revitalize local economies and ensure entire communities are better able to withstand and recover from future storms.
Small BIPOC organizations and/or historically excluded/led
organizations have greater access to funding.
Affirmation: We must center the most marginalized, underfunded, and impactful organizations.
BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded1 leaders are the most proximate to the populations and communities that face the most pressing social issues and should be central to designing solutions and funded; yet they are often overlooked or ignored as real change-makers.
They are underinvested in by major funders and are often left to struggle on their own; and when they are funded, grants are small and often highly restricted.
Some funders have artificially high budget requirements, require collaboration with larger “more sophisticated” organizations, won’t fund fiscally sponsored groups, or emphasize leadership requirements that are increasingly out of date or exclude vital lived experience.
Community organizations are exploring innovative and egalitarian management structures, such as co-directorships, collectives, and collaboratives, that do not resemble the constructs of the past.
Leadership comes in all structures, sizes, and identities; funders must seek to recognize and fund those who are doing effective work and re-evaluate their views of accepted leadership patterns. For BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded leaders to succeed, we must provide flexible resources and professional development support while they are leading.
Activities
Below are activities your organization can engage in that will advance your equity focus
• Agree as a community of practice to a shared definition of BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded-led organizations to foster a common frame of reference to help guide this work.
• Create networking and referral opportunities for BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded leaders to expand their access to funding and opportunities similar to that of larger, mainstream groups.
• Invest in the development and pipeline of BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded leaders.
• Remove funding barriers for small BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded organizations that have traditionally been precluded from funding because of budget size, leadership structure, auditing requirements, and similar obstacles.
• Actively partner with BIPOC, grassroots, and historically excluded organizations to make funding decisions on issues closest to their communities.
• Provide significant, multi-year, general operating funding to organizations and movements led by BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded communities.
Short-term Outcomes
• Progress is tracked into addressing the barriers to funding BIPOC, grassroots, and historically excluded-led organizations in NJ.
• A greater number of BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded-led organizations are funded than before, by new and existing funders.
• Professional development and capacity building as requested by BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded leaders is funded.
Long-term Outcomes
• BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded leaders can access funding and opportunities similar to that of larger, mainstream groups.
• A greater percentage of support to organizations and movements led by BIPOC, grassroots, and historically excluded communities is provided as significant, multi-year, general operating funding. In this context, “significant” can refer to both the quantity, size or percentage of grants awarded by the funder in any given year.
How to Begin Doing Good Better on Equity
Learning opportunities
• Which criteria and practices are creating, perpetuating or exacerbating exclusion of BIPOC, grassroots, and or historically excluded-led organizations?
• For funders that exclude or limit funding to small organizations, why are these barriers in place? What biases or missed opportunities are resulting from these obstacles?
• When funders are actively prioritizing BIPOC, grassroots, and historically excluded -led organizations in their philanthropic partnerships, what definitions, outreach, and partnership strategies are being used? How has this evolved based on lessons learned?
Pre-Work
• Funders should become educated about how traditional ways of identifying grantees and other criteria often excludes BIPOC, grassroots, and/or historically excluded-led organizations.
• Actively seek and share ways to center, identify, fund, and partner with applicants or community-based partners to create solutions in all efforts.
• Identify forums or protocols for introductions, dialogue, and relationship-building between funding community and BIPOC, grassroots and/or historically excluded-led organizations to pave the way for ongoing or stronger partnerships.
The Newark Philanthropic Liaison is a unique partnership between the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers and the City of Newark, supported by several foundations. Read more about the Liaison’s work In these reports. Due to several transitions, there were no written reports between 2015 and 2022.
This guide was designed to help the state’s philanthropic community understand their ethical, legal, and fiduciary requirements and obligations.
Deepening Philanthropic and Nonprofit Partnerships in New Jersey
Doing Good Better, a partnership of the Council for New Jersey Grantmakers and the New Jersey Center for Nonprofits, is a community of funders and nonprofits taking action against the power imbalances and racial inequities in philanthropy, nonprofits and government. Accessible, equitable, and mutually accountable relationships are primary and indisputable building blocks for a stronger society and thriving communities. Our goal is to shift the culture of the New Jersey philanthropic and nonprofit ecosystem by encouraging funders, nonprofits, and government to create shared power rooted in collaboration, mutual trust, and respect.
Doing Good Better Goals: A Framework for Change
The Doing Good Better Steering Committee encourages funders to focus on and advocate for four changes that can make an immediate difference in addressing power dynamics between nonprofits and funders and maximizing nonprofit impact.
Why now?
For many years, but particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters, and the heightened outcry for racial equity and social justice, funders have been urged to embrace more flexibility and transparency in their grantmaking. Practices such as general operating support, simplified application and reporting procedures, multi-year funding and others have been shown to level the power imbalance, advance greater equity, strengthen partnerships between funders and their nonprofit partners, and thereby improve community impact.
Many grantmakers temporarily embraced flexible practices in the wake of Superstorm Sandy and during the height of the pandemic, and these structural changes empowered nonprofits to become more resilient and have a greater impact in their communities. But while some funders have retained the flexible practices, others have reinstated previous restrictions.
In New Jersey and across the country, there is a renewed urgency to NOT return to business as usual. It’s long past time.
Doing Good Better invites all of us to reflect on how power is distributed in our partnerships, learn from our peers, and make adjustments that position all community partners for transformative, equitable change in New Jersey.
How?
Guided and informed by 50+ advisors from New Jersey who represent a broad range of perspectives from nonprofits, philanthropy, and beyond, we are approaching this work through the lens of systems change – the recognition that transformative change can only occur after power structures have been addressed collectively. Specifically, Doing Good Better encourages funders to consider the power dynamics that underpin their policies, practices, and resource flows. To do this, we provide resources and a space for dialogue centered on changes in key practices and culture shifts.
Quick practice changes you can make now.
The road to systems change begins with changing practices that impede nonprofits’ pursuit of their missions, and implement practices that demonstrate respect for and trust in the expertise and experience of nonprofits and the communities they serve. Several key practices have consistently been shown to be particularly effective. Many of these have been requested by nonprofits for quite some time, and are reflected in the principles of Trust-Based Philanthropy and Community-Centric Fundraising, among others. Here are a few practice changes you can make now:
Type of Funding
● Give multiyear and unrestricted funding, especially for grantee partners with which you’ve had long term relationships.
Access to Funding
● Create alternative processes for organizations too small to submit audits to reduce barriers to obtaining grants.
● Set aside funding pools for BIPOC-led organizations that may not have access to traditional funding sources.
Simplifying the Process
● Simplify and streamline application and reporting processes.
● Eliminate annual requests for organizational information that does not change from year to year.
Learning
● Engage with the community through participatory grantmaking that aligns with the community’s goals.
● Open dialogues with nonprofits by soliciting and acting on feedback
How do we know?
We’ve asked the experts: nonprofits, foundations, and community members who are working directly in our community as well as peers from across the country who are eliminating power imbalances in their own communities.
● Feedback from over 50+ Advisors
● The Council of New Jersey Grantmakers survey
● The Center for New Jersey Nonprofit’s survey
● The Trust Based Philanthropy Project
● The Community-Centric Fundraising movement
● Thought leaders and advocates throughout the nonprofit community
● Case studies from across the US
These articles are curated from news sources, philanthropic-focused publications, philanthropy serving organizations, and other places found on the internet. We encourage philanthropic organizations to read, share, and use the strategies suggested in these articles for your own diversity, equity, and inclusion learning journey. If there are others that you feel we should include, please contact us.
Chronicle of Philanthropy: Philanthropy Pours More Money Into Advancing Economic Wealth of Latinos (10/13/2022)
ABC News: Two New Jersey towns illustrate the race gap in the COVID pandemic (5/13/2022)
Chronicle of Philanthropy: General Operating Support Is Vital to Advancing Equity, Strengthening Nonprofits, Say Leaders (4/18/2022)
MacArthur Foundation: Movement to End Philanthropy’s Complicity in Anti-Blackness (4/18/2022)
Chronicle of Philanthropy: Nearly 500 Foundation Leaders Unite to Push for More Support of Asian Americans (3/26/2021)
Chronicle of Philanthropy: As Violence Against Asian Americans Intensifies, the Moment for Philanthropy to Act Is Now (3/17/2021)
Chronicle of Philanthropy: How One Family Foundation is Evolving to Refocus on Racial Equity (3/16/2021)
HealthDay.com: Many Adults Do Not See Link Between Racism, Poorer Health (1/27/2021)
Stanford Social Innovation Review: How to Begin Considering a Gender Lens Investing Strategy (12/10/2020)
Nonprofit Quarterly: How to Welcome Native Leaders to the Philanthropic Sector (12/3/20)
Chronicle of Philanthropy: Opinion Piece: Diversity Mandates from Foundations Maki It Harder for Nonprofits to Do Their Jobs Well (12/2/2020)
Chronicle of Philanthropy: Invest in and Strengthen People of Color: A Corporate Grant Maker Explains How (11/17/2020)
Nonprofit Quarterly: White House Declares Ban on Federal Racial Equity Trainings (9/14/20)
Nonprofit Quarterly: White Supremacy: Call It By Name (9/14/2020)
Denver Post: How Donors Can Advance Racial Equity (9/14/2020)
ROI-NJ: NJ to recognize Juneteenth as official state holiday (9/11/2020)
Chronicle of Philanthropy: The 'Warping Effects' of Philanthropy (8/25/2020)
Chronicle of Philanthropy: Companies Lead Philanthropic Response to Calls for Racial Justice, but Will It Last? (8/25/2020)
Exponent Philanthropy: Moving Towards Racial Equity in Philanthropy: Introducing an Anti-Racist Intersectional Frame (8/25/2020)
Inside Philanthropy: “A Moment of Reckoning.” How Can Funders Support an Equitable and Inclusive Arts Sector? (7/16/2020)
Generocity: Uprising in Philadelphia: A to-do list for the next six months (7/9/2020)
Boston Globe: The Problem is White Supremacy (6/29/2020)
Inside Philanthropy: Amid Demands for Change, Here’s How Philanthropy Can Back Underfunded Black-Led Group (6/18/2020)
Nonprofit Quarterly: This Moment Shows Us Why Philanthropy Should Reinvent Itself by Gislaine Ngounou, of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation (6/17/2020)
Chronicle of Philanthropy: Who Holds Philanthropy Accountable for Racial Justice? by Lisa Pilar Cowan, vice president of Robert Sterling Clark Foundation (6/16/2020)
Creative New Jersey: Summary and resources from their statewide conversation on Racial Justice (6/10/2020)
Chronicle of Philanthropy: 64 Black Foundation Leaders Tell Philanthropy to Go Big in Response to Pandemic and Police Killings (6/10/2020)
Stanford Social Innovation Review: Mass Decarceration, COVID-19, and Justice in America by Deanna Van Buren co-founder of Designing Justice + Designing Spaces and F. Javier Torres-Campos, Thriving Cultures Program Director at Surdna Foundation (6/9/2020)
Communications Network: Crowdsourced Anti-Racism Resources and Tools
NonprofitAF.com: Privilege, power, and personal conflicts: The forces preventing change in nonprofit and philanthropy by Vu Le (6/8/2020)
Philanthropy Network Greater Philadelphia: Articles and Resources from the webinar: The Crisis of White Supremacy in America: What’s Philanthropy’s Role (6/4/2020)
Chronicle of Philanthropy: Dismantling Racism Might Require Philanthropy to Dismantle Itself by Lisa Pilar Cowan, vice president of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation (6/2/2020)
Chronicle of Philanthropy: Why All Grantmakers Should Seek to Fix Democracy by Suzette Brooks Masters, senior strategist at the Center for Inclusion and Belonging at the American Immigration Council (6/2/2020)
Southern Poverty Law Center: Authoritarian State or Inclusive Democracy? 21 Things We Can Do Right Now by Eric K. Ward, Senior Fellow (6/1/2020)
Nonprofit Quarterly: Dear Philanthropy: These Are the Fires of Anti-Black Racism by Will Cordery of Leverage Philanthropic Partners LLC & Astraea Lesbian Foundation for Justice (6/1/2020)
NonprofitAF.com: Have nonprofit and philanthropy become the "white moderate" that Dr. King warned us about? by Vu Le (6/1/2020)
Library Journal: Books on Anti-Racism (5/31/2020)
Stanford Social Innovation Review: Overcoming the Racial Bias in Philanthropic Funding by Cheryl Dorsey, Peter Kim, Cora Daniels, Lyell Sakaue, & Britt Savage (5/4/2020)
Stanford Social Innovation Review: For a More Equitable America, Understand Race and Racism as Actions We Do and Can Undo by MarYam Hamedani, Hazel Rose Markus & Jeanne Tsai (5/1/2020)
Jacobin Magazine: The Perils of Liberal Philanthropy by Karen Ferguson (11/2018)
Smithsonian Magazine: The 1968 Kerner Commisssion Got It Right, But Nobody Listened by Alice George (3/1/2018)
Continuum Chart on Becoming an Anti-Racist Multicultural Organization by Crossroads Ministry (2013)
The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture from Dismantling Racism: A Workbook for Social Change Groups (2001)
Resource Generation: Guidance for Giving to Black-led Organizations for Black Liberation (undated)
Prison Policy Initiative: Prison Gerrymandering Project how the Census Bureau counts people in prison (undated)