Answering the Call (for Proposals): Moving Toward Justice in Postsecondary Philanthropy

In Short

• As postsecondary grantmaking foundations make sense of recent sociopolitical crises, including inequities exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic; attention to the Movement for Black Lives following the summer 2020 uprisings; and more openly racialized politics, they have been catalyzed to reconsider their racial equity commitments.

• Grantmakers are expanding beyond their historically white-dominated networks for knowledge and expertise on where to channel their influence toward transforming postsecondary education.

• These grantmakers are also reflecting on avenues to shift their grant dollars to funnel more funds to BIPOC-led and community-embedded recipient organizations.

• Without internal and external accountability to harness lessons of the last 2 years, grantmakers (and their grantees) risk returning to status quo practices that effectively entrench racialized hierarchies.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Heather McCambly

Heather McCambly is an Assistant Professor of critical higher education policy at the University of Pittsburgh. Her work focuses on the role of funders and funding agencies in shaping, or not, more racially just futures in postsecondary education.

Claire Mackevicius,

Claire Mackevicius thinks about how power and policy influence hidden sources of funds, especially in educational spaces. She also considers pathways toward more equitable resource distribution.

Krystal Villanosa

Krystal Villanosa is a learning scientist who examines the consequences and material impacts of practitioners’ beliefs and attitudes about racial equity on how they design interventions to remediate educational inequality.