Privilege and belonging: two words that are top of mind for many social impact organizations right now, in the wake of global anti-racism demonstrations and the illumination of deep inequities by the pandemic and its aftershocks.

In order to build back better post-pandemic, the world of social impact needs to ask itself some deep questions about power, privilege and belonging, four speakers in a Future of Good digital conversation this week agreed. During the conversation that explored dismantling colonial roots to shedding toxic masculinity to becoming anti-racist organizations, Jess Tomlin, co-CEO of the Equality Fund, a Canadian fund backing women’s rights work globally, shared a quote by the author Arundhati Roy: The pandemic, Roy says, “is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”

The speakers shared four key ways the social impact world can imagine — and collectively bring to life — anti-racist, inclusive, and equitable organizations. 

Support and fund activist movements 

Jess Tomlin, co-CEO of the Equality Fund, a Canadian fund backing women’s rights work globally, said it’s time for funders to put money behind activist movements, and to be ready to commit to long-term funding for these movements. “What does it look like to back these courageous activists who have been at this work, who know the answers, and who have the agility to respond to some of the most harmful geopolitical realities globally? What does it mean to be able to say we will stand beside you for a decade or two decades or three decades, or however long it takes — because we know human rights movements ebb and flow?” Tomlin asked. “I’d like us to be imagining a reality where we are in it for the long game, because norms, attitudes, beliefs, cultures are big investments in people, and changing harmful traditions and behaviours does not happen overnight.” 

One specific movement the sector can support is the current iteration of Black Lives Matter, which has brought conversations about defunding police services and reinvesting in community-based, non-violent solutions to the mainstream. Social impact professionals should take note, the speakers agreed. “I want all of us to be in conversation with one another about the conditions that shape violence in our lives, about what interpersonal harm reduction practices might look like in relation to the complex communities that we work in and serve, and also how we can make transformative justice practices a part of our thoughts and actions each and every day,” said Dr. Rachel Zellars, an assistant professor in the Department of Social Justice and Community Studies at Saint Mary’s University.

Stop co-opting equity language 

The social impact world should also engage with reconciliation with Indigenous communities, the speakers said, though not necessarily in the way it has been engaging. 

“Reconciliation became a common word thanks to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which examined the residential school system here in Canada. So at the forefront were the survivors’ voices and their experiences,” said author and former CBC broadcaster Waubgeshig Rice. “But it’s been incorporated into the capitalist agenda, in that a lot of corporations use the buzzword or use the smallest efforts to make themselves look better, and in that way, people forget about the survivors altogether. It’s about ensuring that the original spirit and intent of a particular movement stays true to its core and it doesn’t get wrestled away from us.”

Panthea Lee, executive director of Reboot, agreed. “I’ve seen a lot of adoption or co-optation of language to signal progressivism, to signal wokeness, to signal reform,” she said. “I’m seeing a lot of conversation about decolonization without really reckoning with the history of colonization and decolonization… Without really grappling with what it means, it becomes another form of settler appropriation.” 

Shift power and accountability 

There’s much talk in the social impact world about co-creating solutions with marginalized communities, but a power imbalance still exists — particularly in the funding process, said Tomlin. At the Equality Fund, she said, “we aren’t the decision-makers about where money goes. There are grantee partners on the board, it’s a participatory-led process. In fact, we are at a point now where our grantees interview us because they want to know our politics and they want to know how complicated our money is and what it’s going to be like to be in relationship with us. I think that’s a sign that things are moving in the right direction, one small sign that that trust is built.” 

Tomlin said an important part of this shift of power involves changing who social impact organizations are accountable to: “How do we move from being accountable to funders and donors and stakeholders, and how do we shift our centre of accountability to those we are walking alongside?” 

To do this, “we should let go of our ego,” said Rice. “I think when we’re having these discussions about changing systems and structures and confronting power, the people at the top are the ones who become the most uncomfortable about it and the most resistant to change… As Anishinabe people, humility is one of our greatest values. We work for the greater good before we work for ourselves.”

Recognize the failure of old models 

Each of the speakers highlighted how old models of social impact work have failed the people they’ve been designed to help. “I’m less interested in ever in working to reform certain big structures and big institutions, and deeply, deeply committed to what possibilities reckoning with failure provides in this current moment,” said Zellars. She pointed again to the movement to defund and abolish police forces as a blueprint for recognizing the failure of a deeply entrenched institution, and a need to imagine and create new alternatives. 

A common model of social impact work is co-creation, but Lee said this model has largely failed. “‘Co’ means joint. It means mutual. It means common. But the way that power has been wrestled away from oppressed communities has never been joint or mutual or common,” she said. If organizations purport to be for co-creation, they should “be prepared to show up and do the work around what that actually means.”

Reject the scarcity mindset 

The speakers agreed that during this time of economic struggle, the social impact world should not give in to the idea of scarcity — that organizations or even individuals in the sector should focus on the opportunities to enact meaningful change post-pandemic, rather than the constraints created by the pandemic itself. 

For instance, in mid-March, Zellars set up a mutual aid fund to provide stipends for those impacted by the pandemic. “After the death of George Floyd, that mutual aid fund grew from $10 or $20,000 to $300,000,” she said. While she felt a deep sadness about the conditions that created this urgency, it also demonstrated that there was an abundance of support and care in her community. “We have to be really mindful of the powerful lie that scarcity introduces into us, into our relationships with people, the lateral violence that drives in our workspaces are organizing spaces. We’re in a moment where we owe the creation of new care models for people. And at the same time attending to that powerful lie that scarcity brings into us and into our communities.”

Tomlin agreed. “I’m really seeing a divide between those who see the world through scarcity and those who see it through abundance,” she said. “What is it going to take to edge out the radical ambition side of this moment? I think that’s where we’re trying to go.”

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