New AgentsC and Imagine Canada study reveals significant inclusion barriers for Black and Indigenous CSR professionals

This independent journalism ​​is made possible by the Future of Good editorial fellowship covering inclusion and anti-racism in the social impact world, supported by the World Education Services (WES) Mariam Assefa Fund. See our editorial ethics and standards here.

“For almost 25 years of my career, I had been in this environment where as a fundraiser I was asking mostly white, female middle-aged, middle-class people to invest in the social causes that are represented by people in my community,” said Olumide Akerewusi, a fundraiser and executive director of a non-profit consulting firm, AgentsC.

“You can experience [working in these white spaces], and you carry that thing, not knowing that a handful of people or more experience it too,” he said. “But there’s no research to show these experiences.” 

That’s why when his firm published a study, From the Mind to the Heart: Advancing Equity In Corporate Social Investment with non-profit advocacy organization Imagine Canada, he felt “vindicated and validated.” 

The first of its kind in Canada, the study analyzed the influence of justice, access, inclusion, diversity, and equity (JAIDE) within the corporate social responsibility (CSR) sector. 

Through conducting surveys, interviews with racialized people in the CSR sector and providing recommendations to those in the CSR sector, one of the biggest takeaways from the research was this: In spite of the equity, diversity and inclusion training that most of corporate Canada reported doing, it’s often middle-aged white women who were making the social impact funding decisions. Moreover, only one quarter of Black professionals in the CSR field reported having decision-making responsibilities — “in contrast to 96 per cent of white respondents.”  

There’s a gap in years of experience between white practitioners and racialized practitioners in the CSR too. 88 per cent of Black respondents in the survey reported having no community investment education or training, while 50 per cent of white respondents reported having such training. 

Seventy-three per cent of the respondents in the study also mentioned decolonizing the wealth that their companies, if given the opportunity, could help enforce JAIDE. Some of the CSR practitioners, who identified either as Black or South Asian-Muslim indicated that decolonization of wealth can come in different forms that the companies they work for are not willing to discuss. 

“I think about decolonization, reparations and giving land back. That’s ultimately what has to happen,” said one respondent in the study. “Yet have we given land back? No, we have not. And even suggesting that to corporations — that small donations of land could be handed back — is a no-go zone, even for multi-billion dollar companies who regularly champion their commitment to Reconciliation.”

To top it off, it’s Black and Indigenous-led non-profits that report being significantly underfunded by this CSR sector. 

“A lot of times there are power dynamics that we don’t speak of or acknowledge,” says Germaine Catchpole, a freelancing fundraising consultant who is Anishinaabe Kwe from Lac Seul First Nation in Treaty 3 territory. She says that often having to explain the importance of funding for Indigenous communities who desperately need the funding to a CSR sector with a lot of power can be traumatizing. 

Executive Director of Qqs Project Society ‘Cúagilákv, who also goes by Jess H̓áust̓i, has the same sentiments. “I think a lot of folks [who have the funds] don’t really think about the norms in funding that are incredibly harmful,” ‘Cúagilákv, who was also an advisor to philanthropic groups in the past, said.  

Some of the “norms” that ‘Cúagilákv mentioned are assuming that people who need the funding know how to use the digital portals provided to apply for the funding, the onerous level of recording where, when and how these groups will use the funding, and the overall lack of trust from the funders. 

“There are so many arbitrary and artificial barriers and expectations that are for the [company’s] comfort which they are not questioning. And it’s really draining,” they said.

One of the reasons that there are these reported gaps within the CSR sector is due to companies not going beyond their equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) training, the study shows. 

“The training was being done and received, the good inventions are there,” Akerewusi said about the study’s findings. “But in practice, the teams were not highly diverse.” 

To go beyond the EDI training, one of the recommendations published in the study was to listen to, include, and diversify the people who have the funding decision-making. This means including people from racialized backgrounds, different age groups, those from the 2SLGBTQ+ community and those who have different religious affiliations.  

“They feel a closer relationship between the work that they do and their communities that are being funded.” Akerewusi said. “The more diverse corporate community [funding] can be as a profession, the greater impact we are going to have in communities when we invest in them.”

Akerewusi also says that incorporating diverse voices can lead to decolonized grant making, which better serves the communities who need the CSR sector’s funding. These can range from participatory grant making, community centric philanthropy, trust-based philanthropy and other democratic forms of philanthropy, which he believes “challenge the donor-recipient power dynamic and promote forms of collective decision-making about how, how much, and where to invest dollars in our communities.” 

CSR practitioners are not the only people in the CSR sector who need to fully understand and enforce these diverse, decolonized grant making practices in order to give back to communities who need funding, the study suggests. The push to enforce these practices needs to begin from the topmost leadership in the companies.  

“The executives who are in charge of these organizations can have little to no understanding of what corporate community impact really is and the principles that true community impact should be based on,” Akerewusi said, which is why he finds it important that they should be knowledgeable of these practices. 

While Akeresuwi finds that the study revealed a lot about social impact funding within the CSR sector, he believes that more research needs to be done.

“I am mindful that this recent report really just touches the surface of some of the first person narratives and important perspectives that everybody in Canada needs to know about, especially corporate executives,” he says. 

Tell us this made you smarter | Contact us | Report error