philanthropy

This week we were proud to host dozens of grantee partners from across the country to strengthen our collective fundraising skills and strategies. "Fundraising for the Front Lines" was a two-day training led by Marjorie Fine and Sheena Brown, hosted at the Ford Foundation offices in New York City. Fine brought her hard-won experience over a career of fundraising for grassroots organizing, especially during her tenure leading the North Star Fund.

At this year's annual Social Impact Exchange conference Schott Vice President Edgar Villanueva spoke on a panel with other philanthropic leaders to discuss how funders can help address the systemic problems at the root of so many of the challenges we face, from education to health to economic mobility.

Panelists included:

In a recent interview by Dylan Matthews at Vox, Schott Vice President of Programs and Advocacy Edgar Villanueva described how the racial wealth gap has translated to a similar gap in philanthropic giving: a bias in how that wealth is dispersed, which keeps control away from people of color, and minimizes donations to groups run by people of color for the benefit of communities of color.

Schott is very proud of our partnership with the Nellie Mae Education Foundation (NMEF) and our joint support for grassroots organizing as a critical strategy for ensuring all children have a fair and just opportunity to learn.

Since its founding the Schott Foundation has worked to help build a broad-based movement to ensure all children have an opportunity to learn. Importantly, a movement led by the grassroots leaders in communities of color who are most impacted by educational inequities and other barriers to opportunity. It’s not arms-length philanthropy, but close working partnerships with our grantees and allies that undergirds all our work.

You would be hard-pressed to pick up a newspaper, scroll through an online media platform, or check social media without being bombarded with stories on the U.S. college admissions scandal. It’s been fodder for daytime and late-night television, grist for comedic satire, and a source of anger and frustration.

Today, as a member of the Lumbee Tribe and a foundation official, I plan to join with people across the United States to observe the third annual National Day of Racial Healing. Started by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, this national day is designed to bring Americans together to demonstrate solidarity and work toward healing our racial divides. But what does it take to truly heal?

This week the New York Times profiled Schott Vice President Edgar Villanueva's new book Decolonizing Wealth and raised up his urgent call for a new direction in the philanthropic sector. As a public fund that supports funders in advancing social justice philanthropy, we at Schott are proud of Edgar and the deeply thoughtful dialogue he is sparking.