Last week, my colleagues Lori Bezahler and Glenn Harris crafted a very thoughtful and substantive piece in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, “MacKenzie Scott’s Gifts Are Game Changers for Racial-Justice Groups. But Now We Need to Do More.”

They are right in highlighting the fact that for decades, nameless and faceless people have been sustaining democratic practices and advancing racial justice by organizing in communities and states across our country. From a return-on-investment point of view, these organizations like the Alliance for Quality Education in New York, Education Justice Alliance in North Carolina, ARISE in Providence, Rhode Island, Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children and Boston Education Justice Alliance consistently do more with less and produce results.

Yet, they remain grossly underfunded. As the Schott Foundation detailed in our #JusticeIsTheFoundation data project, only 0.8% of all K-12 philanthropic dollars are invested in racial justice in education. Lori and Glenn are absolutely right — it matters how we as a philanthropic sector resource these organizations.

Three years ago, Schott Foundation identified the need to shift even more power and resources to these organizations. This became a central component of a new strategic plan and work. For those considering their practice and how to shift power, there are two resource models from our journey to explore.

In 2020, we launched the Loving Communities Response Fund for Racial Justice, a participatory grantmaking fund where our grassroots grantee partners make decisions on where, and to which organizations, to target the funds. This shifts power to those closest to the challenge, who have the know-how to target resources to meet local needs and find solutions.

In 2021, we established the Racial Justice in Education Endowment Fund with the goal of raising $30 million to build endowments and provide endowment management support for three BIPOC-led national education justice alliances that resource and support a host of local grassroots partners. This is another power-shifting resourcing initiative.

Today, our foundation is the thankful recipient of a significant investment from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. The investment is helping Schott to increase grants to grassroots partners, launch the Racial Justice in Education Endowment Collaborative Fund and EndowNow — a campaign to encourage our philanthropic partners to join the movement to endow BIPOC-led organizations. These are the grassroots partners like those in Schott’s Opportunity to Learn Network which spans 32 states, 100 communities, and 120,000 youth and parent advocates.

Philanthropy didn’t do it yesterday. We can’t wait to do it tomorrow. We need to shift the resources and we must move to Endow Now.