Qiana Thomason, President and CEO, Health Forward Foundation; Board Chair, Grantmakers In Health
In a time of intensive action to dismantle policies and practices that protect the well-being of all Americans, where chaos is the principal strategy to overthrow the will of and care for the American people, philanthropy must remain rooted in what is legally and morally right.
The primary purpose of a representative democracy is to support and protect the well-being of its citizens. Our founding documents make clear that a principal aim of the Constitution is to “establish justice.” Further, the Declaration of Independence espouses “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” are unalienable rights achieved through a government that derives its “just powers from the consent of the governed.” The 14th Amendment goes on to provide a guarantee of equal protection under the law to all citizens. To remind us of these promises, “equal justice under law” is carved above the entrance to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Before we know the alphabet, we are taught the American Pledge of Allegiance, which states that “liberty and justice [is] for all.” This promise of America, no matter how aspirational, is indelibly etched in our minds and our hope for the possibilities for ourselves and our families.
It is against these very foundational principles of our country that we have run astray. Diversity of people and thought (which America has long possessed), equity (something that is fair and just), and inclusion (integrating all people and groups in activities, organizations, or political processes) are unequivocal attributes of justice. These are the core values upon which America was founded.
Yet, the evidence is clear. Health outcomes, life expectancy, and general well-being are not and have never been equal, fair, or just for all Americans. Health outcomes are stratified by two key factors: race and financial health. This is largely due to a long history of social and economic policy decisions and harmful narratives which perpetuate such policies.
As champions of America’s espoused values, philanthropy must remain resolute in our work towards justice. Although the attacks we are experiencing today may tempt us to bow to unchecked power, paraphrasing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we must ensure that the arc of philanthropy’s moral universe bends towards justice.
Amid an existential crisis fueled by greed, power, and deepening polarization, philanthropy’s commitment to funding and advocating for systems change that advances health, justice, and financial well-being is more essential than ever.
Today, U.S. racial and ethnic terror is being reanimated through unlawful anti-DEI and anti-immigration orders, legislation, and consequential narratives. Action to recolonize American prosperity is rapidly unfolding as economic erosion of our middle class is effectuated through tariffs, unlawful orders, and plans to mangle the Department of Education. Attempts to cease federal grants and aid committed to states and nonprofits for vital health and human services and looming cuts to Medicaid and SNAP imperil Americans already living close to and beyond the margins.
USDA grant freezes endanger farmers’ financial stability, compounding existing workforce challenges that stem from orders related to immigration. Mass layoffs of government workers who buttress the middle class and care for our veterans and our nation’s health are occurring without analysis of the implications to government efficiency or efficacy. Nonprofits that exist to support these organizations and individuals are being intimidated and silenced as the tide has shifted from supporting all Americans to a privileged few. All the while, the politics of division, turning people against each other, and sowing fear and lies about scarcity do nothing to improve well-being for anyone.
Amid this downward spiral inflicted upon the American people, we the people of these United States must hold fast to the self-proclaimed American value of justice. Women suffragists, including Black women who stood to gain no voting rights, fought together for the 19th Amendment, giving women the right to vote. Black citizens, including courageous teenage freedom riders joined by people of diverse identities banded together while enduring intense racial terror toward the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Americans paid inadequate wages and made to labor in poor working conditions successfully advocated for worker’s rights and collective bargaining in the historic U.S. labor movement.
This climate of multi-level resistance to justice may be long and persistent. Yet, history instructs the pendulum will swing back once again. But not without intentional and coordinated multi-sector strategies to increase citizen power, recast narrative power, and build economic power.
- Citizen power: There is a cross-country correlation between democracy and the health and well-being of citizens. In America, there are vast disparities in voter registration and turnout between identity-based and geographic groups. As a sector, we are past the time to invest strategic, patient, and longitudinal capital in nonpartisan policy change, movement work, voter registration, and get out the vote initiatives led by multi-identity and cross-sector coalitions.
- Narrative power: Narratives are consequential—they shape beliefs, policies, ballot box decisions, and resource allocation. We must reclaim narrative power rooted in truth and evidence around identity-based matters of justice and the kitchen table policy issues which shape all Americans’ lives and life outcomes. We must value and deepen our partnerships with responsible journalism to combat misinformation, misperceptions, and reshape truthful framing around inequality, health equity, DEI, and the rich contributions of all people in America. We must work to change the temperature of polarizing conversations, leveraging paradigms of abundance, and rejecting notions of scarcity and zero-sum game rhetoric which creates more harm.
- Economic power: America has the tools needed to address economic inequality and injustice. Philanthropy must wake up to the reality that downstream charity-based or programmatic funding, although necessary, is woefully insufficient for the outcomes we seek and the mandate imposed upon us by this moment in time. More philanthropic investments must center economic well-being for those who have faced and continue to face economic barriers by employing our full toolkit of permissible policy lobbying and/or advocacy to effectuate change. Bold upstream investments—such as baby bonds, guaranteed income, affordable housing and home ownership, workforce development and entrepreneurship, and a myriad of tax, education, and labor policies—in pathways and policies are required.
We cannot and should not do this alone. All sectors are called “in”—public, private, philanthropic, and faith communities—to act in unity to support the sustainability and effectiveness of justice-centered work that amplifies the power of communities, however we choose to describe it, and the well-being of the people forging it.
Uniquely, philanthropy is untethered to the government, so we must stand in the gap caused by fear and intimidation from unlawful proclamations and be assured of the legitimacy and lawfulness of our work and the work of our nonprofit partners. We must draw courage, strategy, and strength from our forerunners who secured the rights we are fighting to protect with significantly less support and resources. We must remain steadfast in the progress we have made collectively to be the country we say we are. We must stand firm in the work and the language of justice, in all its forms. This is our American birthright and moral obligation. And for this, we must remain encouraged.