Building the Capacity of Social Movements

Six years ago, the trustees of the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund decided the time was right to support two important social movements in this country—the struggles for immigrant rights and for gay and lesbian rights. Committed to a vision of a just and caring society, we saw in our own backyard how immigrants and gays and lesbians still face enormous obstacles in their efforts to live, work and raise their families with dignity. We identified immigration reform and the freedom to marry for gays and lesbians as two objectives that can only be achieved through the work of strong social movements. To that end, we are striving to encourage others to join us in our efforts to build the capacity of social movements.

Both the immigrant rights and gay and lesbian rights movements have made enormous progress in the last few years. Only a decade ago, few would have dreamed that gay marriage and civil unions would become legal rights in a growing number of countries and U.S. states. In the area of immigrant rights, last year lawmakers in the Capitol debated a comprehensive reform bill that would have afforded legal status to 12 million undocumented immigrants.

While there has been progress, each of these movements has also experienced major setbacks and strong backlash from conservative forces. The issues of gay marriage and immigrant rights are the focus of heated, often nasty debates at the local, state and national levels. This see-sawing of wins and losses has been frustrating and at times demoralizing —and yet it is all part of the rhythm of progressive history in the making.

In fact, the setbacks of the past year have compelled movement leaders to step back, reflect and come together with a more robust game plan and with new strategies to build political power. Lead organizations in both movements are increasing their capacity to organize, educate, collaborate on a national scale and use the media to get their messages out.

Roles for Grantmakers

The question for grantmakers, then, is how best to support these movements (and others) as they work to strengthen their capacity to achieve real and lasting change. As we have reflected on this question at the Haas, Jr. Fund, we have begun to see a new set of roles for philanthropy in movement building. Grantmakers can be:

1. Investors in organizational capacity and leadership
2. Conveners of otherwise disparate elements and
3. Resource brokers and fundraisers

I. Investors in organizational capacity and leadership
Movement organizations need to be strong partners in new ways, able to see their particular roles and contributions as part of the ecology of a network of organizations. Grantmakers can help make this happen by supporting key players in a movement and building their capacity to succeed both in their own organizations and as part of the bigger network.

This calls for what we’ve begun to call “generous” leadership. Generous leadership means sharing work plans with colleagues, sharing leadership in the movement, and even sharing major donors.

How can foundations help nurture this kind of leadership? One answer is by supporting the development of second-tier leaders in organizations and by encouraging boards to understand the important external leadership role that nonprofit executives can play.

In the current nonprofit culture, organizations are very executive director-centric. One of the many problems with the ED-does-it-all approach is that it prevents that person from providing any kind of movement leadership. A much better method is a team approach to running nonprofits in which second-tier leaders assume more of the management responsibilities. This frees up the executive’s time so he or she can provide movement leadership.

The Haas, Jr. Fund learned how important it was to support the development of second-tier leaders as we implemented our Flexible Leadership Awards program. Launched in 2005, the program awards selected grantees up to $300,000 over three years specifically for building team leadership and bench strength. What we’ve seen with this work is that organizations are able to build a culture of generous leadership and play a more active role in larger social movements because they have strong second-tier leaders and have embraced a team approach to management.

II. Conveners of otherwise disparate elements
Foundations are often in the enviable position of being able to see the big picture in a movement. Many of the nonprofits we fund have such limited people and other resources that they can only focus on their specific activities. But with a larger view comes responsibility: we need to help convene organizations and asssist them to develop joint strategies based on comprehensive analysis. In this way, nonprofits are able to build a stronger movement and enhance the capacity of their networks to make social change happen. For example:

• In the early period of a movement, foundations can help build trust in the network and promote joint visioning. Among the keys to success are: letting things evolve organically and authentically instead of forcing an agenda or partnership on the participants; and suspending the need to articulate clear outcomes at the beginning.
• In the more mature period of a movement, foundations can help map the roles and capacities needed to win. We can support policy and power analysis, strategic communications, litigation and other proven strategies. We can help participants assess the movement’s strengths and weaknesses and identify niches or special contributions that organizations can make in order to build the movement and win.
• Grantmakers also can connect the dots between 501(c)3 public education efforts and 501(c)4 capacity to take on legislation and ballot initiatives directly. This requires the help of individual donors since foundations are not able to support lobbying, although foundations are able to legally support a lot of advocacy, organizing, public education and litigation.
• Finally, foundations can convene the players in separate movements to share lessons and to broaden the base of allies—whether it is the immigrant rights, worker rights or environmental justice movements.

After the gay and lesbian movement suffered some bruising losses in 2004, grantmakers made it possible for movement leaders to come together to craft a long term, 25-year framework for winning marriage equality coast-to-coast. A similar process occurred in 2007 after comprehensive immigration reform lost on Capitol Hill. Movement leaders began to craft a plan for the next five to seven years. With a common game plan, partners could better align their efforts and their resources, and grantmakers could see how the different pieces of the puzzle fit together and could invest accordingly.

III. Resource brokers and fundraisers
Grantmakers also can support movements by leveraging connections to individuals of wealth and to other foundations. The goal should be to provide other funders with easy entry by creating a conceptual framework for investment and joint mechanisms that enable grantmakers to pool their resources in effective and efficient ways. For example:

• The Ford Foundation initiated the Four Freedoms Fund—a collaborative grantmaking vehicle that provides grants and capacity building and strategic communication support to promote the civic integration and rights of immigrants.
• The Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund helped to create and fundraise for the Freedom to Marry Collaborative, an intermediary that provides substantial funds to support movement-building.
• Gill Foundation’s annual Outgiving Conference helps motivate and educate individual donors to invest in gay and lesbian anchor groups.

Grantmakers regularly ask nonprofit organizations to behave differently and to be “generous” in their work. It’s time we followed our own advice. How can grantmakers be “generous”? We can act more deliberately to bring other partners and other funders into the work we are doing to build movements. We need to resist the temptation to “own and brand” our work—what’s far more important is ensuring that the movements we support have the capacity to achieve their goals

Sylvia M. Yee, Ph.D.
Vice President of Programs