Shifting power: Who deserves credit for social impact?
Authored by: Ashley Sherwin, Giving Credit Co-founder
In 2010, I was young, eager, and a do-gooder fresh out of business school. Equipped with fancy new credentials, knowledge, and strategic frameworks, I made the life-changing decision to leap into the fundraising field. I know the first thing you are thinking is, “Seriously, Ashley? Why would you want to ask people for money, let alone make a career out of it?” We will save the long answer to this for another day.
For now, I was (and still am) intellectually curious about the dynamic between charitable resources and programmatic design. In my early career, I saw firsthand how an organization's business model could easily get misaligned from the program design. I vowed to ensure that I was part of the solution to fix this dynamic, starting my fixation on power dynamics.
In the United States, we have deeply entrenched structural and systemic inequities from poverty alleviation to climate change to racial disparities that the social sector is charged with solving. Nearly $500 billion is donated annually to fuel innovative, impactful solutions. These two forces combined have created a web of power structures between wealthy donors, nonprofit institutions, and the communities our sector aims to serve. We see this play out in countless ways:
Donors place restrictions on the use of grant funding
Donors inequitably distribute charitable resources, leaving behind BIPOC and women-led organizations
Nonprofits use deficit-based storytelling and language about constituents ‘served’
Nonprofits and donors do not adequately compensate program beneficiaries' involvement in fundraising, research, or storytelling efforts
Program beneficiaries are forced to hide their actual assets so they can be eligible for services
The list could go on and on (and I am sure you could add to it with me.) In those first few years as a fundraiser, I was put in countless compromising positions where I was just a part of the problem. It was not until I had gained some traction in the field that I felt comfortable beginning to combat this. I started to design intentional resourcing strategies to break down these barriers. I am joined and inspired by countless other social impact leaders who are doing the same.
Fast-forward 14 years and millions of dollars raised later, and I am still frustrated and fixated on the perverse power dynamics I have witnessed in the social sector. One of the most troublesome dynamics and least spoken about is who in the web of power takes credit for the social impact created.
Philanthropy takes credit for the lives saved, small businesses created, evictions avoided, etc. Nonprofits take the same credit but are forced to do so to raise critical funds. We have to stand out, be bold, and own our impact. The social sector's entangled power dynamics have given too much credit to philanthropy and institutions for social impact. When, in fact, they actually act as an enabler of social impact. More credit needs to go to the people and communities to whom we are at the service of.
During my first few weeks as co-founder of Giving Credit, I sat across from David in my kitchen when he asked, “How do we ensure outcomes are attributed in the right place in our work?” It was the right question to ask, and I knew we would derive a solution from our common values. We firmly believe that people and communities create social impact outcomes. They deserve most (if not all) of the credit. Nonprofits (Giving Credit included) and philanthropy are enablers to accelerate and foster social impact. We do not create the outcomes or deserve all the credit.
We recently put this core value into practice through a new user feature: Community Impact. When a user logs in to Giving Credit, the first thing on their homepage is an illustration of the community impact they have created. They can see the positive impact their lending and borrowing has had.
We aim to amplify that community finance among friends and families does indeed create a social impact. Low-income communities of color deserve the credit for this impact, and we are working to ensure they get this recognition by:
Protecting peer lenders from loan loss through loan guarantees
Providing the tax documents for peer-lenders to write off loan loss on federal income taxes
Creating a pathway to mainstream credit opportunities by reporting peer-lending activity to credit bureaus. (We are in the process of designing peer-lending credit reporting.)
You can certainly join us by becoming a Giving Credit partner and creating a loan loss recovery fund for your constituents. (I wouldn’t be a fundraiser if I didn't include this ask.)
But, solving this requires social impact leaders to be all in. I leave you with these questions:
How will you shift this dynamic for your organization? What will it take for you to position your nonprofit or philanthropic efforts as an enabler and give credit back to the community you serve?
