Is it any surprise there is a trust gap between philanthropy and community? Too often, donors come into communities thinking they have all the answers, or make tokenizing and extractive attempts at “listening” to community needs. Even well-intentioned community engagement falls prey to harmful practices when the power dynamics at play aren’t acknowledged or interrogated. A paradigm shift is needed to not only heal these harms, but also to bring transformative results.
We’re grateful for the opportunity to share learnings and recommendations for centering community with the Fund for Shared Insight in our article, “Why Philanthropy Needs a Community Bill of Rights.” In it, we explore how philanthropy can work differently to start to earn trust in their communities by using the Community Bill of Rights as a bridge.
Additional Resources:
These are a number of different case studies of different people that may be used for training purposes.
Marietta's story showcases how someone going through a traditional systems experience would have a drastically different experience than one going through an experience designed with wellbeing.
This resource describes how caseworkers at On the Rise applied wellbeing to support their constituents.