Community EngagementRacial Equity

What does it take to transform philanthropy? Dr. Alandra Washington has ideas.

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“It’s about becoming more agile in how we do our business, implementing responsive grantmaking, and adapting to the changes for our grantees and communities. We’re not perfect, we’re still learning, and we’re still growing and developing.”

In May 2022, Alandra Washington, Ph.D., vice president for transformation and organizational effectiveness at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, joined Diallo Brooks, senior vice president of programs and advocacy for the Schott Foundation, for an interview about the future of racial justice and intersectionality within philanthropy. 

Washington and Brooks shared steps that philanthropic practitioners can take to move the sector forward and uproot the status quo.

“Our CEO, La June Montgomery Tabron, speaks about our mission as unfinished work and unfinished business,” noted Washington. “It’s a mission that seeks to challenge and dismantle racism in all its forms, support racial healing, identify and address historic oppressions and then remove the present-day barriers that keep us from equitable opportunity and access.” 

“We talk about this work as being inside-out: we had to focus first on ourselves before we could actually think about taking this work out to the community, grantees and other partners.”

Read the full interview here. 

“If we really want to see children thrive, we have to understand ways to support communities as places for equitable opportunity and access.”

The conversation between Washington and Brooks was included in the first issue of Philos, the Schott Foundation’s quarterly digital journal for those in philanthropy working to shift the sector toward justice and equity. In addition to the interview with Washington, the issue included an exclusive preview of new racial justice funding data and a detailed brief on how funders are rethinking endowments for grantees. Sign up to receive Philos in your inbox.

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