Last month’s theme was “generosity” and that’s stills on our minds in December when we are bombarded by pleas for money for countless good causes. This year might be the time to take a closer look at our charitable giving. In WBUR’s November 27 online Cognoscenti essay, Makeeba McCreary, Ed.D., president of the New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund (NCF) and Bob Giannino, Ansin President and CEO at United Way of Massachusetts Bay, call out striking inequities in non-profit giving.

They assert that a system has been built where “those who are closest to a community find it difficult to navigate the opaque world of philanthropy. It has left us with a profoundly inequitable nonprofit sector, one where Black and Latino nonprofit leaders currently receive only about 4% of philanthropic funding in the U.S., though they make up roughly 10% of nonprofit leadership nationwide, and more than a third of the top 20 racial equity grant recipients are organizations that were launched and driven by white business leaders.”

They suggest some guidelines for our own giving—institutional and personal—that will help remedy this situation. Read the article to learn more, and consider giving focused on Black and Latino-led organizations. 

Sandy Thompson for the Racial Justice Planning Group