Losing the "Privilege of Patience": Education Grantmaking and Equity Movements in 2020

• In Event: Education and Philanthropy SIG Paper Session

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis has magnified existing inequities. This moment, paired with protests stemming from the murder of George Floyd, has led some education-focused philanthropies to reckon anew with long-professed racial equity commitments. This interview-based study probes educational grantmakers’ learning to analyze how they make sense of foundations’ contributions to equity-oriented crises and social movements. From a social movements lens, we identify emergent themes stemming from how respondents connected their equity commitments to practice and ways these connections have begun to shift in the midst of crisis. This study draws implications from emergent themes instructive to possible futures in educational grantmaking; futures in which grantmakers reimagine their theories of change and power in response to 2020’s sociopolitical conditions

Authors

• Heather N. McCambly, University of Pittsburgh

• Krystal R. Villanosa, Northwestern University

• Claire Mackevicius, Northwestern University