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From “grant-marker” to “game-changer”: new funding philanthropic posture in community development approaches.

Thu, July 18, 4:30 to 6:00pm, TBA

Abstract

Since 2015 in Quebec (Canada), we’ve been witnessing the deployment of a new paradigm in philanthropic policies and programs to support community development, particularly with the Lucie and Andre Chagnon Fondation. Community development is an approach that can be defined as “a process of voluntary cooperation, mutual aid and social connexion construction between residents and institutions coming from local environment, and aiming at improving living conditions on the physical, social and economic levels” [translate from French] (Bourque et Favreau, 2003). Whereas philanthropic funders used to adopt a social investment posture (with demanding accountability and a top-down logic) (Savard et al., 2015), the new posture they have been adopting in recent years reflects their desire to be more involved in partnership relationships that increase the capacity of grantees (bottom-up, self-determination, reduced power differentials, etc.) (Fontan et al., 2018; Lefèvre et Khrovrenkov, 2017).

Through a multi-case study, the aim of this research is to understand how these new forms of philanthropic support in community development approaches can help communities to respond more effectively to their collective challenges, such as aging population, growing social inequalities (even more since COVID-19 pandemic) and so on. Near 130 interviews were conducted in 8 different community development approaches in Quebec, Canada. Preliminary results indicate that philanthropic grant-making foundations now play a major role in supporting community development initiatives, partially compensating for the decline in state resources in this area. The relationship of the philanthropic organizations with these initiatives is complex. A repositioning towards a closer relationship with their donees raises several issues. In particular, a few actors are raising concerns about the presence of funders at the working table, including philanthropic actors, and the conflicts of interest this could bring. For example, some actors might not feel comfortable speaking their minds for fear of being misperceived by funders. Despite this, there is a consensus that this new posture enables actors to work more confidently with each other. We explore the new roles and postures of philanthropic grant making foundations from the perspective of proximity to better understand how this new posture can increase communities’ capacity to act, while fostering fair, long-term partnership relationships with social actors in building structuring projects.

References

Bourque, D. et Favreau, L. (2003). Le développement des communautés et la santé publique au Québec. Service social, 50(1), 295-308. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.7202/011352ar

Fontan, J.-M., Hafsi, T., Klein, J.-L., Kouamé, S., Lefèvre, S., Lévesque, B. et Rochman, J. (2018). Trajectoire historique de la Fondation Lucie et André Chagnon. PhiLab - Université du Québec à Montréal. https://fondationchagnon.org/media/1640/grande-synthese-final-dah.pdf

Lefèvre, S. et Khrovrenkov, I. (2017). Regards croisés sur la classification des fondations: entre catégories formelles et constructions théoriques. Les fondations philanthropiques. De nouveaux acteurs politiques, 87-120.

Savard, S., Bourque, D. et Lachapelle, R. (2015). Third sector organizations in Québec and the new public action in community development. Canadian journal of nonprofit and social economy research, 6(2).

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