Social Justice Philanthropy and U.S. Political Traditions
Remarks by Susan V. Berresford at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Washington, DC June 19, 2003
It is a pleasure to be at the Wilson Center this morning with my friend Lee Hamilton. I have always admired Lee's record of public service and his principled concern with public affairs here and around the world. I also find very appealing the notion of the Wilson Center as a "living memorialquot; to Woodrow Wilson, bringing together the worlds of ideas and of public affairs. This seems an especially appropriate place to discuss the work of a foundation.
I would like to begin by giving you a little background on the Foundation, the range of its current work, and then talk at greater length about Ford's role as a promoter and provider of Social Justice Philanthropy. This sort of philanthropy may be endangered and at risk, so I hope you will think about it with me.
The Ford Foundation began in 1936 as a local Michigan foundation. It was created by Henry Ford, with an open-ended charter instructing the trustees to use its funds "all for the public welfarequot; - nothing more detailed than that. By 1947, the Foundation's assets had grown enormously and the world had changed significantly, prompting the Ford family to chart a new course for the institution.
With the help of an expert task force, the family decided the Foundation would pursue a national and international agenda. They directed the Foundation to work in five areas: world peace, freedom and democracy; economic well being and opportunity for all; education to achieve intellectual, civic and spiritual potential; and the development of knowledge about human conduct. They also decided that the Foundation could change priorities as times and conditions changed. These decisions, announced by the Ford family in 1950, marked out a course we still follow.
The Foundation no longer has formal ties with the Ford Motor Company or Ford family. It is now governed by an independent board of trustees; accomplished individuals from a wide variety of backgrounds and nations. Our headquarters are in New York City. Our 13 offices around the world make grants and loans to organizations, and sometimes we make grants to individuals. Over the past half-century, Ford has provided more than $12 billion for charitable activity.
Given the complexity and breadth of problems the Foundation addresses, even $12 billion represents but a fraction of the resources needed. That is why we often work in partnership with a variety of governmental institutions, private businesses and nonprofit organizations, all of which have their own resources to bring to the table. It is also why we support research and development using funds to test new ideas and help bring them to scale to solve problems.
As you probably know, Ford supports a broad range of reform and institution building programs related to poverty, government, education, media, and cultural and arts organizations. Today I would like to focus on just one dimension of our work, social justice philanthropy. By that I mean giving that supports people struggling against disadvantage, inequality and unfairness. It is philanthropy that aids disadvantaged people by giving them a way to improve their own lives. This approach reflects the personal philosophy of Henry Ford, who distrusted handouts, saying, "The best way to be kind to people is to help them help themselves.quot; This approach drives us to try to address root causes of problems.
But addressing root causes often means making new kinds of arrangements in public policies, community and power relationships. It means changing conditions to which people have become accustomed. It is different from traditional charity -feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless - which is important in itself and justly recognized as such. Social Justice Philanthropy requires risk-taking, experimentation, managerial oversight, patience, long-term commitment and a thick skin. Being a social justice philanthropist or activist isn't always comfortable or easy.
Let me give you a few examples of the Ford Foundation's social justice programs, covering a continuum from work that is fairly easily accepted to programs that occasionally stir controversy. I hope this will give you a sense of the challenges and rewards of our work, and perhaps provoke a good discussion about how to expand and protect this sort of giving.
Poverty and inequality constitute two of the greatest challenges nations must address. Most antipoverty strategies focus on income - how to help people earn more, and Ford does some of that. But Ford has emphasized support of pioneers who take an assets approach to poverty and inequality. A large proportion of our grantees try to help low income people obtain assets like homes and savings accounts and to hold on to them so they can pass the assets to the next generation.
For example, in the U.S., grantees are testing the usefulness of Individual Development Accounts, or IDAs. These are savings accounts into which a low-income person makes regular deposits that are matched one to one or better and kept in the account for several years. Ultimately, the savings can be withdrawn to pay for education, a house, a business or some other asset.
The IDA idea was hatched by Michael Sherraden, a professor at Washington University in St Louis. It has obvious appeal. His notion was that frugal low-income families should not be prohibited by welfare rules from accumulating savings. Rather, they should have a way to build assets just as middle-class families do with the mortgage deduction and other pretax savings our laws allow. He believed that savings would reinforce low income people's confidence that they could improve their own lives. Savings would prompt people to make good decisions about their futures. If those inclinations to save could be reinforced by large scale national policy, like 401(k) and IRA policy, and if savings generate positive behaviors, we might really make a difference in intergenerational poverty.
Ford and a few other donors have supported a large IDA research and demonstration program. It is finding out who saves, how the savings are used, and whether such savings make a difference in people's lives and in poverty reduction. After about four years, we have some positive findings: very poor people can save; changes in consumption patterns are the most frequent source of savings; match rates, direct deposit and financial education influence savings rates; and housing purchase is the most common use of savings. More than 30 states now have IDAs in their welfare reform programs.
Now Ford and Sherraden are trying to find a way to make the program work on a cost effective basis and large scale across the country. We are also trying to incubate a Kids IDA program that might establish savings accounts for all U.S. children at birth. Savings in them could be supplemented with matching funds at milestones such as elementary and high school graduation.
The IDA asset-building program illustrates Ford's research and development funding role. By helping to give the idea traction and supporting research to determine its efficacy, social justice philanthropy has had an impact on public policy in the United States and, amazingly, also in Great Britain. The Senate, by overwhelming bipartisan margins, has now passed the CARE Act authorizing $450 million to create 300,000 IDAs for low-income families and tax credits for financial institutions that contribute matching funds. And Great Britain has leapt ahead of us and created a Child Trust Fund based on the U.S. experience with IDAs. It will provide a government endowment for each child, with provision for matching contributions, available for use when the child turns 18. A U.K. government spokesperson credited IDA pilot programs in the United States with the swift adoption of Britain's Child Trust Fund, calling it "the missing pillar in our vision of tackling child poverty.quot;
Another Ford asset-building social justice program tests whether people with very low incomes whose credit scores bar them from bank borrowing, and thus home ownership, can own a home and keep up with mortgage payments. At the heart of the program is an idea tested by the Center for Community Self-Help in North Carolina. It found that not all bad credit scores were alike and that a good number of "bad credit risksquot; were faithful workers and bill payers. Having figured out how to make "safequot; loans to these formerly "badquot; credit risks in North Carolina, the Center came to Ford to try it nationally with Fannie Mae and a coalition of banks across the U.S.
Our findings so far are heartening. The demonstration has made loans to significantly more black, low-income and female- headed households than Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac reach in their special outreach programs. For example, our demonstration has 26.1 percent low-income Black borrowers as compared with Fannie's 3.5 percent and Freddie's 3.2 percent. Less than 1 percent of the loans have ended up in foreclosure, with overall dollar losses less than 1 percent. We have five more years to go on the demonstration, so there is much yet to see. But these results suggest that asset building programs may be able to reach lower down on the income scale than national and banking policy have taken into account.
I don't want to give the impression that our asset-building social justice programs come at the expense of more traditional income-related strategies to combat poverty. Ford actively supports grantees trying to address problems of the working poor -- people in low wage, low value jobs. We have several experiments underway. Two grantees are experimenting with new ways to create health care insurance for part-time and contract workers. Another explores ways to make public benefits such as Food Stamps, Medicaid and the Earned Income Tax Credit available in one place with one application system, easily accessible at the work place. And we also support promising experiments with lifelong learning accounts (LILAs) that help workers upgrade skills as they move through their careers.
These grant programs that break new ground in asset development and improvements to low wage work are relatively uncontroversial. All of the programs give incentives to struggling working people to invest further in themselves and their families' well-being. They build on traditional American values and practices. They open opportunities for the working poor to obtain benefits that more advantaged families now have and rely on.
These are the easy cases. So, let me now talk about a second example of social justice philanthropy. This is one that appears non-controversial, but that raises difficult social justice and public policy issues. It stems from the relief and recovery efforts after the September 11th terrorist attacks.
Ford, along with other philanthropies and individuals, gave money for post 9/11 relief and recovery. Most of what donors supported was effective and appreciated by the public. But a Ford-supported evaluation of the post-attack response highlighted serious remaining issues that must be resolved before another terrible event occurs. What are the distinct responsibilities of government, philanthropy, employers, insurance systems and individuals in the aftermath of terrorism? What permanent coordination mechanisms should be created to link government and philanthropic institutions, thus ensuring rapid, efficient response for victims of terrorist attacks? What principles should guide financial awards to victims of terrorism and their families? Should awards be taxed? And how should services treat the eligibility of legal and illegal immigrant victims? These issues require complex trade-offs and judgments. They bear on social justice themes of human suffering, inequality and fairness.
These questions need to be explored before another disaster occurs. No one likes to think about the unthinkable, but if we learned anything from September 11th, it is that we have to be better prepared. The Ford Foundation stands ready to support analytic work on these matters if governmental agencies and policymakers agree this is desirable and will work with us. Their presence will be necessary if the results of research are to be turned into workable policies.
A third category of social justice philanthropy is often more controversial than the first two, but equally important and equally within our national traditions. This is the area of advocacy for the rule of law and clarification of rights and responsibilities. This work was envisioned in the plan the Ford family approved for the foundation. To quote the 1947 report: the foundation was to work on "strengthening of the organization and procedures involved in the adjudication of private rights and the interpretation and enforcement of law.quot;
The Ford Foundation grants money to advocacy and litigation groups that bring problems of bias and discrimination out in the open so they can be heard and decided in established conflict resolution forums. Some of our grantees specialize in representing particular groups of people - women, racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants. Others, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, represent a range of constituencies.
Some of the cases these organizations are currently pursuing include representation of female restaurant workers who allege sexual harassment by restaurant owners, children allegedly denied necessary medication while in protective custody, Native Americans claiming loss of property and income from governmentally appointed trust officials, female college students seeking sports facilities equal to those for men, and refugees claiming unfair and unprofessional treatment in border immigration facilities.
Not surprisingly, these issues generate varying reactions among the public. Sometimes people ask why we support "troublemakers,quot; "people on the margins,quot; "unpopularquot; causes. And sometimes, they criticize Ford for these grants. Our response has always been the same. The United States is a society of laws. Respect for the rule of law is a fundamental part of our culture. In a diverse and free society such as ours, differences of view related to behavior are bound to emerge and they need to be sorted out in public forums by elected and appointed officials responsible for interpreting the law. This is a view at least as old as the Federalist Papers.
In the end, public officials make the decisions. In all the cases, we are simply opening the decision-making forums to those with little power. This form of social justice philanthropy is entirely consistent with the traditional American values we all hold so dear. The First Amendment, you will remember, protects not only freedom of speech, press and religion, but also the right of people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for redress of grievances.
A final sensitive and complex area of Ford social justice philanthropy involves support for research on human sexuality and the application of that research to practice. This work began when the H.I.V./AIDS epidemic generated an urgent need for understanding sexual behavior. We all now recognize that squeamishness about public discussions of sex, natural desires for privacy and, to a degree, homophobia were trumped by the need to contain the epidemic.
Ford was among the early H.I.V./AIDS funders. While others focused on a cure, we supported studies and services to address bias, help prevent the disease and care for people with it. The work of our social justice grantees in this area continues and contributes to fairer communities across the United States and to the overall effort to combat AIDS.
As we continued to work on AIDS, we and others saw a need to deepen the knowledge base about sexuality and the disease. But we also saw a larger subject as well, the relation of sexuality to healthy and unhealthy development. We realized that community leaders and parents wanted to know what might help young girls develop personal strengths that would enable them to avoid date rape, early pregnancy and sexual victimization. They wanted knowledge about boys' experiences that fostered later exploitive and violent sexuality. And they wanted to know more about the family practices and community institutions that gave young people the knowledge and confidence about sexuality that helped them navigate safely and create satisfying relationships in early and later adult years.
So for several years now, the foundation has supported research competitions to develop a generation of skilled professionals able to do practical research on these and other related subjects. Since 1996, the Social Science Research Council has been a principal grantee in this effort, awarding Ford fellowships for 79 dissertation and 34 postdoctorate fellows doing work on topics related to sexuality and community. Today, I will offer just one example of the results of this funding.
It is contained in a fascinating book by Deborah Tolman, called Dilemmas of Desire: Teenage Girls Talk about Sexuality. The book presents interviews with young, urban and suburban girls in which they talk quite frankly about dilemmas they experience in sexual encounters and in social situations in which gender and sexuality are at least a subtext and often much more. The book suggests that girls feel they have little choice and power in these moments. So girls allow things to happen rather than make choices. They accept that this is the natural and therefore inevitable state of things for girls - and quite different for boys. Tolman has a raft of good suggestions about how to give girls more agency, sexual safety and self-confidence and her ideas and those of her colleagues are now being discussed and circulated widely. Maybe they will help reframe our thinking and lead to change. I hope so, as any parent would.
This is a frontier area of social justice philanthropy - frontier in the sense that it takes risks by working on sensitive topics that involve disputed rights and moral values. Because the issues are so contentious and freighted with meaning, they can lead to bias, violence and other terrible forms of disadvantage. But just for these reasons, they deserve serious and sustained attention. A foundation like Ford can help by supporting serious studies and discussions of research and experience among academics, policy makers and practitioners. Ford's trustees believe that the foundation can help make this complex terrain more understandable and reasonable when other donors may be discomfited by it or shy away from it. This is a fine role for independent philanthropy, even if it does generate occasional criticism.
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I hope these examples of Ford's social justice philanthropy build understanding of how such work follows directly from America's history of openness to change and exploration of new ideas. Social justice philanthropy is consistent with our national traditions such as the pursuit of learning and public debate. And it values the diversity of opinion and tradition we have in our democracy. Social justice philanthropy is about helping people help themselves, giving marginalized men and women a chance to be heard, empowering them to invest in themselves and move ahead. It is about leveling the playing field. It is about reinforcing the rule of law and defining rights and responsibilities. And it is about searching for positive changes through democratic processes and combinations of public and private resources.
Social justice philanthropy derives from the notion that public morality matters as much as private morality. We have heard a lot about private morality in recent years. That is all to the good. Private choices do matter. It matters that kids stay in school and graduate and go on to college or training rather than dropping out and selling dope. It matters that parents take seriously their responsibilities to their offspring - not abandoning them to others or to an inadequate public system. So private morality does matter.
But public morality matters too. It matters that we use our public resources to enable disadvantaged people to cope with adversity and better their lot. It matters that we use public settings to determine fairness and weigh new knowledge rather than letting private opinion rule unfairly. It matters that low-wage workers have access to opportunity-enhancing systems such as health care and education and asset-building supported by public policy. It matters that children are not in vapid and stultifying child care that fails to give them the head start they need in life. And it matters that public policies include incentives and rewards that foster good private behavior for well-off and low-income families alike.
Social justice philanthropy helps prompt public morality. It helps clarify public and private responsibilities. I believe it helps make our country the decent and fair and just place we all want it to be. It is a wonderful part of the large philanthropic landscape at Ford and elsewhere. We need to ensure it a robust and secure future.