Editor’s Notebook: Urgent Calls to Action

April 2, 2019 | Read Time: 2 minutes

Ever since the 2016 election, my colleagues and I have been charting the growing ways foundation chief executives are using their bully pulpits to call attention to important social issues. In many cases, they have taken to our opinion pages to urge everyone in the nonprofit world to rally around important public-policy matters, such as protecting democracy, keeping immigrants safe, and ensuring that the census counts everyone.

In this month’s issue, we feature two calls for change within philanthropy itself. Rich Besser of Robert Wood Johnson and Darren Walker of Ford announce a new $10 million effort, involving 12 other foundations, to ensure people with disabilities are engaged in every aspect of grant making — that includes serving as staff members and making key decision on where money goes (Page 36).

And the California Endowment’s Robert Ross joins forces with Ben Maulbeck, head of Funders for LGBTQ Issues, and his colleague Alexander Lee to urge greater attention from foundations to transgender people (Page 37). They note that all foundation grants to support such causes for a year add up to less than it takes to run the Art Institute of Chicago for a month. And they urge grant makers to join more than 30 foundations that have already pledged to do more.

As editor of the Chronicle, I have always been drawn to pieces that point out where foundations could make a noticeable difference on overlooked issues in our society.

But I am also eager to encourage debate when foundations are accused of falling short, such as an exchange we published online last month over the MacArthur Foundation’s appointment of John Palfrey as CEO. Commentators Vincent Robinson and Cynthia Gibson wrote pieces puzzling over the appointment of a white male private-school leader to a fund devoted to advancing equity. Their calls promoted just the kind of robust debate that is essential in the nonprofit world.