Philanthropy Should Join Forces With Mayors to Tackle the Nation’s Multiple Crises

As a foundation executive, I preferred a shoe-leather approach to philanthropy. This involved talking with and learning from those most affected by my work. Through this process, I discovered that leaders looking to achieve better outcomes for a community must constantly navigate daunting layers of nuance and complexity. I also learned that mayors were remarkably adept at pulling off this delicate balancing act.

In the past year, mayors solidified their reputation as trusted navigators of multiple crises, including the pandemic and uprisings for racial justice. As the federal government moved at a glacial pace, many cities embraced their role as “laboratories of democracy” where bold ideas become reality. These local leaders share philanthropy’s vision for more just, equitable communities. During a time when Covid-battered city budgets are forcing cuts to essential programs, their ideas deserve greater attention from grant makers.

City-level projects offer something most foundations seek but nonprofits often struggle to achieve — scale. Mayors have an unrivaled platform to inspire and connect communities. For example, well before the pandemic’s economic fallout, the city of Saint Paul, Minn., launched a series of projects over two years to improve housing, employment, public-safety, and educational outcomes for the city’s most vulnerable residents. This effort included a children’s savings-account program called CollegeBound Saint Paul, designed to help families save for postsecondary education. The program received early funding from my prior employer, the Thrivent Foundation (now Thrivent Corporate Communities Philanthropy).

Mayor Melvin Carter’s team conducted a rigorous and transparent design process for CollegeBound St. Paul involving a large, diverse task force — exactly the kind of serious engagement philanthropists desire and our communities need. That’s why the Saint Paul Foundation first funded the process and why other philanthropic organizations provided grants.

Muneer Karcher-Ramos, director of the city’s office of financial empowerment, acknowledged during a recent conversation that both CollegeBound Saint Paul and an upcoming guaranteed–income pilot program would face drastic cuts as a result of the pandemic if not for continuing support from the McKnight Foundation and the Kresge Foundation.

Philanthropic funding to test, deepen, or expand mayors’ innovative ideas can generate positive outcomes well beyond a city’s borders. Former Stockton, Calif., Mayor Michael Tubbs predicted that his city’s guaranteed-income pilot program, first funded by the Economic Security Project, would not just improve financial stability for Stockton residents but would change the national conversation about how best to support the working poor.

It seems to be working, as evidenced by the rapid growth of a national Mayors for Guaranteed Income coalition. In December 2020, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey pledged an additional $15 million to expand Mayor Tubbs’s effort and bring guaranteed-income pilot programs to several coalition members’ cities. The motivation for Dorsey’s pledge were made explicit when he tweeted his hope that the pilots would soon inform federal policy. Despite Tubbs’s recent re-election loss, philanthropy is ensuring his vision lives on.

Funding Local Government

The challenges facing our communities — racial injustice, unemployment, housing shortages, food shortages, domestic terrorism, and a climate crisis, to name a few — require leaders to coordinate across the entire continuum of people and institutions who are affected by these crises. Mayors sit at the intersection of all these stakeholders and have the standing to mobilize them for a common cause.

But despite the depth and breadth of innovative city projects, philanthropy has long resisted funding these efforts. That needs to change.

Some of the reticence stems from confusion about the permissibility of making grants toward local government projects. A better understanding of the rules governing grant making may settle the matter. The Council on Foundations clarifies that the tax code “allows private and community foundations, as well as corporate giving programs, to make grants directly to government entities almost as if they were public charities.” Explicit restrictions are self-imposed and are rarely seen in foundation articles of incorporation or bylaws.

While most foundations lack the financial heft of multibillion-dollar city governments, they have unrivaled flexibility to use their funds to enable change. Grant makers shouldn’t be maintaining a city’s general fund, which is designed to cover basic city services and administrative costs. They should instead provide the flexible funding needed for local governments to innovate and address structural issues in this time of crisis. City leaders often rely on state or federal grants for projects that come with byzantine spending and reporting requirements, and philanthropic dollars can offer maximum flexibility for cities to listen and respond to their community members as they see fit.

Diversified Revenue

For their part, some cities remain unaware that philanthropic partnerships are a viable option and never actively seek them out.

Through a social-justice program at the Harvard Kennedy School, I recently worked with Birmingham, Ala., Mayor Randall Woodfin’s Reform and Reimagine public-safety effort, which was initially funded by a small Department of Justice grant.

In our early conversations, the mayor’s staff members indicated that they felt federal and state funding was the best option for the program but expressed hesitancy about whether it would allow them to fully realize the mayor’s vision.

After some introductions and promising conversations with local and national foundations, staff members came to see the importance and potential of a diversified fundraising pipeline. Foundations should take the lead in overcoming potential resistance by conducting due diligence on promising or proven city programs and actively reaching out to mayors heading these efforts.

The overlapping crises of 2020 and 2021 require a permanent change in the way philanthropy partners with communities. With no map to guide us, cities are finding big, bold solutions that meet the extraordinary tumult of this moment. Philanthropy should follow their lead.