When We Relinquish Power, Communities Are Better Off
Julio Marcial, VP of Special Programs, Liberty Hill Foundation /California Funders for Boys and Men of Color
Growing up, my family and I were protected by nonprofits—they kept me safe and fed my family. I never forgot that. But I didn’t go to school with an intention to work in philanthropy. I started my career after graduate school at The California Wellness Foundation by happenstance. Once I found myself on this trajectory, however, the childhood trust I had in community-based organizations stayed with me and continues to guide my work to this day.
When I entered philanthropy, I did not claim the sector’s massive amount of privilege, power and money as my own. But I quickly saw that many people in the sector did internalize and exert tight control over others to achieve their own goals. They may have meant well, but they held onto their power just the same. And here I am 23 years later, still trying to disrupt the inequitable systems that philanthropy has held onto for decades.
In the fall of 2017, I joined the Liberty Hill Foundation, which has centered the community in its grant-making for 40 years. As a public foundation, Liberty Hill has been guided by a community funding board from day one, which means that the community has always been a part of funding decisions. Today everything we try to do aligns with trust-based principles. We do not require reports, we host giving circles and pooled funds that use participatory grantmaking, and we try not to take action without the community’s approval.
When I started at Liberty Hill, I embraced this commitment to community self-governance, and I did all I could to give power away. I redesigned staff roles so that members of the youth justice team now literally embed themselves in communities, become their allies and their advocates, and ultimately do whatever they can to center their work. Sometimes community partners need a communications coordinator, so we help them raise those funds. Sometimes they need capacity building, so we make connections. We do whatever it takes to create more visibility for them, and bring in more resources to help them with their self-defined needs. At first, this shift was a little difficult for those who were accustomed to a traditional philanthropic mindset. Some staff desired a “bigger” role, but here at Liberty Hill, we teach our staff that our role is secondary: we do not dictate strategy, and we do not create a theory of change. Our job is to build trust with our groups, be responsive to their needs, and stick by them until those needs are filled.
My understanding of philanthropy has always been clear: we are in a position to relinquish power—and communities are better served when we do. We can use our privilege to maintain the status quo, or we can create on-ramps to thriving communities and collective power.
As I look back at my career up to this point, I see that the trust I placed in those nonprofit organizations all of those years ago has grown and extended in many directions, including with my philanthropic peers. I work with donors and a strong circle of philanthropic colleagues who demonstrate a vulnerability that allows us to get real work done. We're not afraid to call each other out. We're not afraid to call each other in. The growing health of our relationships has strengthened our trust-based practices, and allowed us to show up more radically and deeply for our grantees. As the power shifts, we are seeing the results: our partners are growing in capacity, increasing in confidence, and creating thriving communities that continue to demonstrate resiliency as they chart their own course.