How Canada's Foundation for Black Communities is Using Participatory Grantmaking

By Sherlyn Assam

This article is reposted from Proximate, our independent media partner.

This May, the Foundation for Black Communities announced that $9.1 million of grants were going out the door to 107 Black-led organizations across Canada. All grant recipients for the Black Ideas Grants program were chosen by Black communities across Canada. Fellow applicants and other Black Canadians applied to join the community selection circle committee, where they were paid $400 to $500 each to review and rank grant applications.

Founded in 2020, the Foundation for Black Communities is the steward of the $200 million Black-led Philanthropic Endowment Fund, funded by Canada’s government. Around half of the $9.1 million for the Black Ideas Grants program came from that fund, while the rest were a combination of FFBC’s endowment and other anonymous funding sources.

FFBC designed the participatory model in part to set an example of equitable grantmaking for others in Canada’s philanthropic sector. Proximate spoke with Liban Abokor, the board director of Foundation for Black Communities, about the thinking behind the project and what’s coming next.

Proximate:

What advice would you give to philanthropy leaders interested in participatory grantmaking, but may not believe they can do it themselves?

Liban Abokor:

I truly do believe in this idea that the communities most affected by the issue should be the ones making the decision. 

I invite folks to first ask themselves, “Do I know the community that we’re going to invest in the best?” If the answer is no, find an intermediary partner that can work with you, that has that capacity, the reach, the relationships and the knowledge.

It takes time, it takes effort – so bring on the right partners. There is no shortage of partners out there. Whether it’s the Equality Fund, the Indigenous Peoples Resiliency Fund, Hua Foundation for Asian communities, Francophone focus groups, the Foundation for Black Communities – work with the network and ecosystem that’s emerging; work with an organization that has been successful. The days of “we don’t have someone” are no longer here. 

I know foundations work so hard to keep their overhead low so they can get more money into communities. But sometimes it’s important to invest in the vehicle to get money into communities, so the dollars you eventually put out are reaching the places they need to be. Just having low overhead – but the dollars are not getting to the right place – isn’t a sign of success.

Proximate:

You’re giving away nearly $10 million, but you received over 2,000 applications that reflect more than $200 million in needs. How will you connect organizations that weren’t selected as grant recipients with other foundation partners?

Liban Abokor:

In 2021, we established partnerships with foundations like Calgary Foundation, Vancouver Foundation, and Edmonton Foundation, where we launched a grant and invited them to be in partnership with us to do some shared grantmaking. Because we had targeted, granting opportunities in Western Canada and specifically Alberta and British Columbia, we looked to the local community foundations with common interest in supporting Black-led organizations in their communities.

While it was a really small [$40,000 program] at that time, each community foundation ended up actually matching that $40,000. All three of those foundations were so eager to get connected and build relationships with those groups.

What really matters is now those community organizations can continue to pursue grant opportunities with those local community foundations. Those foundations were able to market and build meaningful funding opportunities. 

A great example [of what this can look like] is the partnership we had with Canadian Tire. In 2022, we launched our Ontario Youth Wellness Grant. We found that there was oversubscription for that grant, and we reached out to Canadian Tire and said “Hey, there are 13 projects totaling a little bit over a million dollars in your wheelhouse around youth mental health, recreation and wellness.” Canadian Tire, without hesitation, reviewed the applications we already received, didn’t ask the organizations to submit anything else, and ended up funding 13 more projects.

Too many of us are sitting on really great ideas that we don’t have capital to fund and that I think is a tragedy. We should be picking up the phone to our colleagues and saying, “Hey, I have this really great project. I can’t fund it, but you should know about it.” And even if they can’t fund it today, a new relationship can bear fruit down the line.

Proximate:

Do you think the same strategies that brought FFBC to a place of trust to receive millions of dollars from the federal government will be used for family foundations and high net worth donors within the philanthropic sector?

Liban Abokor:

Right now, our focus is to demonstrate impact and deliver on the existing assets we’ve been entrusted to deliver, while encouraging other foundations to continue to see Black communities as a constituent of their work and encouraging them to step up.

There’s a world where the Foundation for Black Communities can be seen as a solution to all Black needs and that would be incredibly unfortunate, if that were the case. What’s better is if FFBC exists and then we see a significant number of philanthropic partners also stepping up and sustaining the support to Black organizations. That’s a much better future – one that’s more robust, sustainable and, frankly, preferred.

There needs to be a greater number of organizations that look at shifting power and… ensuring the distribution of capital goes to the community by the community. We also want to see that done within their own independent organizations. I think that can be done through a number of ways: ensuring that there are more Black staff hired at those organizations, making sure there are more Black board members and advisors.

Our world is not to say, “Black support only by Black folks.” This is supposed to create the floor. We’re the safety net. This is to say, “in the event that nothing else exists, we’re always going to be there.”

I think the blue sky picture is one where all hands are involved in supporting Black communities. Right now our goal isn’t to continue only fundraising money for FFBC to distribute, but really to reorient over $100 billion dollars in Canadian philanthropy to be better situated to support Black communities. We think we can do that. We’re seeing some really good signals, and our goal is to ensure that happens.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.