In today’s private philanthropy, especially the part of the sector tailored to empowering and bringing about change for marginalized communities, one of the most prominent strategic tensions linked to a difference in perspectives between grant-makers and grantees is the issue of direct services and whether to engage in funding them or not. This tension, however, may not always speak to the needs of existing or prospective grantees for whom direct services can, and often are, the first step to dive into policy advocacy and strategic litigation.
“We do not fund direct services” was one of the first sentences I heard as a young fundraiser in my days as an organizer for transgender issues in Poland, desperately trying to find monetary resources to fund the work of our group – Trans-Fuzja. At that time we were a young initiative focused on creating and running support groups as well as ensuring psychological and legal support for a community whose access to those services was severely restricted. As our work developed, so did advocacy and campaigning goals in mind, none of which could have been conceived without proper community support which we were slowly building through providing services and training others to do. Once services became available and were properly advertised, through much needed visibility work, community members and allies followed, and with their help we were able to introduce a number of legislative measures, one of which made it farther within parliamentary structures than any other LGBTQ measure in the country’s history.
Although this example portray to a first-hand experience, something that a number of grant-makes in the sector will not have a chance to identify with, there are experts in philanthropy who have recognized the need to break through the perception that advocacy and community building are mutually exclusive. In her 2010 piece Finding the Right Balance: Thoughts on Advocacy and Direct Service Funding, Ashley Blanchard uncovers the issue of funding advocacy and campaigning work of organizations whose leaders’ immediate well-being or safety cannot be addressed without a strategic approach that would recognize direct services as a measure to maintain momentum of work rendering policy results or public support for a cause that the grantee is devoted to.
The framework of advocacy not being able to render the results that will benefit communities in most need of it without direct services, and in a model where both are equally well-funded, is an approach that fuels the work of many organizations, especially those focused on marginalized communities or disadvantaged populations who are otherwise unable to receive services that would cater to their unique experience. As Khalil A. Cumberbatch from the Fortune Society explains in a blog post titled The Bond between Direct Services and Advocacy: “While working to address the policy barriers that individuals with justice involvement face, our service staff provide supportive care to confront the daily consequences of these obstacles head on. Our advocacy efforts are then informed by this experience, and are reprioritized according to the evolving needs of those within our community.”
In a world where advocacy for marginalized communities and disadvantaged populations can take decades to render results, funders dedicated to keeping the work of groups helping them should not only be open to long-term funding but also understand that in some cases direct services are the only measure that keep the work going. As a grant-maker myself, I am not opposed to funding services which a grantee sees essential to its strategic goals rendered in social change, especially if those services go hand in hand with advocacy on various levels, community building and maintaining as well as trainings of those who can also become valuable actors and allies to the cause.
Funders interested in changing their approach to funding direct services should consider the below:
- Opposition to funding services is often rooted in the perception that they should be funded through public funds. For marginalized communities government or multilateral funding may not be as widely available as for other populations. In some cases, arbitrary rules put on grantees may actually limit access to direct services, such is the case of the Global Gag Rule. Additionally, in hostile contexts, those groups may not want to apply for any type of government funding because of possible repercussions this may open them to.
- The need for direct services does not disappear when money is thrown at other pieces of work that groups engage in. On the contrary, what this means for grantees is that an important area of work will still be implemented but without the funding it needs to render critical results. Funders who are not willing to or who cannot change their approach should at the very least supply the grantee with fundraising training and tools and/or introduce them to those actors in the sector who are able to finance this essential pillar of strategic engagement.
- In some contexts, community building may not be possible without offering direct services, as the services may be the only activity that builds a particular community. In a nurturing and supportive environment, a group may be able to create conditions to empower individuals to engage in self-advocacy and become advocates of their own needs or to become important actors engaged in visibility or educational work.
As with regular grant-making, support for direct services is an issue of trust both between the funder and the grantee. And it is time for us to trust our partners in the field and invest in their potential.
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