Another Look at From Insight to Impact: How Charitable Dollars Shape Equity in Boston

Boston Women’s Fund recently kicked off session one of our new webinar “From Insight to Impact: a Community Learning and Action Series.” Each of the five free community gatherings works toward building a shared understanding of how charitable giving shapes equity by pairing a mini-dive into data from our latest research report, Carrying the Weight, Leading the Change, with first-hand insights from women and gender-expansive grassroots leaders in Greater Boston.

In this session, “How Charitable Dollars Shape Equity in Boston: Income & Resource Inequities,” we examined how funding inequities impact access to resources, opportunity, and stability in the nonprofit sector.

Vanessa Ly (she/her), Co-Founder and Executive Director of Sisters Unchained, joined us to share her experience and insights as a grassroots leader in Greater Boston.

Sisters Unchained is a nonprofit creating a refuge space of healing and connection for girls, young women, and non-binary youth directly impacted by incarceration, whether their own or that of a family member. Rooted in abolition, they address parental incarceration and the violence of family separation by breaking the isolation between young women with incarcerated parents and fostering community through organizing, education, and radical love. 

But before chatting with Vanessa, we unpacked highlights from Carrying The Weight, Leading the Change, detailing resource inequities in Greater Boston, their impact on grassroots organizations and women and gender-expansive leaders of color, and how funders can better support these leaders.

How is Boston’s philanthropic system shaping where resources flow?

About $112 billion flow through Greater Boston’s nonprofit sector every year. From that, only $1.1 billion goes to organizations serving women and girls. More than 60% of the money going to organizations serving women and girls flows to just five organizations, leaving $360 million to be shared by everyone else. As a result, hundreds of organizations are underfunded, especially grassroots organizations supporting women and gender-expansive individuals in communities of color. Just .02% of philanthropic dollars in Greater Boston go to organizations explicitly serving women and gender-expansive individuals of color.

Grassroots organizations often have the least resources yet undertake the most critical work in our communities. As those closest to the challenges, they are also closest to the solutions. However, those brilliant solutions aren’t often funded as such. Women and gender-expansive nonprofit leaders of color are paid the least compared to all other nonprofit leaders and often overextend themselves to compensate for support gaps when their organizations are under-resourced. 

Chronic underfunding causes these leaders to “wear all the hats,” and as a result, many face persistent overwork, which affects their physical, emotional, and economic well-being, leading to burnout.

“The expectation is…that nonprofit leadership should do all the work, wear all the hats. But they need work-life balance.” — Study Participant, Carrying The Weight, Leading the Change

The current system has created and perpetuates these resource inequities, as it was designed to do. Resources in Greater Boston are abundant, but we need to shift how they flow.

Why focus on grassroots leaders? Introducing Sisters Unchained.

Women and gender-expansive grassroots leaders of color are often addressing needs that the larger nonprofit sector is not. In our conversation with Vanessa, we discussed the mission, challenges, and values that shaped Sisters Unchained’s development. Sisters Unchained was not created by a moment but instead as a response rooted in abolition to establish an intergenerational sisterhood where young people can feel heard and seen.

Young people directly impacted by incarceration are often excluded from the conversations that shape their development. Sisters Unchained allows these young people to build collective power and better understand the systems that affect their present and future. It provides a place where these girls, young women, and non-binary youth can find their voices, be heard, and feel seen in a space they can always come back to.

“I think that one of the things that was needed was consistency, was a place that they can land and see some familiar faces.” — Vanessa Ly, Founder & Executive Director of Sisters Unchained

What’s a grassroots perspective on how funders can better support grassroots leaders in Boston?

Vanessa shared insights on how funders can better support the needs and mission of grassroots organizations.

1.   Support stability through trust-based relationships. Vanessa shared that funders can contribute to stability by creating trust-based relationships with the organizations they support. She emphasized that getting to know the organizations by learning their needs through conversations and attending events, instead of requiring a report, is more effective and efficient for organizations.

   
   

“I think any conversation is helpful for us,” Vanessa said. “We are always open to conversations, and I think any organization is definitely or would be open to conversation because that’s how you get to know each other. That’s how you build trust. You can’t build that over a report; it’s really hard to.”

In contrast, funders can create instability through funding cuts, especially when organizations receive little to no warning. This year alone, Sisters Unchained has lost $56,400 due to funding cuts. Vanessa shared that for grassroots organizations, these unexpected cuts can be traumatizing, affecting not only the stability of the organization but the lives of the people it serves.

2. Support the organization’s mission and values as they are. Vanessa also shared the importance of supporting organizations’ values and mission by not asking organizations to change to what’s “comfortable.” Although Sisters Unchained is an abolitionist organization, some funders are uncomfortable with the term “abolition” and have asked Sisters Unchained to remove abolitionist language from applications. The organization has had to endure difficult conversations on what it means to be an abolitionist organization and why it is important. Sisters Unchained chooses to keep their mission rooted in abolition, remaining true to their core values, and has withdrawn funding applications in response to some funders. Remaining true to their mission has allowed Sisters Unchained to stay hopeful even through instability and uncertainty. 

The Takeaway

Under-resourced grassroots organizations continue to drive solutions to the challenges communities of color face. By directing more resources to women and gender-expansive grassroots leaders of color and reshaping how leaders are supported, funders can reduce systemic philanthropic inequities and support the organizations that need it most.

Join us for our next session of “From Insight to Impact,” featuring Ellice Patterson of Abilities Dance, on June 26! Learn more and RSVP here today!