Decolonising Philanthropy: Beyond The Platitudes
Olumide Akerewusi, affectionately known as ‘Mide’, recently visited Australia and spoke about his work and engagement with the ‘decolonising philanthropy’ agenda abroad.
Hailing from the Yoruba Nation (the largest genetic group in Africa, centred around Nigeria), Mide explained how his people had been picked out for their strong genetics and large population, enslaved and then shipped across the seas to the Americas, Europe and the Far East. Living now in the Yoruba Diaspora, Mide’s family grew up in the UK, which he subsequently left to Canada as ‘Modern Britain’ and its growing problem with racial assimilation presented a potential threat to his children’s future.
Mide’s big break into philanthropy came 30 years ago in the UK when a disability charity called Scope took a punt on his potential to be a fundraiser. After his move to Canada, his employer at that time, The YMCA of Greater Toronto, also took a punt on a young Black fundraiser to lead its fundraising operations. His long experience, therefore, and his unique perspective in a sector that had poor representation from people of colour, prompted him to bring forward a ‘Giving Black’ agenda, and promote greater pluralism and voices of lived experience that philanthropy and fundraising had been so lacking.
His sector and engagement and podcasts started to surface the hidden stories or truths behind black philanthropy (and he likes to use the term ‘philanthropies’ given the many different forms that giving takes beyond the dominant form of structured giving by wealthy individuals and corporations):
Black people give to an average of 6.3 charities (and above white average)
‘Black Tax’ refers to how the diaspora are also giving back to their families in their ancestral home [noting that remittances constitute, in aggregate, around 70% of international capital flows into private markets, with overseas development assistance (ODA) at 20% and philanthropy at 10%) (Source reference: Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy Philanthropy Tracker (2023)
Only 0.7% philanthropy is invested in Black-led organisations, despite this marginalised group representing 5 to 6% of the Canadian population
JAIDE, or Justice, Access, Inclusion, Diversity or Equity programs in institutions (or DEI as they are known in Australia) are falling well short of any meaningful outcomes, and are often tokenistic targets and representations towards non-white communities
One of Mide’s favourite metaphors is the ‘loaded dice’, and how in every roll of public policy and strategy settings, the black numbers seldom come up. The institutional bias, after all, runs deep. Mide acknowledges he, and his family, are themselves ‘settlers on colonised land’. While he might be at the vanguard of a movement to bring greater attention, alignment and action behind the objectives and needs of First Nation communities, he always checks his position regarding a meeting, potential client or sector engagement with the reflection, “What is my role here, and how can I be an ally?”.
‘Allyship’, therefore was overture to his broader philosophy around ‘decolonisation’ in the sector, and practical advice to tackle it head on. Given the power-dynamic implicit in colonisation, Mide’s felt it was important to first deconstruct his definition of power to help us think more broadly about how to potentially unravel it…
‘Power is a function of:
How we use our voice
How we use our choice
How we use our control
How we use our finance/resources’
This power, he cautions, is baked into the heart of institutions, and locked in by implicit values systems, beliefs and governance structures that protect the status quo. It is extremely hard to shift.
Mide went on to describe how this power dynamic needs to complemented by a more compassionate context (which echoes the quote attributed to Martin Luther King Jnr ‘power without love is reckless and abusive, love without power is sentimental and anemic’)…
…’for the longest journey we take in our solitary lives is the journey from the head to the heart’…
…‘feeling, and feeling compassion, makes us feel whole again’.
Compassion, often cited as the greatest virtue, acknowledges the suffering in the world, and recognises a community is only as strong as its weakest (a very African sentiment, pointing to their communitarian view of the world, and central to the ‘Ubuntu’ philosophy that ‘we are all connected’).
Mide talked about the big changes abroad – the #BlackLivesMatters movement, Mide’s Giving Black podcast, the new ‘Foundation for Black Communities’ in Canada, and the recent announcement by the Lankelly Foundation in the UK it is divesting its corpus back into community ownership. The Board and CEO justified their actions accordingly: ‘Philanthropy is a function of colonial capitalism, it has been shaped by it, is being driven by it, and yet philosophically it tries to position itself as somehow a cure for the ills of colonial capitalism, and that contradiction needs to stop.’
We have yet to see such demonstrable or radical actions in Australia, or the truth telling and reflections around ‘provenance’ that have brought many philanthropies and other institutions like universities to account. But it will happen, in time. History has a long arm. As these activities start to reshape the mindset and behaviours of philanthropy and giving in America and beyond, Mide left us with a hopeful message built around the Archimedean dictate of ‘give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world’….
A place to stand…
How do we establish a place where First Nations communities and the Black diaspora overcome generational disadvantages, and move beyond power structures that hold them back, or ignore their agency?
A long lever to use…
How do we help First Nations communities use their power - voice, choice and control - and bring attention to, and action behind, funding and resources focusing on self-determination and self-governance for black communities?
To change the World
…this will take time, but how we can all play our part?
Well, here is one thing you can do to get started. As a simple exercise of personalising ‘JAIDE’, Mide encourages filling out this table and then sharing it in discussion with the team. Give it a go (and credit the source and copyright to Mide and his company, AgentC).
Image Source & copyright: Mide and AgentC