As part of their ongoing Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Project, NonProfit Quarterly and the Young Nonprofit Professionals Network started to publish articles on justice and diversity in US. The first article is dedicated to exclusion of young and emerging movements and organizations that deal with civic engagement and empowerment in underrepresented communities from donors’ lists. The article argues that despite the embodiment of the ideals and practices of democracy in social justice movements’ quest for change, as well as the obvious strategic value in harnessing their energy, the support of movements for strengthened democracy and the supports of movements for racial and social justice still exist separately in the strategies of traditional civic engagement funders. Donors’ reasoning about civic engagement of underrepresented communities is that the latter suffer from personal apathy, lack sense of civic responsibility or are ignorant of the process. The project team on the other hand, explains that funders oftentimes appear to be pressured to report immediate success and more importantly, fail to remember that along with formal democratic processes in American history, US has also been the terrain of struggle for social progress and inclusion. Read more here.
Source: Nonprofit Quarterly
