Putting more climate philanthropy toward economic and racial justice

BIPOC communities are most likely to bear the effects of climate
change, but BIPOC-led environmental justice groups are severely
underfunded in climate philanthropy. In this episode, Abdul
Dosunmu of the Climate Funders Justice Pledge talks about his
group’s aim to challenge big donors to give more equitably.


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transcript)


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Text transcript:


David Roberts


Whether it’s suffering the effects of fossil fuel pollution or
fighting back against it, black, indigenous, and people of color
(BIPOC) are on the front lines of climate change.


Yet they are starved for resources. More than a billion dollars a
year goes toward climate philanthropy, but of that amount, little
more than 1 percent goes to BIPOC-led environmental justice
groups.


The two-year-old Climate Funders Justice Pledge, run by the
Donors of Color Network, is trying to change that. It challenges
big donors to a) be more transparent about where their grants are
going, and b) within two years of signing the pledge, raise the
amount going to BIPOC-led groups to 30 percent.


The pledge, featured in a just-released report from Morgan
Stanley and the Aspen Institute on how to increase the impact of
climate philanthropy, has already led to more than $100 million
in annual commitments to BIPOC-led groups.


I talked with Abdul Dosunmu, who runs the pledge campaign, about
why BIPOC leadership is important to the climate fight, how
transparency changes the behavior of foundations, and how to
improve the relationship between environmental justice groups and
big funders.


Alright. Abdul Dosunmu. Welcome to Volts. Thank you so much for
coming.


Abdul Dosunmu


Thank you so much for having me.


David Roberts


This is an interesting topic to me with lots of ins and outs, but
let's start with just, I'd like to get a sense of what is the
pool of philanthropic money available to climate and
environmental organizations? And then how much of that currently
is going to EJ groups?


Abdul Dosunmu


The Morgan Stanley-Aspen report, that we were honored to be part
of, and was just released really details a stark challenge in
terms of what the author of the report, Randall Kempner, says is
both the quantity of climate philanthropy and the quality of
climate philanthropy. So, on the quantity side, according to the
report, only about 2% of all global philanthropy is focused on
climate.


David Roberts


That's wild to begin with, honestly.


Abdul Dosunmu


Insanely wild. And what's interesting about that, what's hard to
square about that is the fact that if you ask philanthropists how
urgent the crisis is, 85% of them say it's extremely urgent. So
they're talking one game but walking another game.


David Roberts


Right.


Abdul Dosunmu


So, of all global philanthropy, only about 2% is focused on
climate. And then of that 2%, only about 1.3% of it is focused on
BIPOC-led environmental justice organizations. So if you think
about the quantity versus quality framework that Randall has, the
Morgan Stanley-Aspen report is really focused on the quantity
side of it. The climate funders justice pledge, which I lead, is
focused on the quality side of it.


David Roberts


Right. We'll get to that in just one second. I got a bunch of
questions about that, but I just want to in terms of quantity, do
we know that 2% that goes to climate related stuff. Do we know
what that number is? I don't have any sense of scale at all.


David Roberts


Is that a billion dollars? A few million?


Abdul Dosunmu


So our data, and I'm not sure Randall goes into this in the
report, but our data is really focused on about 1.3 billion or so
of climate funding.


David Roberts


Got it.


Abdul Dosunmu


So we're looking at single digit billions. But we also know that
in recent years, frankly in recent weeks, that number is steadily
escalating as new Climate Funders come onto the scene with last
names like Bezos, and Powell, Jobs, and others. And so we really
don't have a solid sense of what that new number is.


David Roberts


Right.


Abdul Dosunmu


But in terms of the 1.3% number that we focus on at CFJP, we're
looking at about 1.34 billion of that which was awarded to
National Climate Funders. And of that, only about 1.3% is going
to BIPOC-led environmental groups.


David Roberts


So that's less than 20 million. Say something in that
neighborhood, right?


Abdul Dosunmu


Absolutely.


David Roberts


One other distinction on this is I know that there is giving that
gets categorized under EJ activities, which is separate from
money actually going to EJ led groups.


Abdul Dosunmu


That's right. So that's a critical distinction, and you've really
just jumped in on the core part of the work that I do. We believe
that it's important that EJ work is funded when it is BIPOC-led
just as much as it's funded when it's not. And currently what we
have is a system where EJ work led by communities of color,
conceptualizing communities of color is not funded at the same
scale that other work might be funded. And the reality of that is
that there are deep consequences because as we often say, the
communities that are closest to the problem are closest to the
solutions, but they're also the furthest away from the resources.


David Roberts


So let's get right into that then. I guess probably a lot of
listeners will take this as self-evident, but when you go to big
funders, people sitting on big endowments and stuff, and you are
trying to make the case that BIPOC-led groups are important to
tackling climate change, what's the case? What's the evidence?
What do you tell them?


Abdul Dosunmu


Well, we start with a basic concept that says that the climate
does not discriminate, people and systems do. And the reason we
start there is that we really want to drive them to the data that
most of your audience will probably be familiar with around the
fact that most frontline communities, the communities that are
hit first and worse by the effects of climate change are Black
and Brown communities. Most fenceline communities are Black and
Brown communities that when it comes to the ways in which this
crisis is manifesting itself on the ground and in people's lives,
it disproportionately impacts BIPOC communities. So we start
there.


That if you're actually interested in mitigating the effects of
this crisis, by necessity, you would start with BIPOC
communities, right? The second piece is if you're actually
interested in shifting the systemic landscape that has led to
this crisis, you would start with BIPOC communities. And here's
what I mean by that. Power differentials in society is what has
created the condition for exploitation, extraction, and
pollution. It's the power differentials that have created the
foundations of this crisis. It's the fact that certain
communities have been politically disenfranchised and subjugated
and those are also the communities that have been impacted by
environmental exploitation and extraction.


David Roberts


Yeah, I feel like this is an important point because sometimes
what you hear from, I don't know that they'll say it publicly a
lot anymore, but sometimes what you hear in private from climate
people is climate is about emissions. And we should attack
emissions, right? We should be lowering emissions. And insofar as
you are being distracted by other social, like you're mixing your
ice cream of peanut butter or whatever, like you're letting your
social issues get involved in your emissions issues, you're just
going to be less effective at reducing emissions. I think that
mindset still has quite a hold on quite a few people.


So this point that they're linked is important, I think.


Abdul Dosunmu


You said. You don't know if people will actually share it
publicly. I hear it almost every day.


David Roberts


So they still do say it publicly.


Abdul Dosunmu


They still do say it publicly.


David Roberts


Right, that there is a sense that you can somehow disconnect the
climate crisis from the social and racial inequities that exist
in our society, when in fact, the communities that have been the
most exploited and the most extracted have been communities that
have been denied political voice, right. And they've been BIPOC
communities. I often tell the story of a neighborhood in my
hometown, Dallas, Texas, called the West Dallas neighborhood. And
it's largely Black and Brown, historically has been as a result
of housing segregation. And this community was home for 50 years
to a lead smelter plant. And this lead smelter plant obviously
polluted the environment.


Abdul Dosunmu


It also poisoned generations of young Black and Brown kids
growing up in that community. And it was the political
powerlessness of that community, it was the political subjugation
of that community that allowed that lead smelter plant to operate
with impunity for 50 years. And this is the critical point that
we make. It was the rising up of that community. It was the
mobilization of that community that ultimately booted that lead
smelter plant from the community. And so it's important for us to
see that these things are linked


David Roberts


Just to sort of restate, the whole problem of environmental
pollution generally, including climate, is this ability to
basically produce waste and impacts that you don't pay for.


Abdul Dosunmu


That's right.


David Roberts


But you can't do that unless there's some community that's
disempowered enough that it can't stop you from doing it, right?
I mean, the whole setup relies on there being disempowered
communities that have no choice but to accept this junk.


Abdul Dosunmu


That's exactly right. I have a dear friend in the movement,
Felicia Davis from HBCU Green Fund, who says we don't just have a
climate crisis, we have a power injustice crisis.


David Roberts


Right. And relatedly, I think, another old piece of conventional
wisdom, though, this I think has been changing in recent years.
But if you go back I've been doing this for close to 20 years
now, and if you go back like 15 years, I think the sort of
conventional wisdom was climate is something that educated,
affluent, White people worry about because they have the luxury
and time to worry about it. And BIPOC communities, vulnerable
communities, EJ communities have other things to worry about that
are more proximate and more difficult and they don't have time to
worry about climate change.


And thus those communities are not going to be a big part of a
social movement for climate change. And of course, now the data
shows that that's wrong, like almost inversely wrong. So what is
the level of kind of knowledge and engagement among these
communities on the subject of climate change?


Abdul Dosunmu


Well, and this is a key point that I like to make. The first part
of that that I would like to deconstruct is this notion that
climate is separate from the other issues that impact these
communities, right? That in many ways, part of the innovation and
the imagination that these communities are bringing to the fight
is to recognize the interconnections between climate and housing,
climate and labor policy, climate and transportation, right? That
they are uniquely positioned to see that climate is connected to
a whole range of other systems that decide and define how we
live. So that's part of the deconstruction that has to be made.


David Roberts


And you might also say that a White affluent businessman is
uniquely positioned to want to not see those interconnections,
right? Like there's a lot of incentive not to see them if you
benefit from them, basically.


Abdul Dosunmu


Right. There is a desire to focus the fight against the climate
crisis on a little intervention here, a little technology here.
And the reality is that the crisis is the result of systems that
shape how we live. And in order to fight the crisis, we've got to
actually change those systems, right? And communities of color
are uniquely positioned to be able to understand that and to lead
that fight.


David Roberts


And that shows up in the data, and surveys, and polls and stuff.
Do you feel like that sentiment, that knowledge is pretty widely
dispersed in those communities at this point?


Abdul Dosunmu


Oh, absolutely. I think one of the things that we do at CFJP is
we actually look at and profile a lot of the movement work that
is happening on the ground in communities. And so we're not just
talking at a level of theory, we're talking at a level of
understanding the movements that are being led by communities of
color. So there is a reason that billions of tons of greenhouse
gas emissions are disrupted every year by indigenous organizers.
There is a reason that it was the BIPOC-led organizations that
pushed President Biden on Justice40, and that conceptualized the
New Jersey and California environmental justice laws that
preceded Justice40.


There is a reason that the Climate Justice Alliance, for
instance, has had a massive impact on shifting away from
extractive energy practices. And so it's important for us to see
that we don't need a poll to tell us, all we need to do is look
at the work and the organizing that is happening in these
communities and see the ways in which it is moving the needle on
this conversation.


David Roberts


Yeah, and I'll just say, from my perch, my perspective, like, I
remember when the climate bill was being put together back in
2008 and 2009, I don't know if you were unfortunate enough to be
in this area when that was happening, but EJ was it wasn't
absent, but it was clearly an add on, right? It was like an
amendment. It was like a thing you stick on at the end as an
afterthought. And it's been remarkable to me just to see, over
the years, EJ just becoming much more assertive and having a much
bigger place at the table.


David Roberts


To the point now that the Democratic, official sort of Democratic
Party climate agenda has it right there at the core, and it's
included in a lot of these Inflation Reduction Act grants. So
it's like night and day in terms of the engagement on both sides.
To me, obviously there's a long way to go, but I've seen the
change.


Abdul Dosunmu


That's absolutely right. And that change was led by BIPOC-led
organizations. And here's why that's important, right? Obviously,
you know this better than I do. We're dealing with a movement
that has historically excluded and alienated the voices of People
of Color. And there are organizations out there that are doing
this work around diversity, equity, and inclusion in the
environmental movement, right? And the data has never been good.
It's always been bad. And here's the core point that we make. I
draw an analogy. One of my favorite football teams, I'm a great
Texan, I'm a great Dallasite.


So the Dallas Cowboys, what we're doing right now in the climate
movement is the equivalent of the Dallas Cowboys finally making
it to the Super Bowl but fielding only about a 10th of a team on
the field. That's what we're doing right now in the movement. Our
best players, our most imaginative players are not on the field
because we have historically excluded them.


David Roberts


Let's talk about that. So the Climate Funders Justice Pledge,
what is it specifically? What is it asking of large
philanthropies?


Abdul Dosunmu


So it's pretty simple, which is not to say that they always
receive it as such.


David Roberts


Not easy. Easy and simple are different.


Abdul Dosunmu


Easy and simple are different. But it's pretty simple. It says
two things. Number one, it says commit to transparency. So we
call on the nation's top climate funders, primarily institutional
funders, so we're talking foundations, big foundations to commit
to transparency, right? And what that means is we ask them
specifically, "how much of your current climate giving is focused
on BIPOC-led environmental justice organizations? Not just
environmental justice organizations, but BIPOC-led EJ
organizations." And we define that very concretely.


We say 50% of your board has to be People of Color, 50% of your
senior staff has to be People of Color, and you have to have an
explicit mission of serving communities of color. So how much in
dollar amounts of your current climate giving is going to
BIPOC-led environmental justice organizations? That's a
transparency component.


David Roberts


And that information is not available today.


Abdul Dosunmu


It's not easily available. And to be honest with you, most
funders have not asked themselves those questions, right?


So one of the things that has been a learning journey for us is
actually getting feedback from funders that have taken the
pledge. And what they tell us is that for them, the most
transformative part of it has been the transparency component
because they had never actually looked at the data.


David Roberts


I bet they're not finding out good things, right? They're not
pleasantly surprised.


Abdul Dosunmu


No, they're not. In the main, they are not pleasantly surprised.
I mean, the data is what it is, right, nationally. And part of
what we wanted to do with this pledge is we wanted to make that
data available to communities and movements so that they could
actually hold these funders accountable, right? And so that the
funders who are committed to environmental justice can hold
themselves accountable. So it matters that a Kresge Foundation,
for instance, says, "you know what, what has been most
imaginative about this for us is that it has forced us to go
internal and look at our data."


So that matters. And we don't just ask for the data, and hoard
it, or put it in a report that we release annually. We actually
post that number on our website. So if you go to our website, you
can find that number for each of the funders that have taken the
pledge. And then we do a whole bunch of media amplification
around it because we actually want communities to organize around
this data.


David Roberts


What's a typical number, like Kresge or whatever, once they
looked, what are they finding?


Abdul Dosunmu


Well, Kresge is actually, they're an anchor pledger of ours,
which is great. And I don't want to misquote their number. If I'm
remembering correctly, they were under the 30%, probably in the
20s range. And it's important to note that, again, they have had
this as a commitment for a very long time. So actually
challenging them to, "okay, let's look at the data," has been
super helpful for them.


David Roberts


Interesting. Okay, so transparency is step one.


Abdul Dosunmu


Step one is transparency. And I actually looked at the number.
They're actually at 33%. Let me give Kresge their credit, they're
at 33%.


David Roberts


I'm going to guess that's unusually high.


Abdul Dosunmu


They are one of the leaders in the field, no question about it.
It is very high for the pledgers that we have, and they are
making continued strides. So the transparency piece is very
important because it allows us to have conversations like this
one. "Where is this funder? Where is that funder, and how can we
hold them accountable to the commitments that many of them have?"
Right? So let me just put a pin in this and say after George
Floyd, we saw a number of funders make new commitments around
environmental justice, around BIPOC communities. And in the
couple of years since, we've seen most of those commitments fade
into the background, right?


And so this has become a tool that communities can use to
actually hold funders accountable to what they say they're going
to do.


David Roberts


Got it.


Abdul Dosunmu


And then the second component of the pledge is the 30%
requirement. So what we say is after you tell us your number, if
you're not at 30% and a good number or not, we challenge you to
within two years of taking the pledge to get to 30%. So scale
your grant making to at least 30% going to BIPOC-led
environmental justice organizations over the course of two years.


David Roberts


Can I ask where 30% came from? I mean, is it just sounds
reasonable or is there something more to it than that?


Abdul Dosunmu


You know, if you look at it, BIPOC communities, about 40% of the
population, what we said was 30% seems like a good floor. It is
not intended to be a ceiling. And what we hope to see is that
over time, that number is far exceeding 30%. But at least as a
floor, 30% felt right to the networks of movement organizers and
leaders that we pulled together to help develop this campaign.


David Roberts


And so this funders pledge has been going on for how long, and
what's the state of play? Are foundations signing on? How much
money have you shifted? How long has this been running?


Abdul Dosunmu


So you're talking to me pretty much on the eve of our two year
anniversary. And so we've been around for a couple of years. And
to date, twelve of the Top 40 climate funders have taken the
pledge.


David Roberts


Interesting.


Abdul Dosunmu


32 foundations overall have committed to at least one portion of
the pledge. And so some of them will say we'll do transparency,
but we're not quite ready to go to 30%.


David Roberts


Right.


Abdul Dosunmu


And we accept that because sunlight is the best disinfectant.


David Roberts


Yeah, I think you're right that transparency is the big piece
here. It's like that dream where you wake up in school, and
you're naked in school or whatever, all of a sudden everybody can
see ... that alone, I think is going to create a lot of push.


Abdul Dosunmu


Right. Nobody wants to be at the bottom of the list, right.
Nobody wants to be in single digits when everybody else is in
double digits. And the ones who are in double digits, like
Kresge, they want to do better, right? They want to get more
shine. They want to tell their story, more impactfully. And so we
offer the transparency piece not just as stick, but also as
carrot to those who are doing well in this fight, and want to
help us tell the story, and amplify the mission. And so what we
have seen is that there is momentum around the pledge.


And we're very proud to say that we have helped to catalyze a new
baseline, funding baseline through the pledge for BIPOC-led
organizations of around $100 million in the two years that we
have been around. But $100 million is really just a drop in the
bucket because right now we're seeing, again, as I said earlier,
new funders come into the field every single day.


David Roberts


Well, this was my very next question, is do we have any sense of
what sort of dollar figure we would be talking about if this
succeeded, if all the big philanthropies signed on, and if all
the big philanthropies actually did it? Do we have any idea sort
of like, what the ultimate pool of money is?


Abdul Dosunmu


So I don't have that hard number, but I can tell you that our
campaign has a goal, right? An aim of catalyzing $500 million. So
if we could get to $500 million, we feel like we would be
radically transforming the possibilities for BIPOC-led
environmental justice organizations. But that's going to require
that we make the transition, the pivot, from what I would call
the legacy funders, right? So legacy funders like Pisces, and
Kresge, and Schmidt, and Rockefeller Brothers and Hewlett and ...
a number of the ... MacArthur, a number of the others that have
Heising-Simon's Energy Foundation, Packard Foundation, a number
of those that have taken the pledge.


We've got to make the transition from just those to now some of
these more entrepreneurial startup funders in the space, like a
Bezos, like a Waverley Street, like a Sequoia.


David Roberts


Have you talked to any of them? I mean, I assume you're reaching
out. I guess one of the questions I'm sort of curious about is,
is there a big difference in culture that you found between these
established groups and the new ones coming in?


Abdul Dosunmu


There is. We are outreaching every day to the new funders. One of
the reasons I make the distinction between legacy and
entrepreneurial is that when you're a legacy funder, you have
deeper roots in communities because you've been funding them for
a long time, or at least you've been giving lip service to
funding them for a long time, right? And so you're more
susceptible to their accountability, right?


David Roberts


Right.


Abdul Dosunmu


You're more accountable to them than a new funder who's coming
in, who is somebody who's made a bunch of money in tech and just
wants to give it away out of a good spirit and a good heart. But
there isn't the same level of connectivity there to communities,
and so that has been the biggest challenge. And then the other
piece of this is when you're an entrepreneur and you've come in
right on the heels of having made a lot of money, a lot of money
in business, you tend to think you know how to do things.


David Roberts


What? Tech guys?


Abdul Dosunmu


I know, it's a crazy thought, right?


David Roberts


Yeah. I was going to say I don't want to cast aspersions, or use
any stereotypes, but when I think about tech-bros fresh off
making billions of dollars like sensitivity to racial justice is
not what leaps to mind.


Abdul Dosunmu


Well and they may have the sensitivity, some of them, but they
also have the kinds of neurosis that come from having made a lot
of money and been very successful, and you think you kind of know
everything, right? And so oftentimes they will come into the
field and say, "here is what I want to do on climate," and it has
no relationship to what communities actually are doing and need
to do. That's really probably the biggest culture challenge that
we face is that it's both the accountability piece, and it's the
part of this that understands that, ultimately, this is a
learning experience both for the funder and for the broader
field. This is not top down, it's bottom up, and the best
solutions come from the bottom up.


David Roberts


As you've talked to foundations, have you received any straight
up kind of disagreement about your goals?


Abdul Dosunmu


Well, we mostly don't get that, right. We mostly get, "well ...
we're going to work on ... " That's my impersonation. "We're
going to work on it, and we're going to see, and talk to us in
six months and ..." that sort of thing. But every now and then
you do just hear "no, we're just not going to do it."


David Roberts


Right.


Abdul Dosunmu


But generally that doesn't come from a disagreement with the
goals or the objectives of the campaign because it's hard to
disagree with the goals and objectives of the campaign. It
generally comes from a sense of, "you know what, this is just not
part of our agenda. This is not what we do, and we're not going
to have anybody external to our organization directing our
strategy."


David Roberts


Yeah.


Abdul Dosunmu


And so that's generally where most of the resistance comes from.


David Roberts


If you imagine a huge new flood of money descending on these
groups, over the course of the next two or three years, you can
imagine ways that that could go poorly. That's a big disruptive
thing. And one of the things I was thinking about is when you
talk to these small groups, often what they'll tell you they need
is just operating expenses. Like they need to be able to pay
decent salaries, right? Just to begin with. Trying to run a whole
movement on underpaid people is difficult, and they need sort of
just like cost of living, cost of operations, operations money.


Abdul Dosunmu


Right.


David Roberts


And what you often find, or what they tell me they run into when
they talk to funders is, of course, funders are wealthy, and
therefore overestimate their own cleverness, and often have their
own ideas about what they want groups to do. So I worry, like, is
this going to be the right kind of support? And you can certainly
imagine a big new pot of money coming with a bunch of sort of big
footed demands about how these groups do things, right? Like, you
can imagine big funders trying to sort of dictate the strategies
of these groups rather than listening and learning from them.


So I don't know how you go about, I mean, I don't know exactly
what I want you to say in the switch, but are we confident that
this support is going to be the kind of support that these sort
of small struggling groups need most?


Abdul Dosunmu


Right. You are really touching on a critical part of this that
our campaign is going to be doing more work on. It hasn't been a
core part of it thus far because we really see ourselves as the
accountability mechanism in the field, but we do think there's an
opportunity for us to engage on these questions. So to start,
what we really need is a shift in the culture of philanthropy,
right? And so part of that shift is a shift in the "philanthropy
knows best" mindset. And we've been talking about that. Part of
that shift is a shift in the desire of philanthropy to really
dictate all of the terms of engagement. And they do that
primarily by focusing most of their grant making on program
grants.


Right.


And so you might get a grant to run a specific program, but
you're not going to get a grant to actually scale your
organizational capacity.


David Roberts


Right. This is a notorious complaint from nonprofits across the
board from time immemorial, right. They're like, we can get a
grant to do a specific thing, but we just need, like, printer
paper,


Abdul Dosunmu


Right! "We can get a grant to do a specific thing, but we need to
hire people to do the thing, and we need to be able to offer them
insurance, health insurance, and we need to be able to keep the
lights on in the building." And that is a part of this
conversation that, again, we have not touched on, but we see
there's an opportunity for us to touch on as we continue to move
forward. So those are really the two of the areas where there's
room for additional intervention. The other thing I'll say is
this. It's a bit of a vicious cycle that these groups are in
because they don't get the funding, so they can't build the
capacity. And because they don't have the capacity, that lack of
capacity is used as a pretext to deny them more funding, right?


So it's a vicious cycle. And now we're in a moment where there's
some $500 billion coming down from the federal government, on
climate related resources. And a lot of that is sort of focused
on, or earmarked on a climate justice lens. And we're happy about
that, right? We fought for that, the movement organized for that.
But the concern that we have now is that because of this
disparity in funding and private philanthropy, many of the
organizations that are BIPOC-led, that are going after these
grants won't be able to successfully compete because they've been
locked out of the private funding, right?


And so a lot of work is being done on the ground, and movements,
and organizations to actually try to help organizations build
capacity over time to be able to compete for these new dollars
that are coming down and to actually be able to fulfill the
spirit of Justice40, but we need more funding to do that, and the
private funding market is critical.


David Roberts


Yeah. And another thing I've heard from these groups, these are
most often pretty small under-resourced groups. And another thing
I've heard is that even the process of applying ...


Right ...


For these things, is burdensome, and difficult, and expensive.
Like, if you're a two, or three, or four person operation, it's
nothing for a Kresge to sort of send someone out to hear your
pitch. But for you to make the pitch is a lot of hours of labor
which you can't really well afford. And I've heard from groups
where they say, they'll come consult with us and ask us how to do
better in their EJ funding and et cetera, et cetera, and we make
these elaborate presentations and then they vanish and we never
hear from them again.


So I just wonder, are there broader ... you could imagine a
regime where a big wealthy funder pays some small stipend to a
group to offset the cost of consulting, the sort of free
consulting they do, or the cost of applying for grants or
something like that. And that would just be can you think of are
there larger ways that we need to change the relationship between
small EJ groups and big funders, beyond just the monetary beyond
just giving them money, in terms of just the kind of social
aspects and cultural aspects of their interaction? Are there
larger reforms we need in that aspect?


Abdul Dosunmu


How much time do we have?


David Roberts


I thought you might have something to say about that.


Abdul Dosunmu


Right. I have the privilege of wearing a bunch of hats in my
work.


David Roberts


Yeah, I meant to say, I read your LinkedIn page. I had to take a
nap halfway through. You're a busy man.


Abdul Dosunmu


I'm a busy man. I do a lot, and I sit across a lot of different
buckets, right. And so on the CFJP side of things, obviously, I'm
wearing a bit of a philanthropic hat. We don't necessarily
consider ourselves philanthropy, but we're not movement. We're
somewhere in between, right. But we definitely wear a
philanthropic hat. And then in my other work, I actually lead a
grassroots voting organization of Black lawyers and law students.
And so on one side of my work, I am challenging funders to do
more. And then on the other side of my work, I am living every
day the ways in which this system is inequitable toward founders
of color and leaders of color.


And so I see this from both sides. Really, I think the first
place to start in this conversation is with a conversation. And
so typically the exchange between funder and organization is a
one-way conversation, right. It's a one-way street.


David Roberts


Yeah. Speaking of power differentials.


Abdul Dosunmu


Exactly. These broader power differentials in society are being
replicated in how foundations engage with organizations. "And so
you can apply for a grant if we invite you to apply, we want it
in this 60-page application format."


David Roberts


And then you get the grant. And like we need a 60-page report
every year.


Abdul Dosunmu


That's right, "we need the 60-page report every year. Oh, and by
the way, you probably won't get the grant in time to actually do
the work you need to do with it because we're going to take our
time delivering the grant to you, and you interface with us and
interact with us when we invite you to."


David Roberts


Right.


Abdul Dosunmu


That has to change. And so part of the culture change that you're
talking about that so many organizations are advocating for,
starts with making that one-way conversation, a two-way
conversation, and actually listening to organizations on the
ground and having those organizations inform your grant making
practices, right?


So let me go back to Kresge for a minute. One of the other things
that they have said to us has been impactful for them is actually
the transformation that the pledge has wrought in their grant
making practices, in their day to day grant making practices, and
how they engage, and how they interact with grantees.


David Roberts


So that just means they've been learning by doing, they've been
learning by interacting with these groups?


Abdul Dosunmu


That's right. That's right. Absolutely. And we've heard that from
multiple funders. And so really what has to happen is that the
funder has to become a learner, right. And that's what we're
pushing through this pledge. We're challenging funders to become
listeners and learners and actually hear from the organizations
on the ground about what needs to change in their grant making
practices in order to be more equitable. And a lot of them are
making changes. I think that's really where this starts is the
conversation, shifting it from one-way to two-way.


And one of the things, by the way, that we have tried to do is
that a number of these funders have said, "well, how do I
actually get this data? How do I actually get the demographic
data information? How do we kind of navigate that?" And what we
have done is actually provide resources for them, so that when
they're seeking out this data, they're not creating more layers
of burden on these groups, right? So we have tried to incorporate
that even into our own program.


Right, so these groups don't have to sort of do another report on
our demographic makeup, et cetera, et cetera. So that's a little
bit more public. And it also occurs to me I mean, maybe this is
even too obvious to point out, but it also occurs to me that it
would be nice if these big funders going to these groups were not
like 18th century British royals visiting the islands like
strangers in a strange land. Like, it might be nice if they were
composed if the makeup of the actual big funders changed.


Well, there you go. There you go. I mean, you've made exactly one
of the critical points, which is that the work that Green 2.0 and
so many other organizations are doing to actually change the
makeup of these funders is directly connected to our work.
Because you're absolutely right. You should not be visiting these
communities as though you're visiting from Mars. You should have
people on staff in senior positions who are deeply rooted in
these communities, that know the work that's happening, that know
the challenges facing these organizations and are directly
invested in this work, right? Part of what I have seen in the
time that I've been doing this work is that there are so many
brilliant folks across the country who are directly and deeply
invested in this work, and they are the people who have been
laboring in obscurity.


They are the people who've been laboring without resources. And
in order for this system to change, the system of philanthropy to
shift, part of what we've got to do is bring those voices from
the outside in and make sure that they actually have the ability
to transform these funding institutions. And that last point is
critical because it is not enough to have People of Color faces
in high places if they do not have the ability to actually
engineer change.


David Roberts


I used to work for a nonprofit. The first journalistic
organization I worked for, Grist, was a nonprofit. And especially
back when I first started, we were very small. There's like four
or five of us. So I became intimately familiar with the grind of
begging foundations for money. Luckily, I didn't have to do that
part for long, but I saw enough of it. And one thing that just
struck me immediately and overwhelmingly is that we were an
organization that was specifically targeting young people. We
wanted to be sort of irreverent, and funny, and just all these
kind of things that appeal to young people.


But the people we're talking to and begging for money are, to put
it bluntly, White boomers. They're older White people who are not
necessarily who you'd go to to learn about what the youth of
today want out of a journalistic outlet, right? And so I wonder
if you have gotten any sense that younger people in general are
hipper to this issue than their elders?


Abdul Dosunmu


In some ways, yes, and in some ways, no, right. And so what's
clear is that younger people just generally understand the
climate crisis better than their elders. So we start there,
right. You have less of a case to make to younger folks about the
urgency of this crisis, but I think it's important for us to be
clear that when it comes to age, that does not necessarily
portend more enlightenment on racial justice issues.


David Roberts


Yes.


Abdul Dosunmu


Again, I work in sort of the democracy space, and I think there's
always this assumption that the younger the electorate gets, the
more progressive it's going to get, just because younger people
have grown up in more diverse environments. On some level, I
think that is true, but I would not want to bet the house on
that. And I think we have to continue to be more intentional
about cultivating, even among younger people, an understanding of
the racial justice implications of this crisis. And so, as a case
in point, I was in Miami for the Aspen Climate Conference last
week.


David Roberts


Yes.


Abdul Dosunmu


And I did a number of panels during the week, and most of the
programming had a climate justice angle to it, right. Most of the
speakers referenced it. It was rare that you would sit through an
hour long panel, and it wouldn't come up.


David Roberts


Right.


Abdul Dosunmu


But I'll be honest, there were still rooms that I walked into
where I was the only Black person in the room. And I don't want
to put any blame on anybody. This is not me trying to do that.
This is not about assigning blame. But it is about recognizing
that even among the cool, hip kids who are invested in the
climate movement, that investment in racial justice still needs
to be intentionally and actively cultivated. And we cannot assume
that it is going to happen by osmosis.


David Roberts


Right.


Abdul Dosunmu


Or that it will happen just because younger people are younger
people, right.


David Roberts


Just because the arc of history right.


Abdul Dosunmu


The arc of history is long, but it bends towards justice. I
firmly believe that. But I also believe that we have to bend it.


David Roberts


Yeah, there's a reason it bends towards justice, because all the
people are working to bend it, right?


Abdul Dosunmu


All the people are working to bend it. And so I think there is
more consciousness than ever about climate, and there's more
consciousness than ever about racial justice, but we still have
to do the work to actually translate that consciousness into
action.


David Roberts


Well said. Well said. Thank you. Abdul Dasumo, thank you so much
for coming on. This is very illuminating. I'm glad you took the
time.


Abdul Dosunmu


Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for the platform. It
was an honor to be with you.


David Roberts


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