Progressive But Safe: Parsing the First Round of CZI’s New Racial Equity Grants

photo: CZI

When the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative published its founders’ annual letter for 2020 back in December, one standout item was an “initial” $500 million to be deployed over five years to back the fight for racial equity. Low on details at the time, that announcement has come into greater focus this year. 

More than a mere allocation of funds, CZI characterizes its commitment as an “enterprise-wide effort” to embed racial equity across its philanthropic verticals. To that end, it plans to shift existing planned spending to better center racial equity—$300 million of the five-year total—and inject another $200 million of new money.

Focusing in further, CZI intends $100 million of its five-year total to support organizations “creating conditions for organizations, communities and individuals at the front lines of the fight for equity to thrive.” Last month, the first $10 million of that long-term commitment went out the door, backing 11 grantees. Together, the recipients provide a good first look at what kind of work this leading grantmaker envisions under the heading of racial equity. The grants are also a window into how an often-controversial billionaire’s philanthropy is reckoning with its own public relations challenges and alleged missteps on race.

“These organizations are led by, or work in support of, communities of color,” wrote Belinda Stubblefield, CZI’s inaugural DEI head. “They focus on cultivating leaders, tackling outcome disparities, shaping policies and advancing institutional change.” Here’s a look at who these grantees are, the work they’re doing, and what they might tell us about how this funder in flux is tackling the question of race.

Who’s getting this money?

When we covered how CZI is reshuffling its policy funding back in February, one thing that became apparent was an impulse to pull back from prescriptive funding and resource the field by backing infrastructure and seeking collaboration. In fact, Chan and Zuckerberg’s 2020 letter referenced those lessons directly, and their implementation can be clearly seen in the launch of CZI’s $350 million criminal justice spinoff, the Justice Accelerator Fund. 

Though CZI is managing its new racial equity grantmaking directly, its choice of initial grantees reflects a similarly indirect approach. These 11 recipients include more than a few grantmaking intermediaries, as well as several philanthropy-serving organizations. In terms of issue areas and communities served, the list covers a range of races/ethnicities and includes several overtures to intersectionality with women and LGBTQ people. 

To begin with, three of the grantees center on AAPI people—the Anti-Racism and Intersectional Justice Fund, Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, and a new Pew Research Center study on the immigration and integration experiences of AAPI communities. The Anti-Racism and Intersectional Justice Fund is a project of the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund and was established last year to counter a rising tide of anti-Asian hate, situating that work alongside the wider struggle against systemic racism. Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, meanwhile, is one of the larger civil rights groups focused on AAPI people, with a network of local chapters in major American cities.

Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are the focus of another CZI grant to the HBCU Executive Leadership Institute at Clark Atlanta University. The focus there is leadership development for those running HBCUs, which have emerged as a growing focal point for racial justice philanthropy. Although the extent of CZI’s interest in HBCUs remains to be seen, Chan and Zuckerberg are in the company of other billionaire racial equity funders like MacKenzie Scott and Robert F. Smith, both of whom are major supporters of HBCUs.

Several additional CZI grantees center particular racial or ethnic groups. The Futuro Media Group produces multimedia journalism focused on Latino communities, while the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples supports grassroots projects to advance Indigenous communities’ self-determination. Other grantees approach racial justice with an explicitly intersectional angle, including Grantmakers for Girls of Color and the Emerging LGBTQ Leaders of Color Fund at Borealis Philanthropy (formerly the Transforming Movements Fund). 

Wrapping up the list, we have another fund at Borealis, the nonprofit-sector-focused Racial Equity to Accelerate Change (REACH) Fund, as well as the Racial Equity Philanthropic Fund at Echoing Green, a $50 million effort to launch social enterprises focused on racial equity in the U.S. and abroad. Finally, the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley conducts research and discussion on dynamics that block groups of people from full inclusion in society and how to eliminate those barriers. 

Progressive but safe

All told, this initial list of grantees reads like a studied effort to back as diverse an array of populations and strategies as possible within the scope of 11 grants. Gone are the days when Zuckerberg staked his philanthropic reputation on a high-handed attempt to transform a city’s struggling schools—this long-term racial equity spend seems determinedly broad-based and wide-ranging. 

That’s a smart move on one hand. By adopting an approach that’s heavy on regranting and light on policy specifics coming out of CZI, the initiative defers to groups on the ground. CZI also avoids the kind of attention-grabbing missteps that are less than desirable for a grantmaker already caught between an earnest funding agenda and its founder’s mixed reputation. 

Like many left-leaning donors these days, CZI’s also leaning into an expanding range of philanthropic vehicles designed to channel money toward racial justice advocacy. Borealis stands out as a longtime leader in that field, and newer efforts like the Anti-Racism and Intersectional Justice Fund are adding to the mix. Though it wasn’t part of this round of grants, CZI’s support for the new California Black Freedom Fund is another example of the infrastructural, collaborative philosophy in action. 

These grants also speak to a desire to galvanize racial equity in philanthropy and the nonprofit sector itself—think Grantmakers for Girls of Color or Borealis’ REACH Fund. That’s a safe and uncontroversial move, and it’s also sorely needed: Racial equity is still very much lacking in this field, with consequences for how much money makes it to BIPOC communities and BIPOC-led organizations. 

On that note, it is interesting to watch CZI evolve toward an unapologetic embrace of racial justice movement building. While not all of these grants fit that description in a strict sense, this is a funder that has spent the last six years funding policy work that might be described as liberal but not progressive. That has now changed.

Changing with the times

But is it Chan and Zuckerberg who are changing, or is the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative simply adapting to the times? Hard to tell, but the latter is certainly part of the equation. There has been an undeniable mainstreaming of overt racial justice commitments from moderate and center-left funders over the past year, a trend that has seen some uptake by billionaire donors.

At the same time, CZI and its founders have come under fire from external critics—and from the philanthropy’s current and former employees—for harboring blind spots around racial equity and white supremacy. The racial justice advocacy group Color of Change reportedly even went so far as to reject a CZI grant over the grantmaker’s association with Facebook. 

In such a climate, there really isn’t much of a downside for CZI to move in a progressive direction on race. Much of the public already looks askance at the funder for its association with Zuckerberg and Facebook. But by failing to include at least some power-building in its big racial equity push, CZI might risk being perceived as reticent, while its liberal funding peers plow ahead. And as we’ve seen with its new Justice Accelerator Fund, there are ample opportunities for CZI to use its grantmaking to cultivate relationships in the social justice field in a quiet way.

Stubblefield, likely a key figure in CZI’s racial equity deliberations alongside Chan herself, reflects in some sense the mainstream’s embrace of stronger positions on racial justice. She’s a veteran of corporate DEI with former leadership roles at Nestle, Delta Airlines, and, most recently, at the nonprofit Year Up. Like CZI itself, she hasn’t necessarily been on the front lines of grassroots movement building. But many of the grantees in this first round are close to that space. With another $20 million set to go out in 2021, we’ll see if that remains the case.