What Do You Hear When Philanthropists Say "Community?"

Grantmakers use the word community a lot. We learned this while conducting interviews as part of a research project at the Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy that explores how foundations define and practice social justice philanthropy. Foundation leaders and program officers uttered the word “community” more than 100 times in the interviews we conducted for this project. We also found the word over 80 times in the mission, vision and values statements we analyzed from 20 foundations. But as we wrote up our findings about social justice philanthropy principles, it was still unclear to us what foundation leaders meant when, over and over again, they uttered that beloved word, “community.”

With grantmakers often using a more target-oriented approach to giving, foundations must be precise in how they conceptualize and define community. Similarly, practices that build and nurture community, like trust-based practices and participatory grantmaking, use community as a key point for determining who should play a role in making decisions about how dollars get spent.

For us, the word community provoked questions: Who does it include? Who is not included? Why are foundation leaders and staff saying it so much, and what do they mean?

Opinions vary when it comes to these questions. What we do know, however, is that social justice philanthropists aim to use their grantmaking dollars to improve the lives of people often situated in a defined place. To achieve that goal, we suggest foundations intentionally define who and what they really mean by community. This definition can not only inform funding strategy and allocations, but can lead to principles for engagement and outreach, and to clearer ideas about how to build and nurture that defined community.

Community is a “fluid and chaotic thing.” It’s challenging to define, and often means different things to different people. In the philanthropic space, the Stanford Social Innovation Review took a shot at defining community, saying it’s “both a feeling and a set of relationships among people. People form and maintain communities to meet common needs.” In the public health space, however, practitioners consider the following elements when defining community: “a group of people with diverse characteristics who are linked by social ties, share common perspectives, and engage in joint action in geographical locations or settings.” While these definitions seem similar at first glance, a funder’s use of one or the other can have significant consequences for grantees.

While we know that a given foundation may describe its community uniquely based on its mission, vision and values, here are some ideas on how a foundation may begin the process of clearly defining “community.”

The term “community members” includes individuals, organizations, experts or groups a foundation wants to work alongside.
When a philanthropic organization wishes to focus on “community needs,” the foundation should complete a needs assessment. These needs assessments should consider collective knowledge or experiences of community members and can be completed through surveys, focus groups or other forms of discussion.
If foundations want to increase “community engagement,” they should value communication with an individual, organization or group that the foundation aims to support. Community engagement should be weighed as at least equal to input from other sources, with the potential to have meaningful impact.
When seeking insights from “community leaders,” program officers should work with individuals, organizations, experts or groups that can convey, with authority, the ideas, needs and/or desires of a population.
When building “community partnerships” (arrangements or agreements with individuals, organizations or groups identified as part of a community the foundation seeks to serve), it is helpful to leverage community-based organizations — an organization or group which has arisen from, aims to serve, and has strong connections with the community the foundation seeks to serve.

Developing a common framework around community-anything is vital to genuine healing and holistic support. A 2020 Omidyar Network report highlights that “Community is the level in our society where we are most likely to ask ‘What do we owe each other?’ instead of ‘What will this do for me?’” Simply put, community is not unilateral. It is a series of ever-evolving, complex relationships critical to the people a foundation aims to serve.

Collective work in the community today significantly strengthens the community of tomorrow. For the field of philanthropy, defining community will help inform grantmaking strategies and practices while helping to build and nurture better relationships with constituencies for the long term.

Brian Stanley is a Research Associate and Thought Partner with The Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. His work focuses on the dynamics of social justice philanthropy.

Sheryl Seller is the Assistant Director with The Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Manager at Brandeis University. Her work focuses on youth philanthropy and participatory grantmaking.

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