Movement Allyship: Listening, Reflecting, Naming Tensions

By Pilar Mendoza

As more funders are interested in and adopting trust-based philanthropy, they are reimagining their roles and exploring new ways to show their support as an "ally."  However, this evolution isn’t without challenges and tensions. I’ve explored polarity thinking previously (including here with Kimberly Braxton of Equal Measure) and, as evaluation in philanthropy evolves to meet communities on their own terms, the need to balance dynamic tensions has only become more critical.

GEO Learning conference panel

That’s why, during GEO’s Learning Conference in May, I partnered with Helena Huang of the Art for Justice (A4J) Fund, Jody Kent Lavy of the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, and artist Jared Owens to explore how funders can work collaboratively with grantee partners and evaluators to better understand movement allyship, or how funders can use their power and privilege to support movement building work.

We talked about the sorts of oppositional thinking where we usually try to solve for an approach and how a different approach can help to build in flexibility, empathy, and trust. One polarity we explored during the session was about the power that funders hold in the movement to end mass incarceration. As a funder, Helena shared: Funders can swing between, ‘We don’t know anything, you’re the expert, we just write a check,’ to ‘We know everything; you should do it our way.’ As a movement ally, A4J worked to find a natural and authentic way to partner with movement leaders to leverage its power as a funder to amplify directly impacted movement leaders and their communities. This included working with grantees to navigate emerging tensions between leaders and not shying away from difficult moments.

As allies, funders and movement leaders must be able to manage through the uncertainty, inconsistency, and ambiguity of such situations as part of their ongoing movement work. Our session presenters noted that these tensions, or polarities, do not have clear cut solutions. In fact, this cuts to the heart of what a polarity is – rather than problems to be solved, they are ongoing tensions that can only be managed.

In movement building, like the movement to end mass incarceration, there are polarities that are relevant to an initiative’s strategy, grantmaking, and overall decision making. Being a true ally means grappling in real time with questions that – gasp for evaluators everywhere – don’t have answers. In that process comes greater insight and the authentic transfer of knowledge for movements to grow.

As you reflect on the polarities offered above from A4J’s experience, what polarities are showing up in your work? How have you attempted to navigate them, and what lessons have you learned? Tell us in the comments!