The Power of Place-Based Partnerships in the Fight for Equity

Last month, a federal appeals court suspended a grant program for Black female entrepreneurs operated by the Fearless Fund, setting a dangerous legal precedent that jeopardizes foundations’ ability and willingness to make identity-based grants to historically marginalized communities.

This ruling, following the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling last year, is the latest in a wave of judicial and legislative actions, divisive rhetoric and cultural shifts that jeopardize equity-building initiatives across the country. And it is situated in a long-term strategy to systematically undermine advancements made during the civil rights movement by targeting civil rights protections and influencing public opinion.

As racial justice advocates profiled in Inside Philanthropy have noted, the Fearless Fund ruling underscores the need for funders to invest in place-based strategies that provide both legal support for the nonprofit sector and broader support for racial justice initiatives. We believe that now is the time for philanthropy to double down on supporting multisector place-based partnerships as a key strategy for advancing equity at a local level.

Within the broader context of challenges to civil rights protections and the backlash against equity, multisector place-based partnerships serve as key drivers of equitable systemic change locally. As leaders of the Collective Impact Forum, a program of FSG and the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions that supports multi-sector place-based partnerships, we’ve witnessed the power of these partnerships in advancing equity.

Multisector place-based partnerships bring together a broad range of actors including community members, local organizations, government and philanthropy to learn, align and coordinate their efforts toward shared measurable goals. As we have written in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, these place-based partnerships are crucial for advancing equity because they are uniquely aware of and positioned to address local context and history, are grounded in disaggregated data and stories of community experiences and how individuals are faring, and can design and target solutions to redress the discriminatory laws and policies that have caused harm and continue to cause harm to many communities.

For example, the Los Angeles Opportunity Youth Collaborative (OYC), a member of the Aspen Institute Opportunity Youth Forum and Fund (OYF) national network, brings together more than 50 public service agencies, service organizations, educational institutions, employers and youth to better connect young adults to education, jobs and opportunity. Like many collaboratives in the OYF national network, the OYC is committed to community power-building, youth voice and youth-led change. The vision is to ensure all youth aging out of the foster care system in Los Angeles County have the “knowledge and skills” to achieve economic mobility and flourish in life. From 2017 through 2021, the collaborative reduced the community-wide high school disconnection rate from 12.9% to 10.7%, a critical accomplishment aimed at successfully removing many of the barriers transition-age youth experience as they navigate secondary education.

Partnerships such as the Los Angeles Opportunity Youth Collaborative are co-designed and co-owned by a broad range of community members, and they create a civic infrastructure that is adaptable and resilient against challenges that arise from election cycles or unforeseen events, ensuring sustained impact. These partnerships also contribute to increased social cohesion by weaving together relationships and trust across a diverse group of local actors, enhancing trust in local systems and institutions. However, amidst recent judicial and legislative rulings, participants are assessing the risks and opportunity costs of continuing their work to reduce disparities and advance equity.

Since the Supreme Court affirmative action ruling in 2023, we have heard an unprecedented level of concern from multisector place-based partnerships regarding the future of their equity-focused efforts. To explore this issue, we conducted interviews with over 30 individuals across the country, representing community-based organizations, foundations and intermediaries. These interviews highlighted widespread fear about potential legal and sociocultural backlash against equity-focused initiatives, as well as contexts that present practical challenges to continuing their work.

In some places, partnerships face anti-DEI policies that prevent them from invoking racial equity language, increasing the need for sophisticated narrative, framing and communications expertise that doesn't often exist within place-based partnerships or the nonprofit sector more broadly. Partnerships also are encountering legal, reputational and safety challenges when focused on racial equity, and experience waning support for work targeted by race, especially philanthropic resources critical to piloting and testing new ideas, scaling effective practices, and achieving long-term sustainability and impact. These partnerships are also becoming more limited in the information they have to inform their work — such as limited access to disaggregated data by race to target interventions for specific populations. Considering all these factors, leaders of this work, particularly BIPOC leaders, are experiencing significant exhaustion and burnout as they strive to keep their commitment to advancing the work of multisector partnerships.

In Texas, for example, public institutions are gravely impacted by the state’s legislation calling for the elimination of DEI programming and strategies. The University of Texas at Austin released over 60 staff and faculty associated with DEI programming. Simultaneously, student organizations associated with racial, religious, ethnic and LGBTQIA identity have also been gutted at public postsecondary institutions across the state. Many public agencies, institutions and systems in Texas have eliminated the terms “equity” and “racial justice” from RFPs and other opportunities to access public resources. For place-based partnerships in Texas and similar environments, this local and state context creates a chilling effect that leads to practical challenges in moving the work forward.

Philanthropy can significantly influence the direction of the social change ecosystem by providing crucial funding, strategic guidance and credibility to social justice initiatives and nonprofits. This influence can shape priorities, drive innovation and mobilize broader support for impactful change. In these challenging times, philanthropy has a role to play as an empowering source to support place-based partnerships and continue to advance equity. Here, we offer five areas for support, among many others.

Supporting “offense” and “defense”: First, partnerships need funding to design and pursue long-term, innovative, asset-based, community-driven strategies — so collaboratives can pursue both “offense” and “defense” in the long-term work of advancing racial progress and justice. These strategies can surface a bold vision for the future, be informed by assessment and understanding of the local equity policy and cultural environment, and determine the legal support needed to defend and advance this vision.
Collaborative infrastructure: Funders can also resource the collaborative infrastructure needed to move these strategies forward — including facilitation, ongoing research and data work, and community engagement.
Communications and narrative change: Funders can back communications and narrative change work, focused on strategic messaging, stakeholder engagement, and building the narrative infrastructure necessary to both preempt and coordinate timely responses to attacks on DEI and equity-oriented efforts.
Wellness for leaders: Philanthropy can support wellness for leaders fighting for this work, especially leaders of color who may not have access to supportive networks and resources that can prioritize rest and wellbeing as necessary.
Peer learning and support: Philanthropy can support peer learning spaces where practitioners share challenges and promising practices, collaborate to address issues in rapidly changing contexts, and foster a sense of community to mitigate burnout.

History has shown us that the fight against equity will continue as long as progress for disenfranchised communities is made. But with long-term, sustained commitment, including strong civic infrastructure and the dedicated work of place-based partnerships to advance equity, we can withstand these challenges and continue to make strides toward a more equitable and just society.

Jennifer Splansky Juster is Executive Director of the Collective Impact Forum at FSG.

Monique Miles is a Vice President of the Aspen Institute, the Director of the Opportunity Youth Forum, and Managing Director of the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions.

Cindy Santos is the Senior Associate for Strategic Partnerships at The Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions.

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