The North Star Fund: A Resource for Progressive Social Change

About 23 years ago, a group of progressive individuals embarked on an experiment in radical philanthropy in New York City. They were members of a generation shaped by enormous and victorious social change movements in this country. African Americans had led the civil rights movement that ended legal segregation and disenfranchisement. A groundswell of students, religious activists, trade unionists, and Vietnam veterans had forced the U.S. government to halt the Vietnam War. And women were using their collective strength to demand their reproductive and equal rights.

During these struggles, there were no democratic or widely accessible means of directing money to movements for social change. The founders of the North Star Fund helped change that. They joined the family of alternative foundations committed to funding progressive social change and democratizing the grant-making process. A guiding principle of North Star’s funding has been to support groups that organize against racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, ageism, and discrimination against the disabled, and forge alliances across color, gender, and class lines.

It is important to know that many of the early donors to the fund had inherited wealth. They had been educated and inspired by the social justice movements of the 1960s and 1970s, and sought cross-class and cross-race alliances. They wanted to create an institution that essentially returned resources, through a democratic process, to communities whose workers had actually produced those resources.

The founders were guided by several core principles, including the importance of supporting direct, community-based, and community-led organizing efforts; backing efforts that addressed the root causes of political, social, and economic injustice; and creating an institution that was accountable to the communities it served and whose leadership reflected members of those communities.

Those types of organizations often did not have access to funding sources because they challenged the status quo, were new, or emerged without a track record. Our goal was to support these efforts so that they would not have to depend solely on individual support. This vision dovetailed nicely with another major mission of the founders: the redistribution of wealth and power.

The founders also understood that the only way to seriously address social injustice was to fund organizations that wanted to make structural changes. This was a major task to undertake. It was necessary for the two conditions to be in place in order to have any chance of success: a long-term strategy that values the importance of building layers of community support and experience, and the leadership, staff, organizers, and members who were deeply rooted in the community and had the most to lose and gain in the organizing efforts.

This fundamental idea of democratic, community-based decision making also had to be applied to the foundation structure itself. The grant-making decisions about who should receive funding needed to be made and voted on by the people most affected: the community activists.

The Community Funding Board

One of the first tasks of the North Star Fund was to assemble the Community Funding Board, a group of experienced organizers and activists who reflect the breadth of progressive political activities in New York City. With grounding in the African-American, Latino, and Asian communities, movements of labor, women, lesbians and gays, transgender and bisexual people, and the international solidarity and environmental struggles, members helped North Star reach a constituency outside the bounds of traditional foundation funding. During the past 22 years, North Star has funded more than 1,000 organizations that have played invaluable roles in defining and building their struggles for political, social, and economic justice. Many of these groups will never get major funding from large philanthropic foundations because of the challenging nature of their work.

The first recipient of the North Star Fund Frederick Douglass Award was the late David Hunter, in 1984. At the award ceremony he said, “In reference to maldistribution of wealth and power as a key cause of injustice, the issue is how to mobilize, not to gain power, but to distribute power—how to create structures that impede the concentration of power in a few hands. These are questions that must face all of us daily and be a touchstone for much that we do. How do we get hold of the levers of the systems that determine the distribution of wealth and opportunity? These systems and how they work determine who has a job, who can find an affordable place to live, who gets health care, what parts of the city rot, and who gets vaporized in a nuclear war—to mention a few political concerns.”

Hunter, who passed away in 2000, but left a powerful legacy, also talked about corporate mergers and acquisitions that don’t improve individual lives, but simply make money. Such activities are not at all subject to democratic controls or initiatives, and they are increasingly less accountable to governmental oversight. Without resources, however, not much can get done; therefore, their allocation is critical. He suggested that foundations that have a long-term vision for social change support organizations with that same vision. Then foundations can support organizations that are providing resources to other community groups.

New York in Crisis

North Star’s mission was strongly shaped by the great community coalitions of the first New York City fiscal crisis in the mid-1970s. The response to this crisis by bankers and city officials was “planned shrinkage.” Their idea was to cut essential city services such as hospitals and housing programs. Some of North Star’s first grantees came together to fight cuts and defend their communities.

In Harlem, for example, health care workers and consumers joined together to prevent the closing of Metropolitan and Sydenham Hospitals. Groups organizing in the South Bronx, Lower East Side, Hell’s Kitchen, and Boerum Hill areas fought against the displacement of tenants and the gentrification of communities. They worked to educate tenants about their rights to services and how to improve existing housing; to take part in more equitable development planning; and to create a citywide movement for tenants’ rights.

As community groups worked to deal with a fiscal crisis, which threatened an already fragile city infrastructure, they were hit with yet another major threat. In 1980, Reagan’s election initiated a period during which the city felt the brunt of federal shifts in domestic and military priorities. Massive cuts to social programs, including education and job training, instigated a downhill process. The effects are still apparent today.

Twenty-two years later, our city is greatly impacted by regressive legislation on federal, state, and local levels. The Welfare Reform Bill denies basic survival benefits to the most vulnerable and seeks to create a workforce compelled to labor at subminimum wages. The economic underpinnings of racial tensions have become even more visible as workers compete for fewer jobs with little or no job security. Income disparity in the U.S. is greater than in any other Western, industrialized nation. Our public hospitals are still under serious attack as we see a shocking rise in infant mortality and the deteriorating services available for HIV/AIDS patients. Housing remains a critical issue as the threat of luxury developments, subsidized by city resources, jeopardizes affordable housing. Massive cuts in education deny youth and young adults the necessary support for learning, skills development, and creating their vision for the future.

If progressive foundations are to support power-building efforts so that communities become stronger and better able to make government accountable, then we must be constantly aware of the power dynamics in our grant-making process.

As we are seeing the devolution of government and the abdication of its responsibility, disenfranchised and marginalized communities are looking more toward support from nonprofit and philanthropic institutions. The key question for progressive philanthropic entities is What kind of support is needed? Is it the kind that not only deals with the immediate crisis, but can help build community institutions that can challenge the abdication of government? We know that no matter how many philanthropic dollars are raised, they can never replace government social systems.

North Star’s response has been and must be to provide even more support to the organizations that deal with the root causes of injustice, inequality, and poverty. During the 13 years I have been privileged to be at North Star, I have seen many groups develop into powerful organizations that are deeply rooted in their communities and making strong alliances citywide. But their challenges are ongoing and ever-growing, and so is their need for resources. The ultimate measure of success for philanthropy is that we actually put ourselves out of business. We must support efforts that demand the creation of powerful communities. As grantmakers we need to have community leaders and organizers leading our institutions as we develop priorities for funding. Without input and leadership from the grantee community, we cannot do our best work. Getting that input, of course, is not a cut-and-dried issue. There are many competing agendas, overblown egos in community work just as elsewhere, and all kinds of strategies to evaluate. These are not excuses, but challenges for us to face.

Respect and High Expectations

Our foundations need to be accessible and also understand the challenges of small organizations, understand what it means for a small organization to have the staff and time to prepare a proposal and to go through the funding process. We need to support organizations in developing diverse fundraising strategies so that they will not be at the mercy of time-limited foundation agendas. We need to make sure that we are not setting the agendas just because we have the funding. This is a key issue when talking about general support versus project support.

Many times groups create special projects solely to get foundation support, when what they need is general support. We need to be constantly aware of the power dynamic between a foundation and a grantee, whether we are discussing their strategy, need for technical assistance, or how they work with other organizations. This does not mean that we do not need good evaluative processes or to make comments or offer technical assistance. It does mean that we must have deep respect for the organizational autonomy and integrity of our grantee organizations. Respect also means high expectations for the organization’s internal processes. The organizations we fund must be dedicated to democratic processes and leadership development. Otherwise, it all leads to power gained—not shared.

As funders, we have to be fully aware of the long-term implications of our decisions. At North Star, we know that many groups get their first grant from us, since we fund new and emerging groups. These groups can then go to other, and perhaps larger, foundations with a little experience behind them and, we hope, secure additional grants. All of us in the foundation world value the funding decisions of our colleagues whom we respect. Such decision making is a tremendous responsibility that needs community input. If progressive foundations are to support power-building efforts so that communities become stronger and better able to make government accountable, then we must be constantly aware of the power dynamics in our own grant-making process.

The North Star Fund was named after the antislavery newspaper, The North Star, founded in 1847 by Frederick Douglass, famous abolitionist, supporter of women’s rights, and internationally known champion of justice. He named his newspaper after the star that runaway slaves used as a guide northward through the Underground Railroad. Douglass eloquently conveyed the philosophy that no person can be free and content as long as slavery and injustice still exist in the world. The North Star Fund is inspired by Douglass’s vision and courage and aspires to be a beacon of support for organizations in New York City struggling for social, political, and economic justice.