Black philanthropists remember: What we need is system change
By Stephanie McHenry
April 15, 2025
The Democracy Collaborative President, Stephanie McHenry, was one of the speakers at this year’s ABFE Harambee Annual Conference.
Her workshop made a compelling case regarding how the Community Wealth Building model has been successfully deployed to improve the lives of Black folks in American cities like St. Louis, MO, and Atlanta, GE.
Here are some of her thoughts.
The 2025 ABFE Conference had a marked aura of urgency and determination.
The mostly Black philanthropy professionals in attendance are facing the current environment with grit, creativity and a winning spirit. With more than 1300 in attendance, representing hundreds of foundations and nonprofit organizations, the atmosphere was full of energy and optimism, even in the face of daunting challenges for many Americans. There was the right amount of focus on homegrown, very localized solutions, and universal truths that lead us toward a more equitable economy and society.
One of the issues that we get tripped up on when thinking about the condition of Black Americans is individual exceptionalism. When we can point to a few Black folks (or even communities) that are thriving, there are two dangerous reactions:
First, we want to assume that these achievements are a sign that the playing field has been leveled such that everyone has the same chance for “success.” Related to that thought is the assumption that those who are not prospering must be inadequate or be doing something wrong.
The second dangerous reaction is thinking that if we could just replicate the conditions for those exceptional folks, we would have an answer for all Black folks. However well-intentioned such efforts are, they will not be sufficient to close the wealth cliff (it’s bigger than a gap!) that Black Americans face.
Rather than resting in these two harmful reactions, we must keep part of our focus on the required system change in the economy to make access to wealth creation and more broad well-being possible. [Of course, we must also provide relief, assistance, justice, opportunities, and hope to the many who have been so devastatingly harmed in the current system!]
We at The Democracy Collaborative, along with our many partners, have this focus.
L-R: Panellists Charli Cooksey, WEPOWER Founder & CEO; Kim Addie, Kindred Futures VP Strategy & Impact; Nairuti Shastry, former The Democracy Collaborative Fellow; Stephanie McHenry, The Democracy Collaborative CEO
At the ABFE conference, I heard many expressions of the grand agenda for system change:
We must consider capital deployment beyond the enterprise and at the collective level.
We must work to create, “we, us & our” people, not just Black “me, myself & I” people.
Foundations must make generational grants/investments to address conditions, policies and systems that harm Black people.
The solutions for communities must come from them, with the goal of leveraging assets locally rather than the capital bias that results in extraction.
We must look at disruptive innovation in the national and local policies landscape around land, taxes, capital deployment, etc.
Confidence, common sense and resolve must fuel our actions at this moment.
As one speaker said, “we must not get comfortable sitting with a question mark (?) when we should be charging ahead with an exclamation point (!).”
While the collective foundation coffers will never match the US government’s spending power, the sector can fill in some gaps. Perhaps more importantly, they can strategically invest in nonprofits who can leverage their dollars to address critical needs in their communities.
And, as in the case of The Democracy Collaborative, foundations can invest in real system change with long-term benefits for all Americans. I was proud to see past, present and likely future TDC-supporting foundation representatives at the conference.
We must remain committed to its theme, “Harambe:” All Pull Together!
