"Spend any amount of time in a room of white philanthropists and you’ll hear the question 'How will we measure the impact?'"

This is a good post and is SUCH a thing. (1/n) https://twitter.com/katelincoln/status/1279099433876099074

This emphasis on massive results is a difficult thing to deal with in the not-for-profit sector. And it's a catch-22. You often don't have the resources white-led nonprofits do, but you're held to the same "metrics-based" standard they are.

(2/n)

And when you *can* demonstrate metrics, people still find reasons to discredit them.

"Ohh, your cost to help people is too high..."

"Why are you helping millions of people by now?"

"How big can this thing get?" (3/n)

*"Why aren't you helping millions of people by now?"

What if I'm not trying to build some massive org that essentially just profits from the problem it's supposed to be a part of solving?

I've sat in front of many people in the not-for-profit sector, though, where it's almost as if that's what they really want you to do. (4/n)

I actually do want to change laws and whatnot. So we get to know people on the ground, talk to local politicians, etc.

But, no funder wants to hear that that's what you've spent six months doing, though. (5/n)

It's one of the reasons I'm glad one of our first major donors told me many years ago to try to become self-sustaining. We're on our way.

He told me foundations will give me the runaround, deem us too risky to fund, etc. He wasn't wrong.

(6/n)

White philanthropy is the thing that tells somebody like me I'm not ready for grants I've raised on my own over the span of a few months.

Stuff like that reinforces this idea of philanthropy as a tax shelter rather than a true force for good. (7/n)

And if you look like me and sit in front of some white philanthropists and tell them you want to pursue systemic change instead of building some massive non-profit, you'll find out they didn't give you money because they didn't think you were very ambitious. (8/n)

At the end of the day, some things are not about scale initially.

And *what* is more ambitious than trying to change laws that benefit poor people?

Also, at the end of the day, affecting public policy is the *ultimate* level of working at scale. But, whatever.

(9/n)

I maintain that a big part of the problem is white philanthropists are truly not used to having to talk to Black, brown, and indigenous leaders of not-for-profit organizations.

We are supposed to be the recipients of the pennies.

Not the ones controlling funds. (10/n)

And then you have some folks that are VERY into metrics.

They don't care about qualitative aspects of the work many orgs do. They would not care about the improved quality of life (immeasurable!) that comes from getting your water turned back on + being able to bathe. (11/n)

These are your effective altruism people who seem not to be concerned with the improved quality of life that comes from paying a single mom's $300 water bill (built up from not making enough to always pay) and enabling her kids to stay out of foster care. (12/n)

I don't know.

I just maintain that there's a lot of philanthropic work that can be done that doesn't have to be so ROI-obsessed.

So much nonprofit work is for and with people. Working with people is not always going to boil down to a raw number you can measure.

FIN.

Oh! Not FIN.

We publish our numbers here ( https://www.detroitwaterproject.org/transparency ), but this still doesn't capture things like the joy of taking a shower in your own home.

No metric will ever capture that.

And that's arguably a more important result.