Social justice: notes on power-sharing and shifting
February 20th is the World Day of Social Justice. The date was created by the UN in 2007, recognizing “that social development and social justice are indispensable for the achievement and maintenance of peace and security within and between nations”. The objective is to highlight the importance of addressing issues such as poverty, exclusion, inequalities of race, gender and sexuality, and social protection.
But what is social justice?
Social justice is the view that everyone deserves equal economic, political and social rights, and opportunities.
In our world, it means reducing inequalities, transforming and rebalancing power relations, and promoting historical reparation.
How can we do this? To deal with such a complex challenge — the most complex of all, perhaps — we need different solutions and all sectors of society.
One of them has been practiced by some organizations that are dedicated to philanthropy for social justice. As Ana Toni writes, “the title of social justice philanthropy in Brazil is specific to a small group of organizations. The social justice philanthropy has, at the heart of its action, the inequalities of power relations in society, and not all other important aspects of inequalities or social problems that afflict our daily lives”.
Ana Toni’s text starts the book “Filantropia de justiça social, movimentos sociais e sociedade civil no Brasil” (2018) [Philanthropy for social justice, civil society, and social movements in Brazil], a pioneering Brazilian publication on the topic, organized by Graciela Hopstein, Executive Coordinator of the Brazilian Philanthropy Network for Social Justice.
Besides seeking to transform power relations in society, philanthropy for social justice is characterized by supporting civil society organizations and/or social movements, through direct donations of resources — mainly money donations (the so-called grantmaking), but also contacts, networks, knowledge, capacity building, opportunities.
According to Graciela Hopstein, this support is “a strategic action that contributes not only to financial sustainability but mainly to the strengthening of agendas linked to the fields of social justice, human rights, and citizenship, leveraging transformation processes, serving vulnerable and marginalized in access to rights”.
A strong organized civil society is essential for us to have a solid and participatory democracy. Formal and informal civil society organizations (CSOs), with different sizes and working on different causes, are responsible for producing and disseminating cutting-edge knowledge and research, accompanying and monitoring government activities and contributing to the building and implementation of public policies.
In a recent book in which she warns of the growing closure of the civic space — which is the layer situated between the State, business and the family, in which citizens organize, debate and act -, Ilona Szabó explains:
“A healthy and open civic space implies that civil society groups and individuals can organize, participate and communicate without obstacles — and, in doing so, they can access information, claim their rights and influence public opinion, policies and the political and social structures around them.”
Despite this, the Brazilian government and media often criminalize CSOs and social movements, which creates a climate lack of confidence, rather than informing the population about how all of their rights are the result of these groups’ work.
“Social movements and civil society organizations are at the forefront of the defense of the interests of people who suffer abuses and whose rights are threatened, such as women, indigenous peoples, quilombolas, black people, LGBT+ population, children and adolescents”, write Ana Valéria Araújo and Maíra Junqueira, then coordinators of the Brazil Fund.
Our opportunities
We live in an extremely opportune moment to recognize, protect and boost the work of these organizations and social movements. These groups were the ones that prevented an even greater tragedy in the pandemic.
“At other times in Brazil’s recent history, especially in the context of re-democratization, we had the opportunity to witness the vitality and creativity of civil society in articulating responses to crises of different natures. Faced with the current pandemic of Covid-19, we see, again, a vigorous mobilization of collectives and organizations, especially those active in the slums and peripheral territories, to bring information and basic needs items to the thousands of families pushed into situations of extreme vulnerability, both from an economic point of view, as well as health conditions ”, says Átila Roque, director of the Ford Foundation Brazil.
In this scenario, it is necessary to increase support to civil society, but not only: in addition to giving more, it is necessary giving better. Giving with more trust, for example.
A very inspiring initiative in this sense is the Trust-based Philanthropy Project, which aims to make trust-based practices the norm in philanthropy. Recognizing the inherent power imbalance between foundations and nonprofits, they believe philanthropy will be more successful, rewarding, and effective if funders approach their grantee relationships from a place of trust, humility and transparency.
If philanthropy may be an exercise of power, thus philanthropists must transform, share, and criticize their own power as funders.
We must remember that the seed of philanthropy for social justice in Brazil was planted by the black religious brotherhoods, who paid for the freedom of their enslaved brothers and sisters. Sharing, changing and shifting power was there, since the beginning.
This requires incorporating diversity and social justice as embodied values.
“We need an agenda for philanthropy rooted in justice and social justice in terms of race, class, climate and gender. This agenda is not just an external one in terms of where funders direct their money but also an internal one in terms of a foundation’s own practices and composition.
That means examining the representation of Black people, people of colour, and women in the most senior professional roles in foundations and on foundation boards. While progress is being made, why is it that as recently as 2018 only one out of the largest 35 foundations in Germany had a female CEO in 2018?”, writes Charles Keidan.
The road is long, but we have good clues on how to move towards a more just world. These clues are close to the ground, close to the experience of people who resist and reinvent themselves for generations. In traditional, indigenous, quilombola communities, in the ancestral wisdom that nature nurtures.
Edgar Villanueva shares the indigenous wisdom of his ancestors so that we can decolonize wealth. In Native traditions, medicine is a way of achieving balance.
“Money should be a tool of love, to facilitate relationships, to help us thrive, rather than to hurt and divide us. If it’s used for sacred, life-giving, restorative purposes, it can be medicine”.
