Why African Americans should Build Black Foundations

-A Gibbs Editorial-

Black Americans have a thriving Black Middle Class, we have millionaires that exceed our ability to count quickly, and billionaires as well. We spend almost a trillion dollars a year for goods and services. (1) We are 38-40 million strong. We have lawyers, doctors, engineers, politicians, and we are all that America is.

In the development of the black community, however, there is a short-sightedness that somehow we have been blind to. That short-sightedness is our failure as a community to develop philanthropic foundations to help our less mobile and less well to do citizens.

Every people, as they develop up from slavery, poverty, oppression, colonialism, etc., and become economically sufficient, socially mobile, intellectually strong, etc.,  develop philanthropic foundations (2) to care for their weak, infirmed, and their less developed. As a people grow prosperous and strong, they recognize and empathize with the weak of their community. Usually, the strong build systems to care for their weak and needy, as they are  their uncomely parts. To care for them is to care for themselves.

Those caring systems are often agencies that provide direct services to the needy--drug treatment, youth counseling, homeless services, etc. But those agencies require funding; that is where philanthropic foundations come in. They are the financial resource that sustain direct service providers; often the government is a poor providers of services. In the Black Community, we have a number of service providers, but no philanthropic foundations to sustain them; these service providers are the people who do the heavy lifting to our weak, infirm, and needy.

This failure to develop philanthropic foundations, actually a failure to develop the infrastructure, is a glaring oversight that is more than merely glaring; it is our community's embarrassment. How could a people as intelligent, as caring, as economically developed as we allow ourselves to have overlooked this important aspect in our development? This is comparable to a well-educated, polite man growing up into society, but has overlooked the development of sensitivity and goodness; he is a deformed man, whether he knows it or not! And so is our community's development.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, as an example, there are over 500 philanthropic business, public, and private foundations that provide services to direct service agencies. Their worth exceeds $50-billion. And this is in an area of only some 12-15 million people. Of that 500+ foundations with significant assets as stated above, not one of them is Black. And that peculiarity is mirrored nationwide.

Yet Black America has the resources, with a GNP of some $753+ billion. And this amount is not the total worth of a  Black America of some 38-million; this is just what we spend each year. Cannot a people with such spending power develop significant foundations (3) to care for their weak?

Aside from caring for the weak, a foundation adds a certain community pride and self-esteem to a community and the people of that community. Those foundations care for community needs, identify community issues,  educate the community about those needs, then work to eliminate those needs and problems--they provide social health to a community. It may be a theater, an art gallery, etc., for the social entertainment and tranquility of that people. Of this Sigmund Freud was correct: civilization does breed its discontents and frustrations. (4) One way we grapple with those discontents and frustrations is through arts and entertainment. Foundations also provide honorable and respectable venues that a community can take a certain pride in, as having produced and developed of itself.

We understand and acknowledge that foundations are usually staffed of the community of its domicile and by its originators and supporters. It is through largess of a foundation that it goes outside of its community to assist others who are not clearly and directly related to its creation and sustenance. Since Blacks have no foundations, those not created by Blacks usually fund us at their largess. That is a social embarrassment. 

But should that embarrassment be suffered by a people having almost a trillion dollar GNP, over a million businesses, and a people so thoroughly integrated into all facets of the nation? A vibrant people do not long depend on the largess of others to care for their weak; they are of ample strength to support their weak and even those who are not their own. A vibrant people will demonstrate largess to their own and others, instead of being the continued recipients of the largess of others.

Historically, a people usually develop a network to support their own--it is natural, it is healthy, and it is expected that a community would develop a safety net for its less able and weak. This is especially true of a people who have experienced great trauma. Indeed, there is one community and people of America who are only a fraction of our numbers, who have experienced great trauma, even  as we have, and they have built philanthropic foundations far exceeding their proportional numbers. Yet we have developed far too few.

Foundation-building is a matter the Black Community has overlooked, and this oversight must be remedied. When we were shut out of public schools and colleges, we developed our own; likewise, we must develop foundations to fund programs providing services to our own needy. We have the means to help ourselves, and to expect others to help when we have not done all we can is naïve.

We are too intelligent a people, we are too caring, we are too skillful, we are too creative, and we have too much integrity to not do what all other peoples and communities have done: build community foundations throughout their communities. Yes, there are celebrity foundations, but the pride of a community is celebrated when there are significant community foundations throughout that community as a natural part of its social development. To do less in the Black Community is our shame!

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1.) It is estimated by a number of agencies that study Black America that our GNP as a nation is almost a trillion dollars--$7-800 billion. This is the amount of money 38-40 million African Americans spend on goods and services each year.

2.) A philanthropic foundation is a nonprofit corporation established to provide financial assistance to direct service agencies that provide specific services to the needy of a community. This type of foundation may also provide special agency managerial support, community health and vibrancy support and guidance. The overall thrust of such foundations is to care for the less fortunate and weak of a specific community. 

3.) "Significant foundations" are foundations with assets of $50-100-million. These foundations can fund direct service agencies.

4.) Just last week a study was released that showed that because of society's multi-tiered stressors particularly on Black America, we suffer greater illnesses than whites. Also consider the small book by Sigmund Freud, "Civilization and Its Discontents."

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