COVID-19
Funding Analysis

Atlanta is America’s most unequal city—and a global pandemic and civil uprising only brightens the light on the detrimental impact of inequality on families and business. Almost every issue in Atlanta, from health outcomes to financial security, disproportionately threatens Black communities. This is not an accident—it is a reflection of many intentional systems and policies. It is vital, especially in times of crisis, for public dollars to be distributed to trusted, effective solutions. So that’s exactly what we looked at.

On April 9, 2020, the Center for Civic Innovation began analyzing funding data from the $25M+ Greater Atlanta COVID-19 Response and Relief Fund. Out of 657 applications, the fund has awarded $18.2M to 321 organizations to date. The organizations were identified and selected by the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta and the United Way of Greater Atlanta. The Center for Civic Innovation also evaluated the leadership of the organizations who received investments for crisis response work and further, evaluated the demographic makeup of the 321 organizations as a sample set of organizations that represent the larger nonprofit landscape in Atlanta. Our goal of this effort was to better understand where they capital came from and how the dollars were used.

Atlanta has a number of Black-led, grassroots and community organizations that have been delivering emergency and relief programs and services well before COVID-19, because Atlanta’s inequality is a long-standing reality. This includes educators who teach computer science to young Black and Brown girls because the local high school doesn’t; or therapists who spend time in juvenile detention centers because the justice system treats young men as a liability instead of as an asset to our communities. In many ways, because Black communities have been ignored and treated unfairly for so long, that work was often created out of burden and necessity, not market opportunity. For the past five years, the Center for Civic Innovation has worked with 82 of these community leaders, entrepreneurs, and movement builders with solutions to inequality in Atlanta.

The Black leaders behind that selfless work often struggle to sustain themselves and their organizations. They are undervalued and underfunded, and that hits them hardest when their work is needed most and they don’t have the assets needed to meet the moment. The social sector has also adopted the racial and gender disparities of other industries. Black leaders face unparalleled challenges in their ability to raise capital. And in a time where we need Black leadership and genius more than ever, public and charitable dollars can be a meaningful tool to help grow and scale their efforts.

21% of COVID-19 Relief Grants were given to organizations founded by Black women, but they have received only 10% of total funding.

* the vast majority are white

Our initial findings:

96% of the grantees stated that their work included a focus on Black communities
The majority (74%) of the $18M funding went to white-led organizations
Although they are similar in number of grants received, organizations founded by white males received 50% of the capital; only 10% went to organizations founded by Black women
White women-led organizations received the highest amount of total dollars at ~$7.5M
The first 5 rounds of funding were closed-rounds; during that time $12M to 95% white-led organizations; only 7 Black-led organizations received funding in the initial rounds
The highest amount provided to any Black-led organization was $250,000 across all 6 rounds; the largest grant to a white-led organization was $750,000

What’s Next

We will publicly release the final report of this analysis on October 2, 2020. All data will be open.

We will work with a few key local partners to develop short-term recommendations for the remaining capital available for COVID-19 relief.

We will forego 10% of our own budget ($125,000), and will call on our peer, non-Black organizations with unrestricted funding to do the same, to seed a minimum $1M fund led by Black women leaders in Atlanta to redesign what rapid response funding should like in times of crisis.

This is the beginning of a larger 2021 effort to conduct research and analysis on public spending data (government and charitable).

We will continue to share more data in the coming weeks. We will be hosting an event to share our overall findings and recommendations on Friday, October 2, 2020.

Read the op/ed from our Executive Director, Rohit Malhotra on this topic.

This is not a referendum on COVID-19 response. In fact, there are a number of Black leaders in philanthropy who have been pushing for equity against a brick wall for a long time. While a rapid response fund is not intended to unravel decades of challenges in philanthropy, it certainly highlights the deep-rooted bias and broken processes that exist in these institutions today that are the result of long-standing power dynamics, not just procedural missteps.

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We ask a few questions that we will use anonymously in our final assessments, these questions are optional.
If you don’t want to participate in the survey or sign up for our email list, you can view the report when it is
publicly released.

GEt THe Report

We are grateful to the following partners
who have helped guide this effort.

We had two amazing interns: Marissa Joseph and Ying Mei. Also Sourabh Jha was an amazing data lead.

Transformation Alliance: We are proud members of TFA, and thanks to the leadership of Odetta Macleish White, we were able to review the initial data sets with fellow TFA members.

Sam Aleinikoff, Terri Bradley, Taifa Butler, Alex Camardelle, Ian Cohen, Katrina DeBerry, Nedra Deadwyler, Gabby Design, Lesley Grady, Lauren Jeong, Bomani Johnson, Marian Liou, Milton Little, Katrina Mitchell, Lita Pardi, Josh Phillipson, Tommy Pierce, Blythe Robinson, Ryan Rodriguez, Latresa Ryan, Kristina Smith, Nathaniel Smith, Tene Traylor, Malika Whitley, Janelle Wiilliams.

Special shout to Heather Infantry, Yonina Gray, and Nse Ufot. Heather has been an inspiration for our work. Because of her leadership, she has already begun to change the way philanthropy defines and approaches equity, Yonina Gray, who wrote this piece in Atlanta Magazine, and Nse Ufot, who keeps us grounded in this work.