“Not many of them, it’s true”
by Gregory Orr
Not many of them, it’s true,
But certain poems
In an uncertain world—
The ones we cling to:
They bring us back
Always to the beloved
Whom we thought we’d lost.
As surely as if the words
Led her by the hand,
Brought him before us.
Certain poems
In an uncertain world.
We made to the end of 2020! What a year it has been. I hope you and your family made it through this most tumultuous year safe, healthy, and reasonably happy given the circumstances. We have covered a lot of territory in this blog and newsletter this year. My goal has always been to help you be more knowledgeable about the philanthropic sector in general and more confident in your own giving in particular. We've certainly had much to be inspired by in 2020. In looking back at past issues, I noticed a few themes.
We shared a lot of examples of foundations that are reevaluating their purpose and longevity. While the trend was on the rise among younger, less traditional trustees, the desperate and sudden needs sparked by COVID-19's emergence in March brought many families and boards back to the table to reevaluate purpose versus payout. With so many people out of work, sick, and with little safety net, COVID-19 was a great revealer of the vast economic inequalities in our country. We all may have been adrift in a stormy sea, but some of us had much sturdier boats. Money flowed quickly but unevenly throughout the country. My thoughts on this were published in an article I wrote for Giving Compass.
The other major incident of the year that sparked tremendous action as well as reflection was the murder of George Floyd in May. Again, while racial justice has been a focus of many progressive funders for some time, the flagrant miscarriage of justice at the hands of the police brought the issue to the fore for nearly everyone. Philanthropy and the social sector answered with all their might: they doubled down on funding Black communities, organized protests, created new funds for racial equity and the like. We at Phīla put together the immensely popular resource Pull Up for Racial Justice, which now lives permanently on our website, as well as a summer reading list of books that shed light on the moment we were experiencing as a nation.
And among the myriad of other issues we brought to you, we talked quite a lot about wealth and well-being. It's impossible to have any meaningful or honest discussion about philanthropy without excavating one's feelings about money. Whether one takes the power-sharing, reparations stance of Resource Generation, or holds the belief in passing wealth down responsibly to heirs, thinking about what money means to you and your family is the foundation of good philanthropy. Being a values-based firm means we take our time with these issues to get at the root of why a person wants to engage in philanthropy in the first place. These can be difficult questions to tackle, but we took them on squarely when we talked about impact investing, reparations, and inheritance.
2020 shined a bright, focused light on so much that is wrong with our society, but it also lit a way forward. We were reminded of what we hold dear but often took for granted, our health and safety, our democracy, and the importance of our real-life social networks—personal and professional. We also learned a great deal about ourselves and what kind of world we want to live in.
I know all of this is true for me. Like you, I have experienced a year that I will never forget. 2021 is sure to be challenging in many ways as well, but I am forever grateful that I have work and a community that continue to be a bright light on even the darkest of days. Thank you for your engagement and interest this year. Here’s to a new start!