Funders and the Prodigal Son Effect
Hi everyone, this is the next-to-last blog post before I go on my yearly summer hiatus. I’ll be off all of July and August to spend time with my kids, who got me a mug that says “Not the worst dad” for Father’s Day.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son goes like this: There are two sons, an older one who is steady and hardworking, and the younger one is immature and reckless. The younger takes his inheritance early and squanders it, likely on wine and cryptocurrency, and was left destitute. He comes crawling back, and instead of being chastised by his father, the old man threw him a feast.
The older son was like “WTF?! I’ve been here the whole time doing everything right, and you’ve never once thrown me a feast. Heck, you won’t even share your streaming password with me! I’m not even sure you appreciate me!” And the father said, “Uh…remind me…who are you again?”
OK, I may need to polish up on my biblical stories.
The point is, the Prodigal Son represents someone who gets praised for losing their way and then finding it again. And while it’s great for people to learn and grow, the “Prodigal Son Effect” can be deceptive. Here are some ways it manifests in our sector:
· A guy who is known for being an a-hole suddenly gets a change or heart and is now not as horrible as before. He gets praised, possibly even promoted, over people who have been decent the whole time
· A man has a baby, displays some basic parenting skills, and is treated like a hero for being a good father, and people bend the rules to accommodate his schedule, whereas his women colleagues are just expected to be good mothers and get zero acknowledgement or concessions.
· A foundation CEO holds a listening session and gets praised for being approachable, whereas other funders who have been much more present in communities get ignored
· An organization with mostly white senior leaders decides they want to do some internal DEI work. They get a lot of funding for it, whereas organizations led by marginalized communities that have been doing DEI work struggle to get funding to do the same work.
· A large corporation or wealthy individual donates a sizeable amount of money and gets press releases and social media posts praising their “generosity,” when they should have been paying a significantly higher amount in taxes, like some of the smaller companies.
· A funder increases their grantmaking by a little bit, starts giving two-year grants instead of one-year, or stops requiring burdensome applications and reports, and they get applauded, whereas funders who have been doing those things for years get ignored.
I want to home in on this last one. In foundations, the Prodigal Son Effect is pervasive and powerful, and we need to really be on the lookout for it, because it oftentimes creates an illusion of growth and progress, which increases complacency, which then prevents bolder, more courageous actions.
For instance, there has been a lot of praise for funders who increase the amount of money they’re giving out. Sure, it may seem generous, especially in comparison to what they had been giving out before, but we need to analyze to see if this is a courageous action this moment calls for. As I mentioned last year in this post, foundations increasing their annual payout rate from 5% to 6% is not enough to fight back the tides of fascism.
Hell, 10% may not be enough. 15% may not be enough. Foundations need to operate with the urgency the moment calls for, not just do slightly better than the very low bar they had set for themselves in the past.
Same goes with length of investments. Funders moving from one-year grants to two-or-three-year grants, that’s great and all, but just a reminder than conservative foundations often give grants of twenty years or more. (Don’t take my word for it; again, here’s the report that lays out the differences between conservative and liberal funders)
The rest of us also need to stop being so enamored with Prodigal Son funders. Every time these funder does something slightly better, people rush to praise them, writing glowing comments in social media, reposting. And I also usually get several direct messages or emails asking “Did you see what so-and-so funder just did?! Isn’t it great?!” (And then I’ll usually get a few messages saying “I can’t believe so-and-so-funder is getting all this great press, when they pretty much still suck.”)
I was on a podcast with Stupski Foundation’s Glen Galaich, who wrote the book Control: Why Big Giving Falls Short. Glen encouraged people to not “like” and share social media posts from foundations when they do something slightly better than their usual.
I understand why this fawning over Prodigal Son funders happens. There are so many unnecessary, burdensome, onerous hoops and created by liberal funders that any time there’s a slight improvement, it seems like a major event worthy of praise. But excessive praise reinforces the message to funders that we're happy if they do the bare minimum, when significantly more courage is needed.
I often get feedback that I’m too cynical, and that any improvement from funders should deserve praise. After all, if we don’t encourage funders when they do take steps in the right direction, how do we expect any change? Sure, let’s acknowledge funders when they do good stuff. But let’s be judicious and not excessive or fawning when it’s unwarranted. We can show appreciation while assertively encouraging them to go even further, especially right now, when things are very dire.
Meanwhile, taking a lesson from the parable of the Prodigal Son, let’s spend more time and energy recognizing the funders who have been awesome but we've been taking them for granted—the ones who have been providing general operating funds, giving well beyond 5% payout, providing multiple years of support, investing in advocacy and other things most funders are terrified of, and otherwise making grantees’ lives and work a lot easier and more effective.
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