In the movie Dinner for Schmucks, actor Steve Carell plays Barry, an obviously on-the-spectrum artist who does taxidermy with mice. Paul Rudd plays a corporate executive named Tim who learns that his higher-ups host dinners that serve as competitions to see who can bring the biggest idiot to the table. The winner gets bragging rights. The guests think they are being honored.
I’ve watched this movie dozens of times. Today I realized it is allegorical to how the philanthropy sector engages with and tokenizes black and brown nonprofit organizations. It was an uncomfortable truth to admit that, like many other black folks in this work, I have been Barry in the eyes of white-led philanthropy.
At 45 years old, I can safely say that I have spent the bulk of my adult career in some form of human services. From being the food stamp guy at social services, deciding disability claims at Social Security, working for nonprofits to running my own, the first job I ever loved was at the Black History Museum at the age of 22. I can tell you so many stories about philanthropy, charity, the unfortunate other, and the savior complexes that walk with this industry.
In the movie DWS, Tim befriends Barry with the goal of climbing the corporate ladder by bringing him to the dinner. Throughout my career, so much value is placed on being at “the table”. This table, owned by wealthy white men, is reserved for those of us who pose no threat to the hierarchy of human value that systemic racism and classism uphold. You just have to be kind enough, polite enough, and presentable enough to be invited. If you’re black, you can’t be angry at nothing.
Barry is highly unique. He is also very naive and nice. The power structure is imbalanced. I entered philanthropic spaces thinking that if I wrote the perfect grant proposal, if the metrics were clearly articulated and the story told just right, we’d get the money and make a real difference in our community. I was very naive.
Truth is, philanthropy doesn’t care about any of that shit. The imbalance is paramount; you are the object. The foundation is the reviewer of you and your work, assessing your “grant worthiness” and “capacity”. To philanthropy, we are the entertainment to be discussed at the real dinner table. The private dinners at exclusive restaurants and galas where the grantees are never invited. The bragging rights go to the foundations funding the unfortunate others who have the most “inspiring and impactful stories”.
I used to think these foundations give money to the folks doing the most impactful and inspiring work. Then I started checking 990s of nonprofits in my community and realized it’s all a game. The white-led nonprofits get 90% of foundation grants, leaving black and brown orgs to fight each other for the rest.
I once saw a million-dollar donation be given anonymously to my region’s botanical garden to redo its conservatory. Meanwhile, communities of color struggle with a lack of affordable housing and a lack of healthy food access. Traumatized by disproportionate violence resulting from decades of neglected investment and discriminatory policies that concentrated poverty, like redlining, highway construction, and urban renewal, we have seats at tables built from the bones of our trauma.
The illusion of hospitality is the invitation to apply for the next round of funding for 20k or 50k. For those of us who came from nothing, those are big numbers! When I first started doing nonprofit work, I thought 100k was a lot of money – protip – if you’re really doing impactful work, it is not. It’s all a cover for the exploitation of black and brown communities that continues no matter how many impact grants the Community Foundation gives.
You can’t fix 500 years of systemic racism and land displacement with a couple 50k grants a year. We are the only ones who even remotely hold on to the glimmer of hope that the little bit of money doled out will make some kind of difference. It won’t.
Barry got invited to the table by Tim though. Tim started to feel guilty over his exploitation of Barry. The nonprofit sector has its own versions of the dinner. They look like panel discussions, interviews for strategic plans, they look like being invited on the foundations board even, being highlighted as a case study for a report that will be ignored in 2 years because the next round of Barry’s gotta get lifted up. Young non-profit mauve? You think you popping? Your just next. They will move on. Prepare yourself and hold tightly to your things accordingly.
What I see time and time again are the burnout of foundation staff – program officers, consultants, grant reviewers because they see the bullshit too. They end up like Tim, feeling like damn this system is not working m, it doesn’t care about our people – the donors have all the money and the power they set the terms. They aren’t interested in sharing that power with the people – where the real change happens. No matter how many times we share our stories or delineate our impact – it’s all objectified and subject to funding disappearing the next year – even though the issues being addressed didn’t.
Remember in 2020 when racial equity was the buzz term of the moment? How is it we are in 2026 with a president tweeting images of the Obamas as monkeys and we aren’t seeing the same philanthropic response? Because philanthropy is all a sham. The wealthy give to who they want when and if it isn’t in vogue the funds don’t flow. The tokenized guilt of that moment is non existent in this moment where racism is normalized in the highest offices of this countries government.
I am complicit though. I tried to fit this black liberation self determination talk into philanthropic rooms that I had been invited into. I was called militant by one of the co-founders of one of the TWO main black giving circles in my city. Through the grace of God – I made it this far – in collaboration with accomplices that make room for justice in their funding strategies; few and far in between.
I remember being on the inside cover spread of that botanical gardens capital fundraising campaign as we worked to build gardens in Jackson Ward. Then when COVID happen they fired me and took the money my work there and raised and put it to the salaries of the remaining white staff. I was disinvited from that table.
I remember pouring into the Beautiful RVA collaborative and I watched white people burn it to the ground when the realized they could no longer control it. I saw my dear friend who had invested a decade of her time in to building it, take a pay cut move from bring a director of a department to working under my leadership – lose her job too and that good work to be stifled – all for the people who no longer found equitable place making unique enough or in alignment with the strategic plan or whatever bullshit excuse they told the donors. I was d is invited from that table.
I will never forget being in an equity fellowship at Richmond Memorial Health Foundation. I missed a day so they docked my stipend by $1000. Others missed days and nothing happened to them. It got “corrected” but they have never engaged my work seriously ever again. I was disinvited from that table.
I also remember the donation of 85 acres to us during the height of COVID that serves as the catalyst for the transformational work we do today building community owned and controlled food systems. That work was supported by another white led nonprofit whose executive staff has since moved on to different experiences with other organizations. The energy shifted accordingly their end of the bargain upheld. I was disinvited from those staff members tables.
Those were very different sides of a coin flip.
In the wake of the lynching of DEI I don’t see much funding or partnerships of consequence being measured out to black and brown nonprofits in the near future. Those who get invited to the tables still existent are left to fight each other like Barry and Therman did using mind control on the donor world at large to prove the inspiring and impactful work they are doing is worthy of funding at scale beyond year one or two
As for the rest of us, it is well past time to build our own tables where justice, liberation and self determination are being served.
I stand in awe of organizations like the National Black Food Justice Alliance that have done just that.
