Michael D. Smith, who led the Obama-era My Brother’s Keeper, on the mistakes philanthropy shouldn’t repeat as it turns its attention back to boys and men.
- Why the last major push for boys and men of color left didn’t live up to funder promises.
- What separates a real funding commitment from an aspirational one — and why the distinction matters.
- How to widen the tent for boys and men without sidelining those carrying the heaviest burden.
Renewed philanthropic interest in the challenges facing boys and men — as reported recently in the Chronicle of Philanthropy — is a welcome development. But before moving forward, the sector should consider what happened the last time the country rallied around this issue. And it should resolve not to repeat the same mistakes.
I speak from experience. I led and helped build My Brother’s Keeper, the Obama-era initiative launched in 2014 to address barriers facing boys and young men of color. Having spent more than a decade in philanthropy at that point, my first job on the MBK design team was managing its foundation partnerships. Two lessons emerged from that experience.
First, be wary of funding commitments.
The amount actually invested in boys and men of color was far less than expected. For starters, a dedicated federal funding stream never materialized, in part because of constitutional concerns about a government focus on race and gender.
As a result, the initiative was built around a broader theory of opportunity: focus on those facing the steepest barriers and develop solutions that could strengthen systems for everyone — what’s known as “targeted universalism.” MBK policy wins such as Second Chance Pell and school discipline reform began by examining the challenges affecting those most disadvantaged and ultimately produced reforms that benefited people across race and gender, rather than providing specific support to boys and young men of color.
Philanthropic and corporate investments also never fully met expectations. At MBK’s launch, foundations announced a $200 million commitment to the cause. In reality, at the time of the announcement, some funders had not secured board approval, and some viewed the pledge as a label for existing work, not new money. This happened again just one year later with the launch of MBK Alliance, a private sector counterpart to sustain the work of the federal initiative. The organization began with $80 million in corporate and philanthropic commitments. When it was acquired by the Obama Foundation, and I took over as its head, I discovered nearly half of those dollars were never realized.
Because the field of organizations working to support boys and men of color never received sustained, flexible funding, the groups that once provided research, advocacy, and coordination lost dollars when attention moved on. For years, I was approached by mayors and community leaders asking how they could get access to dollars that weren’t truly available to them. MBK was never meant to create a field from scratch. It was a shot in the arm for a movement that had been building for more than a decade through organizations such as the Campaign for Black Male Achievement, Cities United, and others. Today, much of that infrastructure has disappeared. This slow burn has nearly burned out.
That history should inform how we evaluate today’s commitments. The question is not simply how many dollars are announced but how much is genuinely new, reaches communities, and builds the infrastructure to sustain results after public attention wanes.
In hindsight, while we brought attention to both the issue and evidence-based solutions, I wish we would have developed a clearer plan for foundations to support so the conversation would have led to lasting commitments rather than fleeting interest.
Second, don’t broaden the tent at the expense of those facing the greatest challenges.
The broader frame around boys and men has brought welcome attention and funding. I see it in the work I lead at Eckerd Connects, one of the country’s largest work-force development and family services nonprofits serving boys and young men.
But as we rightfully build a bigger tent, it’s also imperative that we double down on supporting boys and young men of color whose struggles have long exposed where economic opportunity systems break down. While the mobility gap for Black young men has recently narrowed, they still face disproportionately higher unemployment and lower median earnings over all, harsher discipline at school, and a greater likelihood of contact with the justice system.
We have seen this pattern before. From marijuana criminalization to the starkly different responses to crack cocaine and opioids, problems disproportionately affecting Black communities have too often been met first with punishment or neglect and only later, as the population affected broadened, with investment,innovation, and compassion. Philanthropy should ask itself whether the same dynamic is happening again.
Asking that question, however, is not the same as concluding the work has failed. My Brother’s Keeper still exists within the Obama Foundation and continues to provide invaluable support to communities. In many of those communities where the work continues, homicide rates have fallen, schools have expanded early learning and improved attendance, graduation rates for students of color have increased, and local leadership and infrastructure have endured.
A Better Path Forward
With these lessons in mind, here’s what it would mean for philanthropy to get it right this time:
Make the money real.
New commitments should mean new dollars — not relabeled grants or aspirational pledges.And a meaningful share of those funds should reach organizations working on the ground.
Invest in a field, not a collection of projects.
Fund the research, advocacy, coordination, leadership, and community infrastructure that allow effective interventions to spread and endure. And this time, build a philanthropic agenda focused on outcomes and sustained commitment rather than episodic bursts of investment.
Play the long game.
The challenges facing boys and young men did not arrive during the latest news cycle, and philanthropy cannot disappear when that cycle changes. Judge this effort five and 10 years from now, not by the size of launch announcements.
Widen the tent cautiously.
The growing challenges facing boys and men across America deserve attention and investment. But equity cannot mean waiting until a problem reaches everyone before we decide it matters. The lesson of MBK — and of targeted universalism — is precisely the opposite: When we understand where systems fail those carrying the greatest burden and invest seriously in fixing those failures, we can build solutions that expand opportunity for everyone.
That should be the test of philanthropy’s renewed interest in boys and men: not whether this moment generates more attention but whether it produces more opportunity; not how much money is announced but how much reaches communities and produces results; and not simply whether the tent gets bigger but whether it grows without pushing to the margins those who continue to bear the weight of longstanding and persistent inequities.
BY MICHAEL D. SMITH
Read Original Article on Philanthropy.com
Featured image courtesy of National Archives, Obama Presidential Library
