Black Permanency is about Staying Power

I grew up in a Los Angeles with a strong, economically diverse, vibrant Black core. Over the past three decades, that core has been eroded by compounding instability: an affordability crisis, housing insecurity, food insecurity, historic redlining, and extractive policies that place profit over people. Instead of mental health supports, we got policing. And instead of quality schools and safe third spaces, we got an overconcentration of liquor stores and unlicensed cannabis dispensaries. A grant cycle didn’t prevent this, and a grant cycle won’t fix it.

My view is that problems of this magnitude require philanthropy to break up with outcomes. My argument is not about service delivery and making sure that dollars reach the communities that they were intended to impact. It is about how an obsession with outcomes pulls foundations away from the very communities that have been impacted by systemic oppression. Instead of community activations, gatherings, and meeting people where they are, the nonprofit sector has become beholden to funding guidelines, reports, frequent site visits, and overall monitoring.

A Black Permanency framework presents an alternative: building the conditions for Black people, organizations, cultural institutions, leadership, and community power to remain rooted, grow, and shape the future across generations. This vision cannot be achieved with the state of philanthropy as is. Philanthropy must shift from funding outcomes to funding staying power.

Harm to Black communities was built and endured over generations, and it cannot be undone with business as usual. Black Permanency directly asks, “Will philanthropy resource the institutional and people power necessary to advance Black interests across generations?” This work looks like leadership, reserves, organizing capacity, infrastructure, and a long horizon for staying power. Not outcomes holding the community hostage. That is the philanthropy we need so that future generations of Black Angelenos can remain rooted, direct their own futures, and sustain the strong, vibrant Black core that shaped the Los Angeles I grew up in.