Why does the media treat foundations like first responders?

Summer 2020 sparked a reckoning around racial justice after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, not just in the United States but across the globe. The wave of support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and broader demands for racial equity pushed foundations and corporations alike to meet the moment by putting dollars behind these efforts. 

Commitments to racial equity reached $16.5 billion, nearly three times the previous year. Much of that total came in the form of pledges – promises to give funds over a period of years – and many were never tracked to completion. When the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE) counted the grants it could confirm for 2020, it found about $3.4 billion for racial equity, including about $1 billion for racial justice work that challenges the systems that produce inequality. Racial justice funding peaked the next year at roughly $1.65 billion. It has declined since. The announced commitments in 2020 received heavy media coverage. However, data on how these commitments have played out has received far less attention.

Now, Minnesota is one of many states taking center stage again, this time for immigrant rights, or the lack of them. During Operation Metro Surge, ICE made around 3,600 arrests in about ten weeks, and more than 2,300 of those people have since been deported or left the country. In January, DHS officers shot and killed Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti on camera while they were observing immigration enforcement. Their deaths made national headlines.

A week earlier, an off-duty ICE agent killed Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old Black father of two, in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve. His death got far less attention. As Black Lives Matter Los Angeles co-founder Melina Abdullah said, “The community is going to have to mobilize.” That remains the expectation six years after 2020.

After an initial surge in 2020, many funders stepped back from racial justice work, but the communities they had promised to support kept organizing, just with far less funding. When federal agents came to the Twin Cities, neighbors, volunteers, and immigrant-led groups responded first. They ran hotlines, tracked ICE activity, and raised money to keep families housed. According to organizer Ashley Fairbanks, it took weeks for the first emergency funding from Minnesota foundations to reach some of those groups. 

In my first column, I questioned how philanthropy media should portray organizations increasingly operating outside traditional philanthropic frameworks. Now, I aim to explore that issue more thoroughly. How does our perception of power shift when, in a crisis, the primary support comes from rapid-response organizations and volunteer-led groups that the sector seldom recognizes?  

The Press Release Is Rarely the Real Story

The commitments made in 2020 were easy to report, given the social and financial capital that especially large funders possess. A simple press release does most of the work. Verifying whether and how that money was disbursed and to whom requires time and resources that many philanthropy-focused outlets don’t have. Such coverage of these bold new commitments also created the impression that funders only became interested in racial justice in 2020, which isn’t true. Lori Villarosa, PRE’s executive director, emphasized that the increase in funding “didn’t happen overnight,” noting that it had been growing steadily for years before the uprisings. PRE’s report challenges the dominant narrative that funding for racial equity and justice work was scarce until the 2020 BLM uprisings. Racial justice funding nearly tripled between 2011 and 2018, from $331 million to $926 million, suggesting the 2020 moment grew out of years of movement building.

Most coverage focused on the pledges and the foundations and corporations that made them, with limited reporting on the organizers behind racial justice efforts. Few stories examined the long-standing work of Black-led groups, many small and underfunded, that have been dedicated to racial justice long before 2020 and who laid the groundwork that enabled this funding surge to happen in the first place. Now that funding has decreased, only a few outlets cover the impacts and the ongoing efforts of these organizations to pursue their goal of racial justice. 

Blowing the Whistle on the Speed of Funder Response

When federal agents arrived in Minnesota, communities didn’t wait to act. One man 3D printed thousands of whistles and distributed them to neighbors so they could alert each other when ICE was near. A quick responder, who asked to be called “green bean,” spent many hours each week driving around the Twin Cities, tracking agents and monitoring Signal chats to catch raids early. 

Communities nationwide are adopting a similar strategy. Organizers say the rapid response model originated in Los Angeles and was further developed in Chicago last fall. In the Twin Cities, activists have monitored the area outside the Whipple Federal Building, a regional ICE headquarters near Minneapolis, since August 2025. Each city adapted the model based on what the previous city learned, tailoring it to local circumstances. The organizers documented and shared most of this knowledge themselves, with minimal external assistance from funders. 

In each of these cities, community members are playing a key role in fundraising efforts. In January, Ashley Fairbanks launched Stand With Minnesota. This website helped direct over $40 million to mutual aid groups, community organizations, and crowdfunding initiatives in less than four months to support people affected by the ICE raids. She mentions that it cost less than a thousand dollars to build, but securing funding for expansion took several months. When some funders refused to pay rent, neighbors and PTAs across the Twin Cities stepped in, organizing their own rent funds so families could stay in their homes. 

When the McKnight Foundation asked her what philanthropy could learn, her first answer was blunt. “Put the bag on the table and walk away.”

Replicating a Model That Works

In Chicago, organizers reacted similarly. When the Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Midway Blitz last September, Lindsey Joyce, co-president of ONE Northside’s board, recognized the need for her organization to establish its own response system. “If you target one Chicagoan, you target us all,” she told WTTW. Consequently, ONE Northside implemented the Northside Lakefront Rapid Response Team, where volunteers monitor neighborhoods for ICE activities and verify sightings. Additionally, the group created a neighbor-to-neighbor network that assists vulnerable residents by delivering groceries, escorting children to and from school, and helping with paperwork.

Most news coverage of Chicago decreased after the large raids concluded, but organizers continued their efforts. In March, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights reported that their family support hotline still received calls daily. Organizers noted that ICE had shifted to smaller, targeted arrests that often lasted only a few minutes, making it more difficult for rapid responders to arrive in time. Mainstream media coverage tends to focus on the (larger) raids themselves, while ongoing organizing efforts receive considerably less attention.

Writing About Trees In the Middle of a Forest

Philanthropy-focused media hasn’t completely ignored what’s been happening on the ground, with much of their coverage coming from funders themselves, either by funders promoting their own initiatives on their own platforms, or by pitching to outlets, or through efforts to track the impact of funding by the sector itself. The Minnesota Council on Foundations tracked 32 pooled funds that had raised just over $29 million by April, with about 65% of it paid out. The McKnight Foundation highlighted the Immigrant Rapid Response Fund on its blog, which raised $14.8 million from more than 65,000 donors and awarded grants to over 140 organizations. The Minneapolis Foundation also shared its grantmaking activities. Additionally, the McKnight Foundation sponsored a Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) series featuring foundation leaders from various cities, community partners, and a mutual aid organizer. The series emphasizes a point I agree with: “The community response was not spontaneous…What unfolded in Minnesota offers a window into what civic infrastructure looks like when it is built before crisis hits, and what it takes to sustain it.”

I want to highlight the SSIR series for its impact. It brought Fairbanks’ voice to a broad audience, and her essay stands out as one of the most insightful on philanthropy this year. The series centers communities in the narrative and focuses on the immigrant-led groups, volunteers, and mutual aid organizers as the ones taking action, leading, and safeguarding their neighbors. Philanthropy-focused media outlets should replicate this form, though it's worth noting that a foundation funded the series, and the lessons are still aimed at those who fund the work.

In my first column, I said I would turn these questions on myself, and this is one of those moments. This column also reaches the funder before it reaches the communities it describes. Sponsored coverage can still tell full stories. But whose framing sets the terms, and who does the story ultimately serve?

Building Civil Society Infrastructure During a Civil War

To see what this long-lasting infrastructure looks like, consider Sudan. Since the civil war began in April 2023, over 12 million people have been displaced, and major international aid organizations have struggled due to underfunding, insecurity, and obstruction. In response, small mutual aid groups called Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs) have filled the void.

Today, ERRs are the primary way aid reaches millions in Sudan. A research brief from the Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform notes that ERR work is often funded by local donations or support from Sudanese communities abroad. Volunteer Amal vividly recalled the early days of the war, saying, “We are paying from our own pockets.”

Recognition has followed, with ERRs nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize. Funding was delayed, but a coalition of funders had pledged more than $16 million to vetted mutual aid groups by 2026, disbursing more than $7 million by last fall. Despite this, the Mutual Aid Sudan Coalition reports that ERRs received less than 1% of global humanitarian funding, which is a striking disparity. In 2025, the United Nations and its partners sought $4.2 billion for humanitarian assistance in Sudan alone, as part of a combined $6 billion appeal for Sudan and neighboring countries. Funders were initially ill-equipped to take advantage of the networks and methodologies communities already had set up. Some funders have adapted and now act as intermediaries, but the vast majority of funding flows through the traditional aid networks and systems. 

Communities Don’t Wait for the Cavalry

I’m reminded of Grace Lee Boggs, who for decades emphasized that people shouldn’t wait for a revolution to start creating the world they envision. Minneapolis, Chicago, and Sudan exemplify this approach. Amid ongoing crises, communities build new systems that work for them without waiting for philanthropy. Most media portray this work as a temporary emergency response, rarely recognizing it as Boggs described: people constructing the systems they want to live within. When coverage appears only during crises and centers funders, audiences miss how long these systems take to develop and how they persist beyond the news cycle.

This brings me back to power, particularly its uneven distribution. Fairbanks argues that the gap between foundations and neighbors stems from design decisions, especially who can act and how quickly decisions are made. Philanthropy media often covers these initiatives as temporary crisis responses or feel-good stories. I see them as a form of self-government. Community members autonomously decide how money is shared and how it’s used, without seeking permission from any institution.

Foundations often provide emergency funding and then move on to the next crisis, rarely addressing the systemic issues that prompted the response. However, in places like Minnesota, Los Angeles, Chicago, and elsewhere, communities used emergency funds to build or expand infrastructure. This raises a broader question about philanthropic habits. Will foundations continue to support this infrastructure after media coverage diminishes? By centering philanthropic commitments, are we accurately representing the community leadership driving and guiding those commitments? Additionally, can the responsiveness shown during crises become a regular part of how philanthropy serves communities facing ongoing challenges that attract less media attention?

When coverage depicts community work as heartwarming side stories instead of fundamental to success, it maintains the existing power dynamics. But when coverage treats this work as infrastructure, funders must confront the reality that communities have built something they neither designed nor initially funded, and may not be able to control.

Communities don’t simply “come together” in a crisis. In most cases, organizers were already doing the work long before the media storm and long before philanthropy chose whose story to tell and how to tell it. So what would it look like for media covering philanthropy to take its cues from the demands and actions of communities in the streets, rather than from funder press releases that land in their inbox? SSIR offers one example of what that can look like. Integrating this approach into daily reporting requires changing how philanthropy-centered journalism decides which voices and efforts to center. We need to make that change.