Since taking the helm as Executive Director of the small Los Angeles-based family foundation, Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation (RPDFF) in 2018, Shawn Escoffery has directed the foundation's environmental portfolio to fund environmental justice and grassroots organizing.
In December 2022, RPDFF launched the Hazel M. Johnson Environmental Justice Award to resource BIPOC-led environmental justice work, in partnership with EGA. The award is a collaborative member-led demonstration of EGA's Racial Equity POV to shift grantmaking practices in service of justice and equity for people and planet. RPDFF is making a significant change to its environmental justice grantmaking, choosing to support and amplify solutions and projects already developed by frontline communities at the forefront of environmental change and all of its intersectional impacts. The award is a one-time, 3-year general operating support grant of $75,000/year ($225,000 total).
EGA President and CEO, Tamara Toles O'Laughlin sat down with Shawn to discuss the leadership journey to shift RPDFF's funding to prioritize environmental injustice and redress funding barriers in BIPOC communities.
Tamara: Please tell us about the decision of the RPDFF to shift its funding for the environment towards more justice-oriented work.
Shawn: RPDFF has been a long-time environmental funder. When I first started at the foundation 4 1/2 years ago, we were geared towards bigger greens, less connected to the community and people. Our portfolio used to be called "Blue or Green World." When I got there, I said, we need to recommit to our social justice values. I redeveloped our portfolio with a justice lens and a focus on people. We went from "Blue or Green World" to an environmental justice portfolio. That’s where we transitioned to in a little over the last three and a half years.
T: How did this shift in funding design improve RPDFF's effectiveness?
S: Originally, we found ourselves supporting several groups and a variety of issues, but we weren’t able to offer anything beyond limited resources. We’ve been pulled in a thousand different directions, and we didn’t have an answer to why we were funding one area versus another.
T: It sounds like this is a move that clarifies your funding contribution, the effectiveness of foundation dollars, and rounds out time, talent, and treasure.
S: Over the last 3 years, we did a lot of listening and looking into the mirror. Philanthropy has a set of processes that are a burden to a lot of nonprofits. We create hoops that an organization has to jump through to receive resources. Reporting requirements are often designed to check a box, versus for real input into grantmaking decisions. When you’re funding movements, organizing, and advocacy work, that work doesn’t conform to our set guidelines or timeframes. It takes long-term approaches and it’s built on the labor of those who are there before us. There are things that are compounding. I wanted to do something different. Something that would alleviate stressors in the nonprofit community, while living our real, core social justice values. We’ve always been very interested in supporting organizations led by People of Color, and unapologetically focusing on those groups. We firmly believe that the people experiencing the greatest harm, or closest to the problem, often have the solutions.
T: Fantastic. It sounds a lot like there were real alignments between your journey and the larger tent, EGA. As an EGA board member, you have been a part of articulating the Racial Equity POV through a lens that includes different entities, organizations, and foundations of every stripe. Can you talk about the utility of the tool in making the case for shifting funding practices to support racial justice?
S: I’m a relatively new EGA board member and it’s been a beautiful relationship so far. I respect the thinking around racial justice that EGA's bringing to the table, and shifting in the environmental space writ large. We are proud to talk about frontline communities and groups that aren’t receiving the lion's share of the resources. You are one of the first people I called when I said I wanted to innovate grantmaking. At RPDFF, we wanted to rethink how we entered the conversation with frontline groups, starting with trust. Saying that hey, you’re doing this work and we just want to give you resources. We want you to do what you do. We want to get out of the way.
T: It also isn’t just about what we’re doing and what we’re not doing. We're also thinking about the whole ecosystem and what it needs at this moment. Can you talk about the Hazel M. Johnson Award that was launched and how it embodies the whole-ecosystem work that is needed at the moment?
S: We named the Hazel M. Johnson Environmental Justice Award after the mother of the environmental justice movement. Everyone should know Hazel M. Johnson's name. Johnson was a Black woman, who despite the odds and people not believing in what a normal person could do, changed a system. That to me, embodies the environmental justice movement. It's the people. People on the ground. The general populace. The award is a 3-year general operating support grant totaling $225,000 ($75,000/year) which is equivalent to allowing an organization to hire a full-time employee. We are getting out of the way. There’s no application process and no reporting paperwork. I have staff who can do that work. We just want to resource organizations that are already doing really great work.
T: Can you tell us about any of the grantees? Or the characteristics you sought out in grantees while trying to clear the deck and put the money where it needs to go?
S: It’s a range of organizations, and they’re all led by People of Color. That is a criterion and an extremely important one. It ranges from organizations that are completely flat structured - small shops that this grant is a life-changing grant - to organizations that are regranting, working on a statewide basis. We have an organization working in Cancer Alley, with longtime environmental justice advocates who fight the petrochemical industry day and night in their communities. To organizations who are working in the Empire, and other parts of California that work with mostly immigrant populations, some undocumented, some documented - populations that politicians may or may not be listening to. We’re really excited about this shift.
"That to me, embodies the environmental justice movement. It's the people. People on the ground. The general populace."
T: It feels like something folks have been calling for in the EGA space for a while. We need to see more of this. People are demanding that we need to make a change, but headlines are still proclaiming "we need to study it." At a time like this, I hear you saying we’re not going to make time to decide whether or not now is the moment we need to effect change.
The Hazel M. Johnson Award is something that means a lot to EGA. At the 2022 Fall Retreat in Chicago, we went to tour Altgeld Gardens with Hazel’s daughter. Residents have not recovered there. They have had a small amount of remediation for intentional toxics exposure and poisoning. The economy is still pretty hard. One of the most shocking things for EGA members who went on the tour was that the community still relies on a single bus on the weekend to take the whole community grocery shopping.
In all of the years when all of that work was done, there were no places to buy food in that community. So it isn’t as if the work is done. And it’s really powerful for you to choose a living, breathing program to support the legacy of a person whose work isn’t done. How do you imagine that other funders could follow this example based on your experience?
S: I think we all can, especially the smaller and family foundations, have a little bit more flexibility or leeway. Foundations should examine and question their practices. There’s no secret that this sector does not see organizations led by People of Color in the same way. But [People of Color] are in your communities, cities, states. More program staff should spend time on the ground and trust these groups. Some groups might be smaller and they’re only smaller because we refuse to resource them. Consider deploying more general operating support. Look at your entire portfolio. If you’re not supporting frontline groups in organizing, advocacy, and leadership development, then please start. It’s what is absolutely needed. These fights are not short fights. They are long fights, but there is always a community willing to fight.
Learn more about the Hazel M. Johnson Environmental Justice Award and its first recipients here. This interview has been edited for clarity.
