{"id":226791,"date":"2025-10-14T10:00:58","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T17:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.insidephilanthropy.com\/?p=226791"},"modified":"2025-10-15T11:35:59","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:35:59","slug":"this-faith-based-funder-is-standing-firm-on-racial-and-economic-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.insidephilanthropy.com\/home\/this-faith-based-funder-is-standing-firm-on-racial-and-economic-justice","title":{"rendered":"This Faith-Based Funder Is Standing Firm on Racial and Economic Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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When we last caught up with the Deaconess Foundation three years ago<\/a>, the funder \u2014 a ministry of the United Church of Christ serving eastern Missouri and southern Illinois \u2014 had just announced a desire to sustain the St. Louis Racial Healing + Justice Fund from its originally planned three years to a perpetual program.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deaconess has been busy in the intervening years. The funder has inaugurated a new framework for its internal and external operations; launched four new grantmaking programs; moved more than $300,000 in funding in response to the May 16 tornado in St. Louis<\/a>; and created the Institute for Black Liberation<\/a>, a program designed to help participants \u201cdevelop a liberatory consciousness through healing the hurts of internalized racism.\u201d And Deaconess remains the host of the St. Louis fund after originally joining with other contributors to launch the program in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deaconess, founded after the 1998 sale<\/a> of the former Deaconess Incarnate Word Health System, has been out front as a signatory to April\u2019s Unite In Advance<\/a> public statement by funders. And while it hasn\u2019t signed the stronger statement<\/a> issued by a subset of those foundations earlier this month, a glance at Deaconess\u2019 website reveals that a commitment to racial and economic justice remains key to the foundation\u2019s mission even as the government turns against or seeks to outlaw racially specific programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While foundations have spoken up<\/a> repeatedly in defense of the right to give<\/a> as they see fit, they have been more muted in response to the administration\u2019s attacks on diversity and racial justice. \u201cIn a streak of silence, it\u2019s hard to interpret what silence means,\u201d Deaconess Foundation President and CEO Bethany Johnson-Javois told IP. \u201cSo we have been one of a few that has gathered to say that we are not holding back, that we are what we are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an explicitly Christian funder that continues to stand publicly behind its commitment to equality and justice for all people, Deaconess is a stark contrast to a right-wing movement that claims the same faith while simultaneously working diligently to crush any hint of support for racial justice in the public, private and philanthropic sectors. As the Trump administration attacks philanthropy and nonprofits while also decrying what it calls \u201canti-Christian bias<\/a>,\u201d the fate of Deaconess and other Christianity-based social justice funders, along with their grantees, may be put to a difficult test.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For her part, Johnson-Javois said that she\u2019s proud of the work that went into the funder\u2019s new strategic framework because, while it happened before the last presidential election, \u201cwhat we were setting up was exactly for this moment.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, Johnson-Javois acknowledged the pressing needs facing her staff and the communities they serve. Upon taking the top spot at Deaconess in Oct. 2021, she said that she quickly learned that both her new team and the people in the communities the foundation serves \u201care just flat-out exhausted. \u2026 It\u2019s still the truth that we started running fast after the pandemic \u2014 as if there\u2019s an \u2018after the pandemic\u2019 \u2014 and here we find ourselves,\u201d without having had any space to rest and breathe from one crisis to the next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, Deaconess\u2019 strategic framework has both an internal and external focus. Externally, the foundation has committed to work across sectors, engage in a \u201ccommunity member-led redistribution of wealth,\u201d and \u201ccoordinated year-round base- and coalition-building,\u201d with a goal of achieving \u201cliberation in seven generations<\/a>.\u201d Internally, the funder has taken steps<\/a> including creating a Racial Equity Committee within its board of trustees, changing the schedule for paying employees and providing more flexibility in its paid leave policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to the Institute for Black Liberation, Johnson-Javois said that Deaconess has also supported community-convened retreats for an array of area nonprofit leaders. \u201cWe\u2019re not just investing in the work, but investing in the people leading the work,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the foundation continues to fund that work. Early last month, Deaconess announced \u201cNextGen Grantmakers,\u201d a partnership with Vision for Children at Risk<\/a> (VCR) to put funding decisions \u201cdirectly in the hands of young changemakers,\u201d according to a press release provided to Inside Philanthropy by Deaconess. As part of the NextGen initiative, young people from VCR\u2019s Youth Advisory Council will receive training in equitable grantmaking, then decide how to distribute $100,000 in funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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