U.S. companies last year pledged to spend billions of dollars to help solve the country’s longstanding racial inequities. But more than a year later, it’s nearly impossible to know where all of that money has gone and exactly who benefited from it.
‘It’s almost impossible to know’ Broader research on corporate America’s 2020 racial justice pledges has found a similar lack of transparency. Some 200 U.S. companies announced intentions to spend a collective $7.7 billion on racial equity last year through their corporate giving programs or company-run foundations, according to one estimate by Candid, an organization that builds data tools to track nonprofits and foundations.
“‘We are not saying that funders aren’t fulfilling their commitments. We are saying that it’s almost impossible to know — unless corporations choose to disclose it.’” But of the racial equity funding that companies pledged in 2020, 93.5% of the money came from direct corporate giving programs and 6.5% came from company-sponsored foundations, according to Candid.
The exact timing can also be unclear: Companies announced huge amounts that would be spent over a number of years, and used fuzzy tenses that obscure whether the money has actually been disbursed yet. However, the company was “happy to share success stories” from businesses that had given permission to share their stories, she said, and provided links to two articles on the Facebook for Business site about businesses that received funding. Each business received a $2,500 cash grant and “had the option to” receive $1,500 in Facebook ad credits, the spokeswoman said.
Some funding recipients would prefer to stay out of the spotlight Not everyone who has benefited from companies’ racial justice pledges believes there’s a need for complete transparency about where the money has ended up. — Jeff Duncan-Andrade, founder of a public charter school that’s received funding from Google.org One recipient of Google.org funding said the issue of transparency was “slippery.” Jeff Duncan-Andrade, the founder of Roses in Concrete, said there was “absolutely merit” to holding companies accountable for their promises. But he questioned the value of splashy public announcements about Google.org’s support of Roses in Concrete, even though the school’s relationship with Google.
His firm created a donation tracker to measure how much corporate America promised. Cunningham wants to go a step further in holding companies accountable: He has petitioned the Securities and Exchange Commission, proposing that publicly traded companies be required to disclose their donations. As for “an initial $200 million, five-year commitment to support growth in underserved communities” that Capital One announced in October 2020, “Grantmaking is underway and we will have a full view of our 2021 community investments at the end of the calendar year,” a spokeswoman said. “That said, hundreds of nonprofits and small businesses have already been recipients of funds.”