How philanthropists can use their money to actually help achieve racial equality, according to the president of the Ford Foundation

• The best thing philanthropists can do to dismantle systemic racism is to fight economic inequality, according to Ford Foundation president Darren Walker.
• Inequality in America has reached record highs, especially along racial lines.
• The United States is facing a national reckoning over racism, as cities across the country erupted in protests over the weekend following the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor.
• Responses from America's richest philanthropists have varied from pledges of solidarity on social media to donations to a variety of organizations fighting racial injustice.

The question of how private donations can help end America's long history of systemic racism has stumped even the country's foremost philanthropists.

Gates Foundation co-chair Melinda Gates wrote that she doesn't "have all the answers about how I can use my voice and my philanthropy to be part of the solution" and is working to "continue to deepen my understanding and to stand with people and organizations working toward a future centered on gender and racial equity," in a Twitter thread addressing the killing of George Floyd and the subsequent nationwide protests.

Solving racism begins with directly addressing America's persistent economic inequality, Ford Foundation president Darren Walker said during an interview for Time Magazine's TIME 100 Talks series Thursday. But that can be difficult for some white philanthropists who have benefitted from the current system to acknowledge and work against, Walker said.

Prioritizing communities that have been discriminated against is vital to closing the racial wealth gap

"There are many partners, and other foundations, who may not agree and are reluctant [to change things]," Walker told Time's Justin Worland. "If we're to really take this seriously, we are going to have to recognize that equity demands that we prioritize the needs and aspirations of those communities who have historically been left out."

Walker told Time that charitable organizations' customary game plan — releasing statements of sympathy or support and awarding a grant before returning to business as usual — doesn't lead to lasting change for marginalized communities.

In a 2019 essay published in Town & Country, Walker advocated for philanthropists supporting food banks to also consider supporting programs that remove the need for families to visit food banks in the first place, such as food subsidies, free school lunches, and raising the minimum wage.

The United States' wealth gap is steadily widening, especially along racial lines

The Washington Post reports the racial wealth gap is in many ways unimproved — and in some ways has even gotten worse — since 1968, when a host of historic civil rights legislation was passed.

In 1992, the median net worth of white families was $100,000 above that of black families, according a 2019 report by consulting firm McKinsey & Company. By 2016, the median white family was $152,000 wealthier than its black counterpart. During that period, the median wealth of white families grew over $50,000, McKinsey reports, but the median wealth of black families did not grow at all in real terms.

"[Philanthropists'] privilege in this economy has been compounded, while those who don't have assets, those who are trying and striving, are feeling that they are left farther and farther behind — because they are," Walker told Time. "We have seen this pulling apart of our society economically and that intersects with race and our historic realities of racial discrimination."

Some billionaire philanthropists have also pointed out that the real solution lies in tackling the root of the problem

American cities erupted in protests over the weekend after the recent deaths of three African Americans — Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd. At the same time, black Americans are dying at disproportionately high rates of the novel coronavirus.

Responses to America's growing racial unrest from billionaires philanthropists have varied from pledges of solidarity on social media like Melinda Gates', to donations to a variety of organizations fighting racial injustice, to shutting down false conspiracy theories about Floyd's death.

Snap CEO Evan Spiegel pledged to donate part of his $4.1 billion fortune to anti-racist organizations but said philanthropy alone won't "make more than a dent" in the issue without policy change. Spiegel called for the creation of a non-partisan commission on reparations and higher taxes on the ultrawealthy to address the racial wealth gap.

"Private philanthropy can patch holes, or accelerate progress, but it alone cannot cross the deep and wide chasm of injustice," Spiegel wrote. "We must cross that chasm together as a united nation. United in the striving for freedom, equality, and justice for all."