Guest Post: Ruth Richardson, Co-Founder, Small Change Fund

Small Change Fund: Deceptively Modest. Quietly Powerful

“Who’s going to do it?” Phil Buchanan, President of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, posed this question at the recent Philanthropic Foundations Canada conference in Calgary. “Who’s going to fund solutions to our most pressing social and environmental challenges?” It’s a good question. He asked it because of the stark realities of the economic downturn, of governments looking to foundations to support essential services, of foundations looking to the private sector to fund innovation, of the private sector scrambling to cope with the shifts in their financial forecasts. “So who’s going to provide the investments in critical social change?”

My answer is, we are. All of us. Individual Canadians. Evidence shows that in tough times Canadians will step up to the plate with sleeves rolled up and pocketbooks open. But today’s tough times call for especially creative measures if we are going to achieve lasting social change. We face unprecedented complex problems and at no other time in history have Canadians been more connected with each other and with the rest of the world. Therein lies the opportunity.

Small Change Fund, an initiative that will launch in December 2009, is an answer to Buchanan’s question – a solution that not only makes it easy for Canadians to share resources with each other, but also gives us the opportunity to invest in local solutions in a global world.  Small Change Fund is a contemporary approach to philanthropy that harnesses the culture and power of social networking. It’s a space online where we can connect with local leaders doing amazing things to better communities across Canada. It’s a deceptively modest and quietly powerful tool enabling investment in the most high-impact grassroots action across the country. Its potential lies in facilitating a philanthropy that is at once micro and global, grassroots and open.

It’s grassroots philanthropy. Small Change Fund helps Canadians put their money into the hands of people on the ground, people who are best able to figure out and fix the problems in their communities. Judy Rebick says in her new book Transforming Power that what works in realizing transformative change is bringing communities of people together to produce something new; building a movement from the bottom up; sharing experience, knowledge and wisdom; emphasizing co-operation and consensus over confrontation and political partisanship. “Meaningful response to the environmental crisis and social injustice requires substantial, sustainable change at every level, which can only come through building power from the grassroots, from the people most impacted.” Hear, hear.

It’s open philanthropy. Small Change Fund uses the power of the Internet and new media to break down the walls of old-world philanthropy and engage everyone at their own level of ability to share with others. Each contribution combines with others to have more of an impact that we could ever have alone. It’s “bottom-up” philanthropic activism made possible by all the amazing technological tools we have at our disposal. Small Change Fund is a place where those with some critical dollars for sharing can meet people with some creative ideas for helping to make the world a better place. We open up the philanthropic process to all Canadians so they can have a hand in solving the problems they care about most.

It’s micro-philanthropy. At Small Change Fund we believe that people can make change without long studies, thick reports, and big money. Modest investments can make a profound difference. A computer, a camera, agricultural training, legal advice, a water test kit – these things can change the world. Not by themselves but in the hands of committed, passionate people trying to transform their communities. In the words of one our veteran advisors, Mauro Vescera, “After 10 years of grant-making, it has been the small grassroots projects that have stood out as the most positive initiatives. Small projects that unite local residents and give voice to important issues in their communities are often overlooked yet they are critical to moving the environmental agenda forward.”

It’s global philanthropy. Small Change Fund is part of an international alliance of micro-funders. Like us, there are others across the globe from Siberia to the Philippines to Brazil using the power of micro-philanthropy to transform their communities. We are working with them to identify global priorities, like climate change and indigenous peoples’ rights, and figure out how best to translate those priorities into local action. Our alliance is a rich resource of vision, experience, and expertise driven by collaborative energy and a shared vision of a healthy planet.

“So who’s going to do it?” I am. You are.  We are going to do it together. “And how?” By engaging in the business of philanthropy differently. By believing that people know how to figure out and fix the problems in their communities, their cities, their countries. By believing that people can make change without long studies, thick reports, and big money. By believing people want to help each other. And by making that simple. We can start something big with small change at www.smallchangefund.org. Look for us in December 2009.