The Discount Foundation: a small foundation focused on big impact

Running a small foundation with a national service area, like The Discount Foundation, means venturing out to the front lines to witness first-hand the huge impact a small grant can have on an entire community.

“You experience a variety of strong emotions when you make an on-site visit,” explains Executive Director Henry Allen, who recently spent time with grantee The New Orleans Worker Center for Racial Justice.

“Learning about the situations facing immigrant day laborers and seeing their courage was quite moving and very powerful.”

Small foundation - big impact

The Discount Foundation’s unofficial credo is a reflection of the name itself. “We’re a very small foundation, trying to make a little bit go a long way in finding ways to alleviate poverty,” says Henry, who joined the Boston-based foundation about two years ago.

Discount’s grant to the Worker Center paid for a staffer to work with the laborers, who wait on street corners at 5:30 AM for contractors to pick them up. “They’re trying to organize these laborers to say they’re not going to work for sub-minimum wages, and eliminate unscrupulous contractors who exploit these workers terribly,” adds Henry. “[The workers] are vulnerable and frightened, and getting them to act collectively is extremely dangerous to them and their livelihoods, but it’s the only way to secure decent wages. [The Worker Center] has built up incredible trust by letting them know where they can get legal or medical help, and by assisting the workers to secure illegally withheld wages.”

Established in 1977, Discount supports community-based organizations striving to inspire and organize the working poor to improve their living conditions and economic opportunities. For many years, Discount focused on affordable housing. In the mid-1990s, under former Executive Director Susan Chin, Discount transitioned to employment issues when it created the Making Work Pay program.  This program supported organizing efforts to increase wages and create better job prospects for the working poor.

Helping find the "leader within"

“What is special about Discount is that it believes that people in the community who are directly experiencing poverty have a fundamental insight into what’s happening in their lives, their families and their communities,” notes Henry, adding that the heart of Discount’s strategy is developing leaders from within.  “Leadership development is all about drawing on people’s first-hand experiences, and trusting that they have the ability to work collectively to change the situations they confront. There’s nothing theoretical about it.”

The Foundation was one of the first to focus on organizing efforts to secure a living wage for workers, supporting partnerships between communities and unions that helped workers “secure better wages and working conditions through their own leadership and collective action,” says Henry.

More recently, the Foundation further narrowed its strategy by focusing on Organizing for Worker Justice. This initiative involves making grants to community- and faith-based groups working together with unions and other labor groups to help low-wage workers protect their right to organize unions. It also supports independent worker organizing, such as day laborer and immigrant worker centers, which are “dealing with enormous challenges, such as wage theft and horrendous working conditions,” reports Henry.

Discount’s focus follows from its desire to see working people share in the ‘American Dream,’ and the foundation’s goal is fairly daunting, admits Henry. “Unfortunately, there are few foundations that are explicitly committed to social and economic justice, and that will fund direct grassroots organizing. Fewer understand how important it is to fund labor-community partnerships and support worker justice.”

Managing risk:  safety in numbers

It was this reality that led Henry and several colleagues to form the Working Group on Labor and Community Partnerships in 1997. Its mission is to inform donors and foundations across the country about the real impact such partnerships have in securing improvements in the lives of low-wage workers and their families. The Group now has a network of 150 funders across the U.S., who share information and learn from one another.

Discount further balances the risks involved in its strategy by working closely and thoughtfully with community groups committed to the just and fair treatment of workers.

Immigrant worker centers, day laborer centers, interfaith worker centers, unions and worker associations use legal expertise, leadership training, organizing and access to services to protect workers' legal and human rights. Discount looks for organizations and projects that not only share its values, but also represents a collaborative, highly strategic approach to a particular challenge. 

Finding strong, committed partners

To achieve its goal, Discount’s grant-making process is both reactive and proactive.

“We get between 150 and 200 letters of inquiry each year, and we can fund between 25-30 groups,” explains Henry. “Because we’ve been around for many years, we’re aware of organizations that are focusing on worker justice. We can reach out and encourage them to submit letters of inquiry; other groups find us through our website, www.discountfoundation.org.”

That was the case with The Workers Interfaith Network, a faith-based coalition in Memphis devoted to economic justice. “There’s such a critical need to do worker justice organizing in that region,” says Henry.

“They are doing terrific work with very little money, and we were their first major national funder. The first year, we gave them $15,000, but for them, it was a huge grant, allowing them to hire a full-time organizer. We increased their grant the second year.”

Discount’s grants helped the Network attract support from several other foundations.  As is often the case, that first foundation grant can pave the way for other foundations and donors to support a project.  Together, these foundations helped launch the Memphis Workers' Center in 2007, where immigrant and other low-wage workers can develop leadership skills and improve their working conditions.

“In a place like Memphis, which does not have a lot of union density, an organization like this can really make its mark if it’s well-managed,” adds Henry. “Reverend Rebekah Jordan is an incredibly dynamic leader, and we’re very proud of what we’ve done with this organization; we feel very strongly that we’ve made a difference.”

Funding from Discount was “absolutely essential to open our Workers’ Center,” explains Rebekah. “Through Discount's generous support, we have enabled 20 workers to recover $22,000 worth of unpaid wages and workers’ compensation this year, and 180 workers have been trained about their right to be paid for their work, and to work in a safe environment.”

Rebekah is especially proud of results achieved with a worker named Antonio, who was employed at a warehouse for several years through a temporary agency. “When he wanted to apply for a permanent job, his supervisor laughed and told Antonio he couldn't apply because he was not a citizen,” says Rebekah. “The Workers’ Center assisted Antonio in filing a discrimination charge, and he now has a permanent position at the warehouse.”

Henry hopes that Discount’s impressive track record will inspire others to invest in grassroots groups committed to fairness and justice for workers. “If there are donors or other foundations that really want to make a difference in a very direct way to improve peoples’ life experiences on the ground, these types of grants can make an enormous difference.”

And sometimes, just one grant triggers a huge payoff, as was the case when Durham CAN (Congregations, Associations, Neighborhoods) organized a living wage campaign amongst cafeteria workers at Duke University, one of the largest employers in North Carolina.

“Here was this extremely wealthy corporate entity, paying its cafeteria workers far below living wage,” recalls Henry of Discount’s decision to support the group’s efforts. “By bringing the faith community and some unions together, Durham CAN got the university to provide a living wage and health benefits to 600 workers and their families. So really, they impacted 2,500 or 3,000 lives very substantially, immediately improving their standard of living.”

For the little Foundation that does big things, “the payoff for funding groups like these is you build strong organizations that will have the capacity to win not just one battle, but many battles.”

Wendy Helfenbaum is a Montreal writer and television producer.