December 19, 2019

Racial Capitalism, Power and Resistance: Perspectives from the Philanthropic Front Lines

In October 2019, Funders for a Just Economy (FJE) held a breakthrough Racial Capitalism, Power and Resistance Convening that brought foundations together for what many participants said was an unprecedented conversation on the racial and gendered inequality inseparable from US and global capitalism – and what funders can do to address these realities. The FJE program intends to continue the conversation throughout 2020 and integrate the frame of racial capitalism, power and resistance into all of our programming. As part of this process, we held a series of one-on-one dialogues with program officers who attended the event to talk about how how they are bringing the information from the event back to their institutions.

As we close 2019 and in the first weeks of 2020, we’ll post these conversations as a means to ground where we go next as a program. If you did not attend the event, these posts will share the conversations and strategies that emerged among community, philanthropic and academic speakers and attendees. If you did attend, we hope these posts provide insight into what your colleagues are considering as we head into a new year, ready to make change together. 

  

Racial Capitalism, Power and Resistance: Perspectives from the Philanthropic Front Lines

An Interview with Altaf Rahamatulla,
Program Officer at the New York Foundation
  
Can you share a bit about your journey to grantmaking?

Part of the reason I came to social justice work is that my personal became my political. I come from a very diverse background—my Dad is Guyanese and my Mom is Italian and Honduran. Growing up in a single mother home, in a low income, immigrant family, issues of race, class, and gender shaped my experiences from an early age. Later, I became a student of history and politics, and I saw my family history and my own circumstances in a broader spectrum of movements for justice and structural change.

After college, I saw policy advocacy as my route – first, starting with economic justice and then moving into criminal justice reform. I wanted to explore that issue as one where I could engage explicitly with issues of race. I was at the Innocence Project for a few years – and it was incredibly profound work.  From there I thought to myself: if I want to work in social justice for my career, I should get to know what philanthropy is like.

I was at the Ford Foundation for almost five years, where I worked on a team focused on criminal justice, immigrant rights, and racial justice. From there, I joined the New York Foundation (NYF), where we support community organizing and grassroots advocacy here in New York City. Our funding seeks to elevate those most affected by different forms of inequality and oppression, develop emerging leaders, and support organizations that prioritize racial and gender justice.

A group of five people seated in a discussion circle at the FJE Racial Capitalism event.

What brought you to NFG’s Racial Capitalism Convening?

I’ve been involved in NFG’s Democratizing Development Program while at NYF and since my time at Ford, so I am familiar with NFG’s work and moved by its leadership. Whenever y’all are doing an event, I’m there!

NFG’s space provides an ideological home for grantmakers who are working in their own ways to advance justice. I thought the Racial Capitalism meeting would be an opportunity to engage more deeply on issues of equity and see how different grantmakers were conceptualizing this context and political moment. I thought it was unique to open with the frame of racial capitalism, and that really encouraged and inspired me to come in and engage at the event.

Are there any key ideas or practices you’ve brought back to your foundation? 

Everything Dr. Ananya Roy shared, really! The conversation really grappled with contradictions of philanthropy, and Dr. Roy’s opening frame of the sector as emerging from twice-stolen wealth [cf. Gilmore 2009] was a dynamic way to start the day. How do we sit with these contradictions, while being champions for organizing and grassroots leaders? One of Dr. Roy’s questions really stuck with me: [referencing Colin Kaepernick,] how do we take a knee in this sector? It was a call to push our work, to be audacious, to be insurgent, and to be more explicit about our values. What I also found interesting was starting with a look into the historical root causes of structural oppression and inequalities and bringing that frame to understand the moment and the work of grantee partners to get a sense of how we move forward as grantmakers.

I was moved by how folks in the room saw the power, value, and need to support organizing and support communities of color. That view is rare in philanthropy, unfortunately. I will definitely be reviewing the article Dr. Roy shared on the political negotiations of program officers by Dr. Erica Kohl-Arenas.  I want to explore this idea about what insurgency looks like in this sector.

I’m fortunate to work at an institution that has historically supported community organizing, and has a deep commitment to equity. We want to be explicit about what racial and gender justice looks like for us. We are working to make that commitment unequivocal in terms of our grantmaking, operations, communications and asset management.

The Racial Capitalism convening’s focus on power dynamics and the inextricable link between capitalism and racism provided an analytical and intellectual foundation to bolster our work here at the Foundation.

People seated several discussion circles at the FJE Racial Capitalism event.

Can you tell us more about your current grantmaking process? 

NYF’s grantmaking process is open and collaborative. We accept proposals three times a year. Any organization can apply based on our guidelines. From that point, as a program team, we review each application, and based on our criteria, select a set of groups to explore in more depth. We do research, site visits, connect with trusted partners either in the philanthropic space, among grantees, or with board members who might be familiar with the groups. We then come back as a team to collectively decide on organizations to recommend to our Board, which has final decision-making authority over our grantmaking. We are a small foundation and unfortunately, we can only fund a limited number of grants each year. We primarily offer general multi-year support, and we place emphasis on startup organizations and those with limited access to other sources of funding. We provide up to five years renewable general support for startups, and three years for more established groups.

What role do you think FJE can play going forward in this conversation on race and capitalism? 

FJE can continue to be an ideological home – there’s power in cultivating a network of solidarity, strategy, and collaboration. Providing a space to elevate racial and economic justice, the importance of community organizing, and learning on funding efforts and campaigns across the country is really valuable.  It’s a space to have intense conversations on the issues that folks may not be able to have in their own institutions or with their Board. That’s how I’m seeing its value – that’s created through the bold programming NFG offers – through webinars, conferences, specific policy explorations, and site visits.

Thank you to Altaf for sharing his thoughts, time and energy with Funders for a Just Economy!

March 27, 2020

Intersections of Justice in the Time of Coronavirus

Written by: Cara Page and Eesha Pandit

In the midst of the growing COVID-19 pandemic, NFG stands with our communities and workers who are in crisis. As we help organize with frontline leaders and philanthropy to meet the immediate needs of our communities at this time, NFG also remains committed to long-term transformation towards a just and equitable society.

The essay below was written by Cara Page and Eesha Pandit, who are part of the Funders for Justice community, and urges us to hold this moment for movement & philanthropists to understand what led us here and explore opportunities towards transforming our futures.

Opportunity for A New Frame

This moment asks us to consider how we might pivot and adapt in a way that centers collective care, safety, and protection for each other. This is a good time to re-examine our relationship with vulnerability. Many of us are feeling vulnerable ourselves, while naming communities that require particular care and are more susceptible to COVID-19, including our elders and people living with long term chronic illness. This is an opportunity to deepen our understanding of vulnerability, dis/ability, and chronic illness, at both the individual and structural level. Many of us are now thinking about accessibility and the goods and services we do and do not have access to today. As writer and disability justice activist Mia Mingus says, “accessibility is concrete resistance to the isolation of disabled people.” Now, when many of us are facing isolation for the first time, we must align ourselves in meaningful social and structural ways with people living with disabilities and deepen our political work to ensure that an understanding of ableism impacts all our movements for justice. 

Perhaps most prescient in this call from disability justice advocates is a reminder of our interdependency. Many of us are facing the realization that the “myth of independence” is truly just that, and that we cannot sustain ourselves and our communities alone. We cannot meet all our needs alone. We cannot stay safe alone. At this moment, a public health crisis is creating social, medical, and political trauma that is awakening many of us to the fact our health, safety and well-being are interconnected whether we are in a global health crisis or not. This understanding is the basis of so much work for disability and healing justice, and it is a perfect moment to listen and learn from those organizers. We see many communities building care and mutual aid networks, which is something to consider for both the short and long term haul in the context of increased global fascism and climate change. As we continue to name all the ways our communities are connected and interdependent, it is our work now to name and identify the ways that movements for justice are, as well. 

This creates a powerful moment for a transformative justice and healing justice frameworks to permeate our work. As powerfully named in the Astraea Healing Justice Report, “healing justice is a response to this trauma, lifting up practices that support resilience, wellness, safety and security as a necessary part of organizing and movement work. This increases the strength and long-term sustainability of our movements.” 

This moment is a call to action, a call to slowing down and reconfiguring what is important, listening deeply to what communities are asking for, in the short and long term. It is vital to be mindful of what is urgent and why, and how this urgency impacts the people we work with and will care for and protect each other towards our future.

Perspective and Context

Sitting amidst the chaos of COVID-19, it is difficult to get perspective on where to gather the most sensitive and relevant information for our collective survival without being bombarded with messages from media and the federal government of xenophobia, anti-Asian racism, or pathologizing vulnerable communities that are most impacted, including the elderly community and people living with long term chronic illness. We are wading through a delicate balance of tapping into community and ancestral-led strategies while still needing to rely on a federally funded public healthcare system that, historically, is part of government structures that weaponize disease and that have harmed and marginalized so many of our communities.

What we have learned from history could provide a critical intervention for this moment. The scapegoating of Chinese communities for COVID-19 harkens to the ‘Yellow Peril’ that began in the 19th century, scapegoating Chinese immigrants based on a white supremacist ideology that were seen as a threat to the economy and national security. This ideology remains abhorrently present today in government rhetoric and policy. Criminalizing communities to justify violence and state control is not a new or recent phenomenon. We saw African immigrant communities blamed for Ebola, gay men pathologized for HIV/AIDS, and the list goes on. Such blaming and shaming is rooted in a white, able-bodied, Christian-supremacist lens of who is expendable, criminalized, and/or dangerous. 

This is a moment for our work to counter the myths, truths, and fear of Anti-Asian, xenophobic violence and ideologies that come though the media under the false guise of national security. To be vigilant, we must understand the role of philanthropy, both historically and in contemporary times, that have contributed to funding harmful ideologies.Take for example the 1900’s eugenic and ethnic cleansing under the tenet  of public health, (source: pg. 107; Killing the Black Body; Race, Reproduction and the Meaning of Liberty by Dorothy Roberts) in the US that was funded by wealthy donors.  

This is the time to ensure that we do not perpetuate government hate-speak and harmful bias. Rhetorical shifts in how we talk about certain people as “dangerous” or “criminal” is an oft-used and effective war tactic. As we watch the growing militarization of this pandemic, we have to resist an “us and them” mentality rooted in implicit fear of one another, and in this case, a fear that can be used to violently attack and blame entire Asian communities here and around the world. Which can also extend to other vulnerable communities that will be blamed and shamed for needing care (eg. incarcerated and detained communities, elders and people with immune challenges) if seen too dependent on the state. As funders, whether we are anchored in domestic funding or global, we must note and name that our government’s (US imperialist) policy choices in this time will frightfully impact communities around the world (e.g Iran sanctions). 

We also know that the need for housing, electricity, clean water, and access to dignified healthcare are quintessential to public health. And yet, we are embroiled in a national debate about the ethics of providing water and electricity to low income/ working class communities during these times. Creating a deep fracture between the logic of community wellbeing and the competing logic of corporate socialism and greed. These fractures and ethical inconsistencies existed in our society long before this pandemic even began, and this moment reminds us that the ground is always shifting for marginalized communities.

Transforming Our Lens

We must strip away the dichotomy of “us and them” and begin by framing collective care, safety, and protection; we could then see an ecosystem of care that has the potential to value all bodies, and all communities’ well being and safety. Instead, the logic of profit over people is emerging once again in an economy of corporate care that fuels capitalism over communal well-being. This harkens to the warning made by Naomi Klein in her book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, in which she tracks a long history of “the brutal tactic of using the public’s disorientation following a collective shock – wars, coups, terrorist attacks, market crashes or natural disasters – to push through radical pro-corporate measures.”  This is a moment to remain cautious about where resources are being directed, by whom, and to what end. How will this continue to deepen inequities between corporations and communities.   

As we increasingly hear the word “crisis,” which evokes panic and a fear-based response, this is an opportunity to be clear and intentional about exactly what the crisis is. In fact, though we are indeed facing a public health crisis in the form of a virus, many of our communities live in crisis and economic disparities constantly. These crises, such as lack of access to dignified and quality health care and housing, a living wage, electricity, running water and freedom from state, communal, and interpersonal violence, are created and sustained by institutions and social structures that are working as intended. 

So, we face an important paradox: On one hand, the spread of this particular virus means that we need information, support, and practical care from our government as well as public and private institutions. On the other hand, many of us know that reliance on the public health care system, a system that was never made for us or by us, poses its own danger to our communities.  Our task requires holding this complicated and contradictory dynamic with clarity and intention. We can do this by distinguishing between immediate need and long-term structural changes, while deepening our analysis with historical context and lessons learned from many of our communities at the margins.

The Economics of Care

In the economy of healthcare within the medical industrial complex, grounded in a gendered, ableist, classist, and racist economic structure preserving a social safety net for those with wealth, the need for safety will result in the exploitation of cheap labor of many, for the safety of some — all in the name of national wellbeing and security. This includes city and government workers (eg. public transportation, sanitation), front line healthcare workers including hospital staff providing cleaning and food services, alongside nurses and physicians at higher risk for COVID-19 without adequate protection and realistic working hours, as well as those whose livelihoods are at risk due to hospital closures.It also includes healthcare workers, domestic workers and caregivers that are employed to take care of other people’s families without job security or health insurance for themselves or their families. 

“Most domestic workers in the United States today are black women and women of color, and this was also true in the 1930s...The Occupational Safety and Health Act that mandates basic protections excludes domestic workers,’ says  Ai Jen Poo, Founder of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, in the March 9th, NY Times Op-ed, “Protect Caregivers from Coronavirus.” In fact, so many low income communities already live in conditions that make safety and quarantine impossible to achieve. Take for example those who are food insecure, people who are unhoused, those living without clean running water in their homes, and so many others who live in precarity. 

Also at high risk are institutionalized communities, including detained and incarcerated people who were already unable to receive adequate healthcare while their labor is exploited. People being held in prisons, jails, and detention centers around the country are acutely at risk given that they are being held in spaces designed to maximize control over them, not to minimize disease transmission or to efficiently deliver health care. 

What we are witnessing is the deep need for more community-led economies of care, rooted in interdependence, healing justice, mutual aid, and collective care and safety strategies. Despite not having infrastructure, we are seeing communities respond innovatively to this moment based on building short and long term vision including: mutual aid and care networks; policy and legislative strategies to protect health care workers. What could we imagine if we were funded for the long haul to build global infrastructure that sustains across disciplines, care and safety strategies that both recovers and sustains the earth, while regenerating healing traditions of our communities? This is the vision many of us have asked for in healing justice strategies within the US, and now the ask is global and rooted in care and protection. 

Towards Taking Sustained Action

As we consider what solutions can meet both our immediate needs and begin to build our futures, we believe there are a few anchoring strategies that can help us respond and rise to the challenges before us, not just in the immediate days, but for the long haul:

  • Grounding in analysis. We cannot fall prey to the US imperialism and xenophobic fears being perpetuated. In the coming days we will see the rise of militarism and  nationalist US imperialist rhetoric. Our work is to ensure that we do not succumb to this curation of fear. We need to keep focused on how this pandemic has already impacted the communities that were most vulnerable to begin with and stay grounded in our collective care & safety response. The focus should not be to blame and scapegoat Chinese communities and all East Asian communities, but to deepen our understanding of our interdependence and interconnectedness. 

  • Leaning into intersectionality. Our political frameworks and understanding of this moment offer an opportunity to deepen our intersectional analysis and collective memory on amplifying collective well being, care, and safety strategies that have worked in our past and can be amplified in our futures. What can we learn inside global movements that deeply impacts and connects our survival during this pandemic and future crises? These political frameworks that fuel our movements include Economic Justice, Racial Justice, Disability Justice, Healing Justice, Holistic Security, Transformative Justice, Reproductive Justice Racial and Gender Justice, Trans Justice, Environmental Justice, and Climate Justice. 

  • Build public and political discourse to interrupt the medical industrial complex as an extension of state control & violence. We will need to transform our relationship to an archaic and harmful military and medical industry that will blame & criminalize before looking for solutions that don’t perpetuate harm. How are we interrupting generational trauma from the medical industrial complex and building collective care and safety strategies globally. (To learn more go to Changing Frequencies; @changingfrequencies.)  

  • Stepping into the policy change arena. There is no room for paternalism in policy change. We believe that all our communities, particularly those most vulnerable in this time, know what they need to be safe and well. If we are not vigilant, dangerous policies will be implemented without us in the room, both during this pandemic and once it is over. Activists, organizers, grantmakers, and all community advocates should resist ceding the ground of policy work. It’s time to support grassroots organizations, who work directly with impacted communities to shape and influence our policy solutions,and we hope that many, many more of us join this fight for policy that puts the needs of the people first. (For more information please visit The Center for Advancing Innovative Policy.) 

 

March 30, 2020

A Call for Social Solidarity: COVID-19 Response from NFG's Programs

In the midst of the growing COVID-19 pandemic, NFG stands with our communities and workers who are in crisis. As we help organize with frontline leaders and philanthropy to meet the immediate needs of our communities at this time, NFG also remains committed to long-term transformation towards a just and equitable society.

Funders must listen and move resources to organizations that are accountable to the communities that disproportionately bear the brunt of this public health and economic disaster, now and into the future. These communities include Asian Americans and Asian immigrants who are experiencing violent attacks and scapegoating based on race in addition to all the other impacts of the pandemic. 

While the pandemic has created a broader sense of national crisis and urgency, such crises are the everyday reality of many people in our communities. As movement leaders Cara Kindred and Eesha Pandit have written, “many of our communities live in crisis and economic disparities constantly. These crises, such as lack of access to dignified and quality health care and housing, a living wage, electricity, running water and freedom from state, communal, and interpersonal violence, are created and sustained by institutions and social structures that are working as intended…

This moment asks us to consider how we will pivot and adapt in a way that centers collective care, safety, and protection for each other.”  Read the full essay here. 

NFG is doing just that in our programming and grantmaking. Keep reading to hear from each of our programs how philanthropy should be pivoting and adapting:

Amplify Fund 

At Amplify we are stretching from our core! We maintain our central belief that community power drives just and equitable development and in the face of COVID-19, a just and equitable recovery. We share 3 ways to take action with us below: 

  • Give more than you ever thought possible. As a time-limited pooled fund, we are reallocating budget items so we can distribute as much in direct support as possible. We hope you give at the maximum level possible even if that’s above the 5% minimum endowment payout or your current averages. 

  • Root in racial justice now more than ever. We are continuing to resource local organizations led by directly impacted people in our 8 places across the country, and encourage you to support communities as decision-makers, follow local expertise and prioritize local leaders and leaders of color. 

  • Do what works for grantees. We are steadfast in our commitment to listen to grantees first and then act quickly, and, collaboratively, with philanthropic partners. When distributing resources, consider using JustFund, an online “one-stop shop” application portal to reduce redundancy and burden for grantees.

Democratizing Development Program 

Across the country, we are seeing health and housing justice leaders push for COVID-19 Housing and Homeless community demands that temporarily or permanently put moratoriums on evictions, rents and utility shutoffs for residential and commercial tenants. We are seeing homeless communities, having no other choice but to seize state and private properties for shelter.

Rent is due on April 1. Millions won’t be able to pay their rent due to layoffs or illness. Others don't have a home at all, or haven’t had an affordable and safe place to call home for a long time. Congress will try to respond. Today’s public health emergency exacerbates our existing housing and public health needs that already disproportionately impact low-income and communities of color. 

All philanthropic institutions should continue to partner to break out of our silos to further support housing needs and groups working at the local, state and national level. Community and family foundations should look at how they can support local groups to engage in People’s Action and others working on the national Homes Guarantee campaign. Right to the City (RTTC) is also launching a National Campaign for Rent, Utility, and Mortgage Suspension. From their experiences of enduring the long-term impacts of the 2007-2008 foreclosure crisis, RTTC is also launching a $5 million dollar emergency fund for its local, state and national grassroots members. We are grateful that philanthropy is “rapidly” responding to the health and housing crisis, but what is needed is a deeper, sustained, and longer-term commitment for program and investment dollars to support the housing needs of all.

To continue our collective response on health and housing, we are organizing a Democratizing Development funders strategy discussion to lift up examples on where funders can respond and to further support nonprofit leaders and grantmakers on short-term and longer-term strategies to build community power during this growing health crisis.

Funders for a Just Economy

On March 23 and 24, FJE hosted emergency calls with funders and its annual two-day Policy Briefing. We surveyed funders and community organizations to learn more about the immediate needs and actions groups are taking to protect workers and their families amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and economic crisis.

Through these events and data, FJE created the following calls to action for funders:  

  • Coordinate, Coordinate, Coordinate. Coordinate with Grantees - Listen! Minimize the work and burden on them and support the resilience of grantees with increased funds. And support grantees to build a ground game for broader change that combats austerity policies and builds power for the long term. Coordinate with Labor and Worker Centers - Support the current worker organizing happening in high-demand and vulnerable industries, such as healthcare and other care work, grocery, farmwork, warehousing, shipping, construction, cleaning services, rideshare, public transit, and delivery. Coordinate with your Funder Colleagues - Let’s fight hard for more money! Don’t let fears of dwindling endowments and trusts determine your grant making budgets. The time is now to liberate your accumulated wealth. Advocate with your peers to allow grants to become flexible, general operating support grants.

  • Fund the immediate needs, emergency supports for all workers, their families, and their communities, and new ways of organizing. Ask: How do we find connection during isolation? How do we bring in more people into our movements in this moment? How can we build new technology infrastructure to support new organizing tactics? Support demands on corporations benefiting from relief that will increase worker power. Support policies that provided resources to people who are undocumented, incarcerated, unhoused. Support movements to decarcerate and release people in jails and detention centers now and in the longer term abolish these facilities.

  • Use resources now to support and promote longer term structural change. While immediate and emergency relief is important in the short term, we need to promote the need for structural and permanent reforms. Fund now and fund later. And with this funding, support the communications and research capacity of organizing and power building groups. They have the best strategies and knowledge of how to utilize this moment to support longer term systemic change.

Funders for Justice 

Folks of color, particularly those folks with service or contract jobs with little or no access to health care, savings, and/or housing, will see an increase in policing and criminalization. We urge you to move money directly to the field (see list of resources), in far greater amounts than you ever have before, faster and with as little burden as possible to organizations. We especially ecourage you to fund organizing and relief work led by and for communities of color and low-income communities working at the intersections of racial justice, gender justice, criminalization, and models for community safety and justice. Consider the following when making grants: 

  • Mass decarceration is a demand that is gaining traction and victories across the country. Movement bail funds are also bailing people out and migrant rights groups are getting folks out of detention. How does this change your previous belief that jail, prison, and detention are necessary? 

  • Rates of domestic violence are increasing during the shelter in place and quarantine requirements, and police are being called on to intervene in this violence. Yet, more police has never beeen an effective pathway to ending domestic and gender-based violence. Police unions are using this as a moment to advocate for larger deparment budgets, at the same time that folks need. goverrnment-funded free and easy access to health care, food, and housing - all of which support survivors in getting free from abusers. What are ways to support the safety of survivors?  Who are gender justice funders and organizations that you can partner with to support survivors?

  • The police are being called on to enforce shelter-in-place orders and quarentines. This brings an increased police presence into communities hardest hit by the pandemic - low-income communities of color. What are the dangers in this? What’s possible and necessary for reduced or no policing? 

  • How are Asian communities in the US being targeted for racist, xenophobic attacks? What does a community safety response to hate violence look like, rooted in racial justice and without involving police?   

Integrated Rural Strategies Group

We know that the demographics of rural America are changing, that folks may need to drive 3-4 hours to access a hospital, and other services — including access to remote schooling and telehealth services — might be limited or might not exist. We are organizing with funders that support work in rural regions and having important discourse around critical infrastructure. 

We’re considering how food shortages will impact rural areas, how broadband internet could become a national utility, and how philanthropy can strengthen the national social safety net for all. 

While uncertainty surrounds us all in this unprecedented moment, let’s practice social solidarity together. NFG offers you a political home: a place to connect, strategize, and take action.