Support Minneapolis Protesters

Last updated December 2, 201. Please check back regularly for updates.

DONATE to Black Lives Matter Minneapolis: Please donate to help support their efforts with bail, legal support, and other supplies.

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November 27, 2015

Dear Community,

In the past 10 days Minneapolis has experienced horrific acts of violence, first with the shooting of Jamar Clark, a 24 year old unarmed black man, who was killed by the Minneapolis police just over a week ago. Then, on Monday night, in the wake of an ongoing peaceful occupation demanding justice for Jamar Clark outside of Minneapolis’ 4th Police Precinct, white supremacists shot at peaceful protesters, injuring five protesters. This is an incredibly traumatic time for our city and especially for the lead organizers/organizations who have been strategically organizing around the clock for the past 10 days.

Many of you have asked how you can help. Thank you. Please read on about what support is most urgently needed.

Headwaters is proud to continue to stand with our grantee partners, Black Lives Matter Minneapolis— leading the efforts to maintain a peaceful 24-7 occupation, organizing marches, events, and meeting with policy makers from the Governor to the Department of Justice. Organizing alongside them, is our grantee partner, Neighborhoods Organizing for Change (NOC)—the NOC office has been used as the organizing hub and meeting space for BLM-MPLS, offering a safe space for meetings, press conferences, healing, warmth, electricity, covering printing costs, access to the internet, and more. Both groups are working together to demand justice for the killing of Jamar Clark and to address some of the worst-in-the-nation disparities between African Americans and whites. Their fight is not just for one man, but for the thousands of black and brown people who unjustifiably die at the hands of law enforcement and as a result of our broken systems. Protestors have responded with courage and love. In response to the shootings on Monday night, over 2,000 people joined together to march for justice and peace from North Minneapolis to City Hall in downtown Minneapolis.

We’ve spoken with Black Lives Matter Minneapolis and Neighborhoods Organizing for Change about their immediate needs. We know there will be short and long term needs to sustain and grow this work, but we want to let you know about ways you can help right now. We think of this as “rapid emergency response” for social justice organizing.

Current Needs:

Harriet’s Apothecary Healers
Covers costs, including, travel and lodging, to bring several nationally renowned Black healers to work with our community.
Cost Estimate: $10,000

Material Needs to support on-going organizing:
Food, flyers, pens/paper, clipboards, email access, phones, non-violent direct action training, funeral costs, transportation costs.
Cost Estimate: $20,000

Stipends to Organizers-in-Need:
Hourly compensation for community members (without a financial safety net) now serving as organizations.
Cost: $8,000

Because we see this as “rapid emergency response” social justice funding, we advise you to send donations directly to Black Lives Matter, noting “Emergency Response-Social Justice Organizing” in the comment field so funds can be directed accordingly.

If donations require a 501 c3, please make donations to Headwaters Foundation for Justice, noting “Emergency Response-Social Justice Organizing” in the comment field so all funds can be directed accordingly.

Please feel free to call my cell phone with any questions, 612-822-8966.

We all have a role to play.

“We want them to stop killing us. We have rung the bells loud. We are not going to take this anymore.” Lena Gardner, member of Black Lives Matter Minneapolis.

Headwaters’ Giving Project participant and donor-activist Emma Buechs recently wrote from the 4th Police Precinct:  In these moments of fear and violence I am so grateful for the power of community, for the strength in hope, for the energy of song and dance and drums, for the smart and persistent organizing of @blacklivesmattermpls, and for the belief that we can and will win, that we can create a system not ruled by white supremacy, that we can be liberated if we all stand together.

With deep appreciation, and in solidarity,

David Nicholson
Executive Director
Headwaters Foundation for Justice

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November 23, 2015

Headwater Foundation Statement in Support of Minneapolis Protesters

Dear Funders for Justice Colleagues,

In the past several weeks, we have all seen violence and fear rock our cities, our nation, and the global community.

In my own city of Minneapolis, early Sunday morning police shot Jamar Clark, a 24 year old unarmed black man. While we might not yet know all the specifics surrounding the killing of Jamar, what we do know is that this is an all too familiar occurrence in our nation.

From Ferguson to Baltimore to New York and everywhere in between, our structures and systems are in urgent need of change. Race and racism are at the center of so many of our broken institutions: policing, health care, education, housing, and so many more.

At Headwaters, we fund groups organizing for justice and equity. Our grantees are in it for the long haul, and they are bending the arc of justice with each step they take whether through direct action or policy advocacy.

We are honored to stand with our grantee partner, Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, and other organizations, such as the NAACP and Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, as they courageously organize for #justice4jamar. Their fight is not just for one man, but for the thousands of black and brown people who unjustifiably die at the hands of law enforcement and as a result of our broken systems.

“We want them to stop killing us. We have rung the bells loud. We are not going to take this anymore.” Lena Gardner, member of Black Lives Matter Minneapolis.

Watch the videos, look at the photos, follow the work of Black Lives Matter Minneapolis, and contribute resources. We all have a role to play.

Late last night from the 4th police precinct in Minneapolis, Headwaters’ Giving Project participant and donor-activist Emma Buechs wrote: We are not leaving until our demands are met. In these moments of fear and violence I am so grateful for the power of community, for the strength in hope, for the energy of song and dance and drums, for the smart and persistent organizing of @blacklivesmattermpls, and for the belief that we can and will win, that we can create a system not ruled by white supremacy, that we can be liberated if we all stand together.

With deep appreciation, and in solidarity,

David Nicholson
Executive Director
Headwaters Foundation for Justice
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Press Release from Black Lives Matter Minneapolis:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 19, 2015

Black Lives Matter Minneapolis Calls for Civil Rights Investigation into Abuses of Peaceful Protesters

Community members vow to continue occupation of 4th precinct until video of the killing of Jamar Clark is released

A statement from Black Lives Matter Minneapolis:

Last night, community members showed incredible restraint in the face of militarized aggression during a time of painful mourning of the killing of Jamar Clark, an unarmed black man witnesses say was handcuffed and shot in the head “execution style”. We have, and will continue to call for Mayor Hodges and Chief Harteau to ask the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) and Department of Justice (DOJ) to immediately release the tapes of Jamar’s killing.

We demand an immediate end to the harassment of peaceful demonstrators, and call for civil rights investigation into police violence against protesters. Some of the egregious violations of civil rights documented last night include:

An officer punched a young woman in the face before macing a crowd of people
Police pointed potentially lethal weapons in the face of numerous peaceful protesters including Congressman Keith Ellison’s son.

Police maced scores of people including WCCO journalist and Northsider Reg Chapman.
Police shot a 14 year old child with a marker bullet.

At 2:45am Police advanced into camp, tore ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter banner down, & retreated behind the barricade again

Police made false claims that pepper spray was coming from protesters not them.
We understand the frustration of community members who may take actions not sanctioned by our group; this is a time of grief and rage and we remain committed to nonviolent direct action. As has always been the case, our members remained committed to peaceful protest even in the face of growing escalation.

We want to thank Council members Bender, Cano, Gordon, Andrew Johnson, Glidden, Rep. Dehn, and the hundreds of community members who joined us last night. However, we are disappointed in the actions of Mayor Hodges, Chief Harteau, Minneapolis City Council President Barb Johnson, and 4th precinct Council Member Blong Yang for their lack of commitment to the welfare of Black residents in Minneapolis and beyond.

This incident is receiving international press coverage because it is emblematic of the larger problem of a culture of policing in America where Black lives do not matter. We call on City council and city leadership to take dramatic and bold action to stop another shooting death of an unarmed Black person from happening.

Despite attacks on the protestors and community, we're still here and more determined than ever to get justice for Jamar, and to see the video footage of his killing. Please join us at 5:00pm today for an action as we continue the occupation at the 4th Precinct.

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Black Lives Matter Minneapolis is a group of Black and allied organizers in Minneapolis, Minn. working in solidarity with the national Black Lives Matter movement.

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DOJ: Protect Black Activists from White Vigilante Violence
“We Cannot Live without Our Lives”
—Audre Lorde, Black author, poet, activist, and academic
The Black Lives Matter Network stands in solidarity with the five members of the #BlackLivesMatter Minneapolis chapter that were shot on Monday night. All five are reportedly in stable condition. Protestors were shot as they attempted to move a group of apparently armed white men away from a peaceful protest over the fatal shooting of unarmed Black 24-year-old man Jamar Clark by a police officer.
While activists on the ground at the #4thPrecinctShutDown are shaken, they are not derailed in their efforts. They will remain at the scene, occupying the precinct, until justice for Jamar Clark and his family is served.
The war on Black lives is escalating, and it’s time for President Obama to intervene. The Black Lives Matter Network urgently calls upon the Department of Justice to investigate this shooting as a hate crime.
This shooting of Black activists by white vigilantes in Minneapolis is a symptom of a much larger problem—that while the homegrown domestic terrorism of white supremacists is alive and well in 2015, it too often lives in the shadows of media coverage dominated by the international terrorism of so-called religious extremists.
But, organized white American vigilantism too, is terrorism.
It is a terrifying kind of terrorism where the “radicalization” of white supremacists is allowed to grow in plain sight, erased by an invisibility cloak of media neglect, endorsed by politicians, egged on by online trolls, and entrenched by an anti-Black state and civil society.
When white males of the far right carry out violent attacks, they are typically described in media, and by neocons and Republicans, as independent actors, rather than members of well-organized terrorist movements. In fact, a recent study found that, despite Presidential hopeful Donald Trump’s desire to increase targeted surveillance of Black activists and Muslim communities, white supremacists are actually more dangerous to America than foreign terrorists. Most terrorist activity has come not from Muslims or from Black people, but from a combination of radical Christians, white supremacists, and far-right militia groups.
The Black Lives Matter Network also calls upon the Department of Justice to investigate the Minneapolis police department’s negligent and incompetent conduct in response to this crime. Instead of responding appropriately to secure the safety of protestors who had previously reported credible threats made by white supremacists, the concerns of protestors were ignored. Instead of immediately assisting those injured, Minneapolis police maced protestors who were attempting to record events as they occurred. Rather than take witness statements, Minneapolis police mocked the suffering of Black activists, insisting that by demanding answers in the fatal shooting of an unarmed Black teenager, protestors had brought the violence upon themselves. Blaming the targets of racist violence is an old trope, but one we must actively and wholeheartedly reject. Our right to organize in defense of Black lives is inherent and inalienable, and beyond the jurisdiction of any law enforcement or white hate group.
White vigilantism is a persistent threat that exists to uphold the war on Black lives, reinforce existing racial power dynamics as the status quo, and terrify Black people into silence. But we will not be silent in the face of this long-held extension of state violence.
We will continue the occupation of the 4th precinct. We will not be intimidated by white supremacy. We will not bow down to white vigilante terror. Just as our ancestors in the civil rights movement of the 1960’s sang, we ain’t gonna let white supremacy turn us around.
Not now, not ever.
We demand #Justice4Jamar, justice for the five victims of this racist hate crime, and all victims of police violence
January 22, 2020

NFG Member Spotlight: The Libra Foundation

Logo of The Libra FoundationThe Libra Foundation staff: Angie Chen (Senior Program Officer), Crystal Hayling (Executive Director), Ashley Clark (Knowledge & Grants Manager), Jennifer Agmi (Senior Program Officer)

(L-R): Angie Chen (Senior Program Officer), Crystal Hayling (Executive Director), Ashley Clark (Knowledge & Grants Manager), Jennifer Agmi (Senior Program Officer)

NFG's network is composed of 120+ members that work in every part of the nation, in both urban and rural settings, and includes private and public foundations, community foundations, family foundations, corporate foundations, faith-based funders, and other grantmaking institutions. 

We recently connected with Crystal Hayling and The Libra Foundation team about their growth and vision for 2020, which organizations are giving them inspiration in this moment, and why they continue to invest in NFG with their renewed and increased membership.

We love to connect with our members! Share your experiences as part of the NFG network by getting in touch with Lindsay Ryder, Senior Membership Manager, at lindsay@nfg.org.

 
  1. How do notions of people, power, and place fit in with Libra’s grantmaking approach?

The organizations Libra supports are building a world where low-income communities of color have the power to determine their own freedom, define safety, and thrive in healthy environments. Families that are separated by mass incarceration, communities whose voting rights are suppressed, and neighborhoods suffering from contamination are among the many ways people, power, and place are at the foundation of structural oppression, and, therefore, the heart of Libra’s grantmaking approach. We are centering organizations building power through grassroots community organizing, deep network and coalition building, and progressive advocacy for lasting solutions that work for all.
 

  1. Libra has gone through a bit of a transformation over the past few years, including a new ED and larger staff, a larger public profile, and a refined grantmaking strategy. How has being a part of NFG’s network informed or served Libra along the way?

Transformation is a daily practice - a collection of intentions and ideals - with no clear point of arrival. I knew when I joined Libra as Executive Director I wanted to help guide a team of passionate, heart-driven individuals who are committed to doing philanthropy differently and moving resources to frontline communities. We are so grateful to the NFG network for guiding and supporting the changes we continue to undergo. NFG’s community of funders and activists have a rigorous and thorough analysis that not only informs our community’s understanding and actions, but pushes us all to do better. The network brings together social movement leaders and funders that drive our field to be accountable and unified in our vision for justice.
 

  1. Libra recently renewed its membership with NFG, opting to increase its membership level for 2020. As we enter NFG’s 40th Anniversary year, what are your hopes and plans for engaging with the NFG network?

We are intentionally investing more in NFG because of our shared belief in organizing institutional funders to mobilize more resources for grassroots power building. Too often in philanthropy we are siloed by issue areas. Meanwhile, the same folks who are most impacted by criminal justice are disproportionately affected by gender and environmental justice as well. Although it’s vital to develop and focus on expertise in each of these areas, it’s critical that we as funders take an intersectional approach that recognizes these truths. NFG is leading in this regard, especially in its prioritization of people of color, and Libra aims to do the same.

Our team is planning to engage more in Funders for Justice this year. Lorraine Ramirez helped orient us to all the avenues for collaboration, and we’re excited to learn more from the field advisors and members. And we are really looking forward to this summer’s national convening! A lot has happened since the NFG community got together last in 2018 and we’re hoping that the entire Libra staff will be in attendance.
 

  1. Of NFG’s 125 member organizations, are there any funders you would like to give a shout out to for inspiring or partnering with Libra?

What an inspiring group! We are motivated and encouraged by so many of our peer members at NFG. We are fortunate to be in community with lots of NFG members and look forward to deepening relationships. 

To name a few that are a part of the Libra grantee community, Groundswell Fund is doing incredible work in the reproductive justice field protecting women, nonbinary, and trans folks of color across the country. Proteus Fund houses essential donor collaborative funds (like Rise Together Fund) and fiscally sponsors many of Libra’s grantees. And of course Common Counsel, which among many other philanthropic services houses Native Voices Rising, a fund that supports Native-led community driven projects across Turtle Island.

When we began refining our strategies here at Libra, we leaned on many of our friends in the NFG network. Specifically in environmental and climate justice, we are learning from close colleagues like Mertz Gilmore Foundation and Surdna Foundation that have shifted their strategies to uplift frontline leadership and people centered solutions to the climate crisis. And we continue to be inspired by colleagues that have led the charge to do philanthropy differently, like Marguerite Casey Foundation and Chorus Foundation (among many others!).

  1. And most importantly, are there any community leaders or organizations that you’ve been connected to through NFG’s network that Libra is supporting or that you are inspired by?

Specifically in 2019, members of our program team attended the Funders for a Just Economy Racial Capitalism convening. We were blown away by presentations from Trans United, which supports visionary trans leadership, and ACRE Institute, which organizes campaigns working at the intersection of racial justice and Wall Street accountability. Following that convening and based on recommendations from partners in the field, Libra funded both in our latest docket.

 

January 15, 2020

Racial Capitalism, Power & Resistance: Keynote Videos & Highlights for 2020

In October 2019, NFG's Funders for a Just Economy (FJE) held a breakthrough Racial Capitalism, Power and Resistance Convening, an unprecedented conversation with more than 70 funder participants on the racial and gendered inequality defining US and global capitalism — and the role of philanthropy within these structures. FJE is moving this conversation into action in 2020. Towards that goal, we are recapping the convening and providing video from the seminal keynote talks by Dr. Ananya Roy and Dr. Barbara Ransby that grounded our meeting.  

Nine speakers who were at the convening.

Top (L-R): Dr. Barbara Ransby, Mónica Ramírez, Dr. Ananya Roy
Middle (L-R): Cindy Weisner, Alicia Garza, Aaron Tanaka
Bottom (L-R): Dimple Abichandani, Farhad Ebrahimi, Pamela Shifman

FJE’s Racial Capitalism, Power and Resistance Convening was about asking hard questions and opening a conversation about the underlying history of the US economy and the origins of philanthropy as a way to ground us in how to support powerful resistance movements. Through this piece, we wanted to bring you some of the critical questions that stuck with us — and ways to move forward the themes and ideas generously offered by our activist-academic, movement, and philanthropic speakers and participants.

Who are we in alliance with? And how does that shape the real choices funders make?

Dr. Ananya Roy started off our conversation with a powerful question: Can we decolonize philanthropy in a real way? She also offered a proposition: We can’t do so without facing the way foundations are based in “twice-stolen wealth” — profit extracted via exploitative racialized capitalist means and through evading public taxation. [1]

Dr. Roy offered the example of her work with the Institute on Inequality and Democracy at UCLA, working to “turn the university inside out” through co-creation of knowledge alongside movement leaders; simplifying funding opportunities for community organizations; and paid, unfettered residency programs for activists. She pushed us to reflect on “what additional work we create for communities” through our grantmaking practices and the “difficult choices we must make on who we are in alliance with” — including standing up when foundations undermine community-led liberation movements.

You can hear Dr. Roy's keynote, Decolonizing Philanthropy? A View from The Public University, in the video below.

How do we define and confront the deep histories of racialized capitalism?

FJE presented a portion of the Action Center on Race & the Economy and Grassroots Collaborative’s popular education workshop on racial capitalism. The material examined how core institutions of US capitalism — like banking — built wealth directly off the slave economy and indigenous genocide. Grappling with the inextricable connection between racism, patriarchy, and capitalism raised the fact that Black women and other people of color also face these traumas every day in philanthropy. How can funders collectively support healing among philanthropic staff as they find ways to fund movements genuinely addressing the genocidal histories of greed?

“What happens when we put life [and sustaining it] at the center of our work?” — Cindy Wiesner

To bring us into how contemporary movements are confronting racial and gendered capitalism, Alicia Garza of the Black Futures Lab led a conversation with Mónica Ramírez of Justice for Migrant Women, Aaron Tanaka of the Center for Economic Democracy and Cindy Wiesner of Grassroots Global Justice. These leaders shared that grassroots, collaborative, feminist, and anti-capitalist social justice movements serve as “kryptonite” (in Cindy Wiesner’s words) to racial capitalism and neo-fascism. These movements range from organizing for a Green New Deal to local democratic investment structures, to migrant women-led sexual harassment activism. Speakers challenged funders to work alongside communities to resource experimentation and “freedom dreaming” — and to understand the solutions won’t come quickly or easily. They also asked foundations to use their own power — as investors and public figures — to take on racial capitalism.

What power do we have in our institutions? And how do we shift power with communities?

Pamela Shifman, formerly of Novo Foundation; Dimple Abichandani of General Service Foundation; and Farhad Ebrahimi of Chorus Foundation shared how as Executive Directors and alumni of NFG's Philanthropy Forward: Leadership for Change Fellowship, they recognized and acted on their power to shift their institutions and the sector. As Dimple Abichandani noted, “These rules and practices that we work in come out of racial capitalism and corporate compliance frameworks. We can decide to change those.”

The speakers raised the fact that while education programs are plenty, actively organizing foundations towards collective goals through leadership development — like Philanthropy Forward — is rarer but necessary. Foundation staff also rarely hold other funders publicly accountable – perhaps because feel that they cannot tell others what to do with their money. Yet recent campaigns to discourage the Gates Foundation in awarding the fascist, Hindu-nationalist aligned Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi suggest insurgent philanthropy is percolating.

What are the projects we fund to undo racial capitalism, and what logics are the projects based on?

On Day 2 of the Racial Capitalism, Power and Resistance Convening, Dr. Barbara Ransby offered three key elements to understand racial capitalism today: First, the irreconcilable relationship between capitalism's “infinite growth model on a finite planet;” second, financialization and the global “ponzi scheme;” and third, automation’s influence on worker's lives and consumption. She urged us to hold these contemporary capitalist crises with their roots in slavery and empire.

Dr. Ransby offered that dealing with this past and present means actively confronting white supremacy and nationalism; “building as we undo” through solidarity economies and other alternatives; and thoughtfully advancing abolition and reparations. Such ongoing processes require reckoning with anti-Blackness and asking: “How do you relinquish some of the power [that you have over organizations] and see yourself with a greater sense of humility?”

You can watch Dr. Ransby's keynote, Racial Capitalism, Power and Black Radical Tradition, in the video below.

“How do we show up, use our collective assets, and stand behind our grantees?” — Marjona Jones

Marjona Jones of the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, José García of the Ford Foundation, Emma Oppenhiem of Open Society Foundations, and Shona Chakravartty of the Hill-Snowdon Foundation, in conversation with Anna Quinn of NoVo Foundation, brought the meeting home with a dialogue on how we could take tangible action, including through the Funders for a Just Economy.

Participants then honed in on key work areas to follow-up on after the event including: building accountability mechanisms in philanthropy; transforming partnerships with our grantees; healing and strategizing together as co-conspirators; remaking tax structures and philanthropic asset management.

Stay tuned for more from FJE as we work together to provide the space and tools for philanthropy to take these ideas into action into 2020 — and into a more just tomorrow.

 

[1] Roy was quoting Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore (2009). “In the Shadow of the Shadow State” in The Revolution Will Not be Funded (edited by INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. Boston: South End Press, 2009). http://sfonline.barnard.edu/navigating-neoliberalism-in-the-academy-nonp...