On July 20, 2015, NFG partnered with the California Endowment, Ford Foundation, Common Counsel Foundation, and Smart Growth California to convene a day-long meeting for 70 funders and practitioners working on gentrification and displacement issues in California.
Our goal was to deepen a shared understanding of the problems and solutions to the crisis of displacement affecting residents and small businesses in many cities in California due to gentrification. We also sought to lay the foundation for potential alignment on strategies addressing these issues.
We developed a...
Watch the REPLAY of the livestream from the Grantmakers for Girls of Color National Funders Convening.
Originally aired: May 19, 2016, 8:45am to 12:15pm ET
See the morning program, speakers, and their twitter handles below the video. Join the conversation using #G4GC
Learn more about the convening...
Funders who have long provided grants to seed social change efforts are becoming interested in fundamental shifts in traditional corporate accountability and disinvestment strategies to consider developing strategies for more values aligned and socially impactful investment alongside grantmaking. These strategies have the potential to help the philanthropic sector invest at scale to change the economy regionally and contribute towards community renewal, power building, and seeding systemic change.
NFG's Project Phoenix and...
Project Phoenix convened a group of funders from a broad range of issue perspectives (climate, civic engagement, worker rights, local economies, etc.) and a broad range of institutional types and positions (size, mission, geography, approach, level of risk-taking, etc.). We realized we often meant very different things by the terms “just transition” or “new economy” or “solidarity economy” and found it difficult to understand each others’ work and the possibilities at the intersection in a shared framework. Learn more about...
What will it take to win successful economic justice campaigns in the South? With many families facing chronically low wages and economic insecurity, an understanding and attention to the political economy of the South can help funders and field organizations develop successful intervention strategies.
Why focus on anti-Black racism?...
New York State’s progressive movement has accomplished much in recent years, including passage of the Driver’s License Access and Privacy Act (Green Light NY), the Farm Laborers Fair Labor Practices Act (FLFLPA), and the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). These three examples demonstrate...
With public eyes on 2020 voter mobilizations to give voice to hundreds of thousands of Black, Latinx, and API voters in Georgia and Arizona; burgeoning union movements in Alabama; and struggles against police violence in Minnesota and Kentucky; it’s become clear to many funders that the map of transformative...
Funders for a Just Economy started the Working at the Intersections group to create a supportive community in which funders could learn about intersectional grant-making together and create the beginnings of a central framework on economic justice grantmaking through an intersectional lens.
In late 2017, the group interviewed a dozen philanthropic leaders and key thought partners to inform their understanding of intersectional grant-making. The approach was an appreciative inquiry to affirm that there is a great deal of expertise in the field...
By Larry Raphael Salomon, Julie Quiroz, Maggie Potapchuk and Lori Villarosa
This historical timeline attempts to capture, in one place, many significant moments, events, controversies and victories that have defined the racial landscape since the turbulent days following the LAPD/Rodney King beating verdict over two decades ago. When communities in Los Angeles rebelled, "race riots" exploded the commonly held myth that our nation had progressed from the explicitly unjust conditions that had defined earlier generations. And in the decades since, the...Last month, the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions and Neighborhood Funders Group convened 100 local, regional, and national funders for Towards a More Resilient Place: Promising Practices in Place-Based Philanthropy . This convening builds on our 2014 Towards a Better Place convening and our 2015 convening with the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation,...
While the frame of sanctuary cities is designed as protection for undocumented and migrant residents, it also offers an opportunity to engage us all in critical questions about how we shape our democracy and local places: What makes a city a sanctuary? Sanctuary for whom and from what?
Immediately after the presidential election, mayors across the country took a bold public stance, declaring their cities to be “sanctuary cities,” and vowing to protect their cities' residents against the potential harsh policies that are anticipated to come from the new federal administration and...
The past several days have brought more police killing of black people, more unjust court rulings, and more cities and communities rising up in collective power to demand justice. Say their names:
“This is a time for you and for us to be fearless; to find ways and resources to fund organizing and base building.” — Marielena Hincapie, National Immigration Law Center
Over the course of these past few weeks, marginalized communities have been relentlessly targeted and criminalized by the new federal administration. These include immigrants, with an executive order to begin building a wall along the southern...
article and photo provided by the Movement Net Lab
In tandem with the many movement networks of the last decade, innovative funding channels and configurations have emerged to support them. These changes are part of the shift from foundation-centered funding to a broader conceptualization of resources we call a living resource system . A living resource system provides a relationship-based approach to resources: resources are...Dear Colleagues, In recognition of Black History and Black Futures month, the Hill-Snowdon Foundation is launching a brand new website for our Making Black Lives Matter Initiative (MBLM) . The Making Black Lives Matter Initiative site will provide background on Hill-Snowdon’s MBLM Initiative that is focused on supporting Black-led organizing in order to help revitalize and strengthen the institutional and political power of the Black community. The website describes Foundation’s framework for supporting...
Project Phoenix: Connecting Democracy, Economy, and Sustainability was a year-long cohort collective learning program for funders exploring fronts ranging from local economies and climate justice to worker co-ops under the frame of a “just transition” or “solidarity economy” or “economic resiliency” or “new economy.” Learn more about it here.
What emerged from our year of learning together? What paths have we found for cross-sector philanthropic engagement around a broad set of interventions that are commensurate to...
The Democratic Development for Thriving Communities report is the result of collaboration between the California Funders Working Group on Gentrification and Displacement , field leaders, and academics. It builds on previous work from the philanthropic, academic, and organizing sectors to present a framework for philanthropy to consider in strategically addressing gentrification and displacement.
The Democratic Development for Thriving Communities: Framing the Issues, Solutions, and Funding Strategies to Address Gentrification and Displacement report is the result of collaboration between the California Funders Working Group on Gentrification and Displacement , field leaders, and academics. It builds on previous work from the philanthropic, academic, and...
Below are several of the reports and readings that supported our learning in Project Phoenix, a year-long cohort collective learning program for funders exploring fronts ranging from local economies and climate justice to worker co-ops under the frame of a “just transition” or “solidarity economy” or “economic resiliency” or “new economy.” Learn more about it here.
From Protest to Power is a convening hosted by the Ford Foundation and the Solidaire Network on February 26, 2016. We live in a political era defined by crisis, but also great promise. The effects of climate change, economic inequality, and racial injustice threaten our future. Yet in the face of these challenges, there’s a vibrant, visible resurgence of popular movements, of communities rising up against entrenched economic and political power. And it’s working. Four years after the start of the...
Neighborhood Funders Group and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) co-hosted "How to Creatively Fund Social Movements," a webinar that explored how foundations can be more flexible in supporting grassroots groups and leaders. Experienced grantmakers and organizers shared strategies for responding to this movement moment's critical need for resources to frontline social change actors.
As we know, Southern communities have been navigating challenging political climates for decades. This briefing discussed how the election impacts social justice work supporting LGBTQ, people of color, and immigrant communities in the South. Leaders and practitioners deeply rooted in their work in the South offered their insights about the challenges and opportunities of the current national narrative about...
Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash
Across the country, resident-led institutions and their allies continue to build organizing strategies that address housing, displacement, and gentrification at the local, regional, and state level. Strategies and solutions to gentrification and displacement like rent control measures,...
Technologies for Liberation: Toward Abolitionist Futures is a new report by the Astraea Lesbian Foundation For Justice in collaboration with Research Action Design (RAD).
The report explores the ways the state and corporations in the U.S. are using...
The current debates within progressive circles about the importance of “winning over” the white working class often fail to directly address the need for honest conversations about race, racism and xenophobia. It is tempting for many political strategists and funders to think that we can find and fund a short cut—better candidates, better field canvassing, better television ads, better framing etc... And, that these solutions will influence white, working class voters to (re)align with progressive candidates and causes.
These interventions are doomed from the start because they...
The Movement Strategy Center offers a plethora of resources that speak on transformative practices, collective impact, intersecting issues, and building progressive power. Below is a curated list.
Practices of Transformative Movement Building We need transformative strategies to generate exponential change. But how do we accomplish this? How do we achieve...
Across the country, resident-led institutions and their allies continue to build organizing strategies that address housing, displacement, and gentrification at the local, regional, and state level. Strategies and solutions to gentrification and displacement like rent control measures, passing local ballot initiatives for renter protections, developing community land trusts, and financing affordable housing has had some success, but the demographics of many communities are still rapidly changing.
At the center of these shifts, philanthropy continues to play a critical role...
For many years, Funders for a Just Economy (FJE) has held a yearly policy briefing to engage its members on specific policy issues that affect middle and low-income workers. In a fundamentally shifting political and power map, this year’s policy briefing updated members with our current understanding of the major forces and players that impact worker justice. FJE members engaged in strategic conversations about the decline of organized labor, economic discrimination based on migration status and gender, the future of work, emerging...
Philanthropy needs to move more resources and power to Indigenous-led groups. In honor of Native American Heritage Month in November, here is a list of Indigenous-led organizations you can fund today and every day. This list was compiled by NFG teammate Stephan Cheney, who is Lakota of the Kul Wicasa Oyate located in Lower Brule, South Dakota.
Let us know what other Indigenous-led groups you would add to this list by emailing us at hello@nfg.org .
View an interactive map of organizations addressing police accountability and racial justice .
Please note that this list is in formation and is regularly expanded based on recommendations from the field and from funders. If you would like to suggest an organization for this list, or you are part of an organization that you think should be on this list, please write to us at fundersforjustice@nfg.org .
Name State...