Plenary Speakers

Women of Color in the South: Power Building & Radical Imaginations

Monday, March 15 | 12:30 to 1:15 p.m. ET

Speakers (pictured left to right):
Chandra Farley, Just Energy Director, Partnership for Southern Equity

Colette Pichon Battle, Executive Director, Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy

Jacqueline Thanh, Executive Director, VAYLA New Orleans

Gloria Walton, CEO, The Solutions Project  (Moderator)

The radical visions and practical solutions arising from communities facing relentless racial terror, compounding health and climate crises, and historic disinvestment offered key lessons to funders during 2020. Whether we begin with the undeniable urgency of COVID-19, police brutality, or economic and ecosystem collapse, we see the culture-led strategies from the South as potent examples of movement innovation across all challenges.

This session shares the visions and lessons of leaders deeply connected to intergenerational and intersectional movements across the South who know what’s possible for economic development, housing, climate resiliency, energy/food/water ecosystems, and our culture. This conversation is an invitation to show up in ways that transform scarcity into abundance, not only in the resources moved or practices held in philanthropy, but more broadly in our very culture of leadership.

Homecoming Project: Lift Every Voice

Monday, March 15 | 4 p.m. ET

TFN is honored to welcome New Orleans-based Junebug Productions’ Homecoming Project to share their work at our 2021 virtual conference.

The Homecoming Project is a community-based, storytelling performance series that aims to marry high-quality artistic practice with a commitment to maintaining the essential relationship between culture and progressive social change through engagement with New Orleans communities that have been historically oppressed and exploited.

Junebug is the organizational successor to the Free Southern Theater, founded in 1963, whose objective was to stimulate creative and reflective thought among African Americans in the rural South by bringing the theater to the people. The Homecoming Project honors that vision with performances that activate public spaces in the neighborhoods they are meant to reflect, making sure that they are accessible to all.

Rukia Lumumba,

Transformative Justice Strategist & Human Rights Activist

Tuesday, March 16 | 12:30 to 1: 15 p.m. ET

We are excited to share that Rukia Lumumba, executive director of the People’s Advocacy Institute and co-director of the Movement for Black Lives’ Electoral Justice Project will join us as a plenary speaker for #TFN2021!

A transformative justice strategist and human rights activist, Rukia is the daughter of the late community justice icon Chokwe Lumumba, who served as mayor of Jackson, Miss., and Nubia Lumumba. Rukia continues the Lumumba family’s rich history of advancing issues and initiatives that elevate the legal, economic, health and educational rights of individuals, families and communities.

For more than 18 years, she has worked within and outside the system to foster justice for all, especially as it relates to criminal justice disparities for people of color. She has served as director of two of New York state’s largest criminal justice nonprofits, CASES (the Center for Alternatives Sentencing and Employment Services) and the Center for Community Alternatives, providing visionary leadership and building community and system partnerships to help break the prison pipeline.

During her leadership tenure, more than 4,200 youths received supportive community-based services including housing, education, job, and health and well-being services, in lieu of incarceration. She also served as co-chair of the Anti-Violence and Criminal Justice Working Group and steering committee member of the first Young Women’s Initiative in the United States dedicated to developing gender equitable policies in New York City, particularly for young women of color.

Rukia also served as campaign manager for her brother Chokwe Antar Lumumba’s successful 2017 run for mayor of Jackson, Miss., which made him the second Lumumba to hold that title.

Closing Plenary: Glenn Harris
President, Race Forward & Publisher, Colorlines

Wednesday, March 17 | 4:15 p.m. ET

We are  thrilled to have Glenn Harris, president of Race Forward and publisher of news site Colorlines, with us as our 2021 closing plenary speaker.

Race Forward catalyzes movement building for racial justice. In partnership with communities, organizations, and others, they build strategies to advance racial justice in our policies, institutions, and culture.

Race Forward united with the Center for Social Inclusion (CSI) in 2017 — in part to address an urgent need to build a multiracial movement for racial justice, and out of recognition that the two racial justice organizations were stronger together.

The new Race Forward is home to the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), a national network of government working to achieve racial equity and advance opportunities for all, which Harris helped found. Race Forward also publishes the daily news site Colorlines and produces Momentum: A Race Forward Podcast featuring stories and strategies for racial justice.

Harris has more than 25 years of experience working on issues of race and social justice, including as president of Center for Social Inclusion from 2014 until its union with Race Forward. Prior to the new Race Forward and CSI, Harris served as manager of Seattle’s Race and Social Justice Initiative (RSJI), whose mission is to end institutionalized racism in city government.

More #TFN2021 Highlights:

Centered in Racial Equity

We’ve designed sessions that are intersectional, cross-cutting and grounded in racial equity and speak to activism, collaboration and movement building. (Stay tuned for more updates on sessions and speakers.)

Critical Conversations

In this time of social distancing, it’s important for us to connect with compassion, humanity and understanding. TFN’s conference will offer Critical Conversations, an opportunity to have frank, open, peer-facilitated exchanges of ideas and experiences, and perhaps learn a little bit about each other in the process. Each session will be led by a facilitator with a deep personal or professional connection to the topic.

Critical Conversations @ #TFN2021:

COVID-19 & Racism

Facilitator: Jasmine N. Hall Ratliff, Deputy Director for Culture and Strategy, Keecha Harris and Associates

Monday, March 15 | 1:30 to 2:15 p.m. ET

Being Black in Philanthropy

Facilitators (Pictured above, L-R):

 Shawn Escoffery, Executive Director, Roy & Patricia Disney Family Foundation; Member, TFN Board of Directors

Sheena Solomon, Executive Director, The Gifford Foundation), and TFN PLACES Alum

Marcus Walton, President & CEO, Grantmakers for Effective Organizations

Monday, March 15| 2:45 to 3:30 p.m. ET

Decolonizing Leadership

Facillitator: Bina M. Patel, CEO, Saathi Impact Consulting, and TFN PLACES Alum/Fellowship Facilitator

Wednesday, March 17 | 12:30 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. ET

Healing and Trauma

Facilitator: Dr. Denese Shervington, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Tulane University School of Medicine and President and CEO, Institute for Women and Ethnic Studies

Wednesday, March 17 | 12:30 – 1:15 p.m. ET

Shop Here! Virtual Market

Shop Here! Virtual Market offers conference participants the opportunity to order directly from NOLA-based vendors, artisans, and social enterprises as a way to support these local vendors and minimize the economic impact of our inability to convene in New Orleans because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Rockefeller Foundation is the presenting sponsor of the Shop Here! Virtual Market.

Time to Connect & Reflect

TFN 2021 Virtual Conference: Rise Together will build in opportunities for self-care, socializing and reflection with an agenda that includes Artist Interludes, Movement Breaks and a Cook Here! Funder Social Hour featuring a cooking demo from a New Orleans chef and a chance to connect with other attendees.