Nonprofits employ nearly 500K Michiganders. They need SBA Payroll Protection Program funds

By Wendy Lewis Jackson and Aaron Seybert, The Kresge Foundation

TFN members Wendy Jackson and Aaron Seybert from The Kresge Foundation recently share their reflections on how the SBA Payroll Protection Program funds are vital to supporting Detroit's nonprofit sector with the Detroit Free Press. Wendy, a former TFN board member, is currently the co-chair of TFN's Inclusive Economies working group.

"From feeding the hungry, to supporting COVID-19 testing and contact tracing, nonprofits are integral to confronting the pandemic in Detroit, across Michigan and across the country. 

But the nonprofit sector is itself badly battered economically and deeply in need of substantial, targeted support. Nonprofits are anxiously awaiting a new round of the federal Payroll Protection Program, which is up for debate in Congress this week. If it passes, it would need to be followed by ardent support and prioritization of nonprofits from local lenders and state officials.

According to the Michigan Nonprofit Association, nonprofits employed nearly 470,000 people in the third quarter of 2018. This number represents just over one in 10 of Michigan’s total nonfarm jobs, and is larger than Michigan’s leisure and hospitality industry. 

In Detroit, this sector is particularly vital. Nonprofits are the institutional first responders working shoulder to shoulder with government to flatten the curve and meet emergency needs. Nonprofits make up the civic and societal muscle that’s worked to revitalize our community, and will be essential in rebuilding after the financial storm has passed."

Read the rest of this op-ed here.

About the Authors

Wendy Lewis Jackson is managing director for the Detroit Program. She leads The Kresge Foundation’s efforts to revitalize Detroit and to strengthen its social and economic fabric. Her work supports organizations providing economic opportunity for low-income people and addresses the needs of vulnerable children and families.

Aaron Seybert is managing director of the Social Investment Practice at The Kresge Foundation. He previously served as a social investment officer supporting the American Cities and Detroit Programs at Kresge. He joined the foundation in 2016.  Prior to Kresge, he served as executive director at JPMorgan Chase Bank, where he was involved with community development banking focused on New Markets Tax Credits and Historic Tax Credit investing.

by TFN Staff

A Note From Home

By Darren Walker, President, Ford Foundation  

TFN member Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, an international social justice philanthropy with a $13 billion endowment and $600 million in annual grant making. He chaired the philanthropy committee that brought a resolution to the city of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy and is co-founder and chair of the US Impact Investing Alliance.

Today on the Ford Foundation's blog Equals Change, Darren shared his reflections on the Covid-19 virus, the role he thinks funders can play in recovery and our need as a people for caution, courage and calm during these trying times. 

"Dear colleagues and friends:

During these strangest of days, one cannot help but feel disoriented.

Our circumstances—and the way we make sense of them—are evolving so rapidly that, even as I draft these lines, I cannot know which will hold true tomorrow or the day after, much less during the weeks and months ahead.

The strangeness takes many different forms. As I work from home—practicing the “social distancing” that the experts counsel—the speed of news, closures, and conference calls is juxtaposed with an unsettling quiet. No one is bustling around my home office the way they would the Ford Foundation corridors.

How can things be moving so fast, and also so slowly?

And yet, I recognize that my lockdown in a Manhattan apartment, while hard for me to process, is certainly no hardship. Those of us who benefit from such privilege would be well served to remember this during the days and months ahead. Far too many are facing real hardships: frontline healthcare professionals, as well as retail, hotel and restaurant workers, and others for whom survival depends on hourly and tipped wages.

And yet, I recognize that my lockdown in a Manhattan apartment, while hard for me to process, is certainly no hardship. Those of us who benefit from such privilege would be well served to remember this during the days and months ahead. Far too many are facing real hardships: frontline healthcare professionals, as well as retail, hotel and restaurant workers, and others for whom survival depends on hourly and tipped wages.

No matter where we find ourselves, though, we share the anxiety that comes with staring straight into the unknown—even if we’ve already been living with some elements of this altered reality. In many ways, the COVID-19 crisis is an extreme extension of trends and feelings of uncertainty that have defined the last few years: The unprecedented has become the ordinary, in nearly every facet of life.

Despite all of this, or perhaps because of it, I have been reflecting on the timeless words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

As the pandemic and its consequences threaten lives and livelihoods, we see—yet again—just how inextricably our fates and fortunes are intertwined. We see how each of us is directly, and indirectly, responsible for those around us."

Read the rest of his blog here.

About the Author

Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation, an international social justice philanthropy with a $13 billion endowment and $600 million in annual grant making. He chaired the philanthropy committee that brought a resolution to the city of Detroit’s historic bankruptcy and is co-founder and chair of the US Impact Investing Alliance.

Before joining Ford, Darren was vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation, overseeing global and domestic programs including the Rebuild New Orleans initiative after Hurricane Katrina. In the 1990s, as COO of the Abyssinian Development Corporation—Harlem’s largest community development organization—he oversaw a comprehensive revitalization strategy, including building over 1,000 units of affordable housing and the first major commercial development in Harlem since the 1960s. Earlier, he had a decade-long career in international law and finance at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and UBS.

Darren co-chairs New York City’s Commission on City Art, Monuments, and Markers, and serves on the Commission on the Future of Rikers Island Correctional Institution and the UN International Labor Organization Commission on the Future of Work. He also serves on the boards of Carnegie Hall, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Gallery of Art, Art Bridges, the High Line, VOW to End Child Marriage, the HOW Institute for Society, the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment, and the Committee to Protect Journalists. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and is the recipient of 13 honorary degrees and university awards, including the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal from Harvard University.

Educated exclusively in public schools, Darren was a member of the first class of Head Start in 1965 and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, which in 2009 recognized him with its Distinguished Alumnus Award—its highest alumni honor. He has been included on numerous annual media lists, including Time’s annual list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, Rolling Stone’s 25 People Shaping the Future, Fast Company’s 50 Most Innovative People, and Out magazine’s Power 50.

by TFN Staff

We Must Be Committed Now More Than Ever To Raise Our Voices

By Pat Smith, President and CEO, The Funders' Network

Dear TFN members and friends,

As a membership organization committed to centering racial equity and justice in our work, we are alarmed and appalled by recent reports of racist and xenophobic attacks against Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and others of Asian descent living in our communities. As we wrestle with the devastating health, economic and social impacts of the global coronavirus pandemic, we are mindful that social distancing does not equal willful silence.

We must be committed, now more than ever, to raise our voices in solidarity with those targeted by hateful rhetoric and actions.

We are proud to sign on to this open letter authored Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP) and published in the Chronicle of Philanthropy - “Open Letter to Philanthropy: The Cure to Viral Racism Is Within Our Hands.”
TFN encourages you to join us in signing on to this letter as a sign of empathy and solidarity with the AAPI community. We also encourage you to adopt and amplify the calls-to-action outlined in the letter, which exhorts colleagues in philanthropy to:

  Include language in statements that denounce hate related to COVID-19 (and beyond).
  Include efforts that address viral racism as part of rapid response fund guidelines.
  Insert equity into outreach efforts and funding decisions to ensure that smaller organizations, especially those in harder hit communities and inclusive of AAPIs are part of that mix.
  Reach out to AAPI staff members and colleagues to see how they are doing and offer support.
  Speak out when you see racism and prejudice against any individual or community.
  Think of this moment as a “reset” button to imagine a more holistic approach to philanthropy that gains new traction toward racial and gender equity.

You may read the full letter along with the list of organizations that have signed on in support here.

TFN has also compiled an online library, Resources and Responses from the Philanthropic Sector, which we hope will be helpful in navigating the many implications the pandemic will have for the people and places we care about, while keeping the values of equity, inclusion and justice front and center.

If you would like to share news or resources about the pandemic with the TFN audience, please reach out to Marci Ovadia.

Wishing you good health and wellbeing,

Pat Smith
TFN President & CEO

by TFN Staff

Open Letter to Philanthropy: The Cure to Viral Racism Is Within Our Hands

By Patricia Eng, President and CEO, Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP)

TFN encourages our members to visit our working resource library on the TFN blog, which we hope will be helpful to funders navigating the impact the coronavirus pandemic will have on the people and places we care about, while keeping the values of equity, inclusion and justice front and center.

This joint statement was included as part of an article "Asian American Grant Makers Call on Philanthropy to End Violence and Bias on the Rise as Coronavirus Spreads"  published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy 4.8.2020.

Dear Colleagues,

While Covid-19 may be novel, the racism accompanying it is far from new. Racial bigotry and “xenophobia” is ravaging Asian American communities in the U.S. alongside the physical impacts of COVID-19.  It is reminiscent of attacks against South Asians, Arab and Muslim Americans after 9/11, brewed from anti-Blackness and the all-too familiar racial profiling of Black, Brown, and Native American people just going about their lives.  We thank those that stand in support of Chinese and Chinese Americans during this period as we stand in solidarity with others who have and continue to experience racism and bigotry.

Scapegoating of Asian Americans is fueled by fear and racism simmering just below the surface.  When it comes from our country’s top leaders, whether direct or implied, it signals an official stamp of acceptance and puts Asian Americans in harm’s way, including children.   There are more than 21 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) in the U.S., comprising the fastest growing racial group, and they too are impacted, especially health care workers and others providing essential services who are risking their lives to save others.  And philanthropy is not immune. Our staff and colleagues are also impacted by a variety of aggressions, externally or even within our own work environment when minimized or ignored.

Through every crisis, philanthropy responds.  Some foundations have acknowledged the need to address racism in their COVID-19 response.   Asian American community foundations, giving circles, and other mutual aid solutions are stepping up to support the community, both to address COVID-19 as well as the unique harms to Asian Americans.  Asian and Asian American philanthropists are also stepping up to be part of the larger COVID-19 solution, including but not limited to, donating personal protection equipment for American health care workers.

All of this is a great start, but much more can be done. The cure to viral racism is within our hands. We call on our colleagues to:

·        Include language in statements that denounce hate related to COVID-19 (and beyond).

·        Include efforts that address viral racism as part of rapid response fund guidelines.

·        Insert equity into outreach efforts and funding decisions to ensure that smaller organizations, especially those in harder hit communities and inclusive of AAPIs are part of that mix.

·        Reach out to AAPI staff members and colleagues to see how they are doing and offer support.

·        Speak out when you see racism and prejudice against any individual or community.

·        Think of this moment as a “reset” button to imagine a more holistic approach to philanthropy that gains new traction toward racial and gender equity.

Let’s think expansively about this country’s future and support a path to finding our full humanity based on trusted relationships.  In this pandemic, it is abundantly clear that we are one people with a shared destiny.  Let’s close this country’s chapter on the tired and harmful stereotypes along with this novel virus.  Our collective health is strengthened by our shared humanity and our best allies are common sense and good will.  Through every such crisis and every day in between, solidarity matters.

SIGNATORIES

This letter is signed by the following foundations and philanthropic organizations alongside individuals listed below.  Please note that individuals have added their names, with titles and affiliations for identification purposes only and this does NOT constitute institutional endorsement (that is recorded in the institutional section).

While these types of letters are typically signed by the heads of foundations and philanthropic entitities, we felt it was important for AAPI voices at all leadership levels in philanthropy to be included, alongside our powerful allies.  Some foundation executives and trustees selected to also include their names as individuals alongside their institutional endorsements for additional emphasis and expression of personal solidarity.  This includes more than 50 AAPI top level executives and trustees of foundations and philanthropic serving organizations. Many individuals listed have multiple connections and touchpoints in philanthropy, but chose a specific identification for the purpose of this letter. 

The people behind these signatures hail from points all across the country, from coast to coast and points in between.  They are not simply perfunctory sign-ons. They represent a heartfelt urgency to continue the hard work of moving beyond racial bias during crises like this, to come out more fully whole as a country.

The people behind these signatures hail from points all across the country, from coast to coast and points in between.  They are not simply perfunctory sign-ons. They represent a heartfelt urgency to continue the hard work of moving beyond racial bias during crises like this, to come out more fully whole as a country.

FOUNDATIONS & PHILANTHROPY SERVING ORGANIZATIONS (list in formation - request to sign on here.)

 AAPI Civic Engagement Fund (national)

ABFE: A Philanthropic Partnership for Black Communities (national)

Akonadi Foundation (national)

Alexandria Area Community Foundation (MN)

Amalgamated Charitable Foundation (national)

APIs Rise Giving Circle (CA)

Arizona Grantmakers Forum (AZ)

Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (national)

Asian Giving Circle (IL)

Asian Mosaic Fund Giving Circle of Greater Philadelphia (PA)

Asian Pacific Community Fund (CA)

Asian Women Giving Circle (NY)

Barr Foundation (MA)

Bayanihan Foundation Community Power Giving Circle (CA)

Beyond Two Cents: LGBTQ AAPI Giving Circle (national)

Biodiversity Funders Group (national)

Blue Sky Funders Forum (national)

Blue Shield of California Foundation (CA)

BMPP Giving Circle (MN)

Borealis Philanthropy (national)

Brainerd Lakes Area Community Foundation (MN)

Brooklyn Community Foundation (NY)

California Wellness Foundation (CA)

Center for Effective Philanthropy (national)

Central Minnesota Community Foundation (MN)

CHANGE Philanthropy (national)

Cherry Blossom Giving Circle (DC)

Chicago African Americans in Philanthropy (IL)

Chinook Fund (CO)

Colorado Health Foundation (CO)

Common Counsel Foundation (national)

Community Foundation for Northern Virginia (VA)

Community Giving (MN)

Connecticut Council for Philanthropy (CT)

Council of NJ Grantmakers (NJ)

David Bohnett Foundation (national)

Devata Giving Circle (CA)

Dinner Guys Giving Circle (NY)

Donors of Color Network (national)

East Bay Community Foundation (CA)

Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (national)

Environmental Grantmakers Association (national)

Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr Fund (CA/national)

Fairfield County's Community Foundation (CT)

Florida Philanthropic Network (FL)

Ford Foundation (national/global)

Forefront (IL)

Foundation for Child Development (national)

Four Freedoms Fund (national)

Friends Doing Good Giving Circle (CA)

Funders Concerned About AIDS (national)

Funders for LGBTQ Issues (national)

Funders for Reproductive Equity (national)

Funders Network for Smart Growth & Livable Communities (national)

Funders Together to End Homelessness (national)

Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrant & Refugees (national)

Grantmakers for Education (national)

 Grantmakers in Aging (national)

Grantmakers in the Arts (national)

GRANTMAKERS of Oregon and Southwest Washington (WA)

Greater Tacoma Community Foundation (WA)

Group Health Foundation (WA)

Health & Environmental Funders Network (national)

Hella Heart Giving Circle (CA)

Hispanics in Philanthropy (national)

Hyams Foundation (MA)

Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation (national)

JustFund (national)

Kenneth Rainin Foundation (CA)

Kibei Giving Circle (WA)

Korean American Community Foundation (NY)

Korean American Community Foundation of San Francisco (CA)

Lacuna Giving Circle (CA)

Liberty Hill Foundation (national)

Lincoln Community Foundation (NE)

Los Angeles Asian American & Pacific Islander Giving Circle  (CA)

Lumina Foundation (IN/national)

Maine Philanthropy Center (ME)

Marguerite Casey Foundation (national)

McKnight Foundation (national)

Meyer Memorial Trust (OR)

Minnesota Council on Foundations (MN)

Ms. Foundation for Women (national)

National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (national)

Native Americans in Philanthropy (national)

Neighborhood Funders Group (national)

Nellie Mae Education Foundation (NE Region)

NEO Philanthropy (national)

New Breath Foundation (national)

New Hampshire Charitable Foundation  (NH)

New Mexico Association of Grantmakers (NM)

North Star Fund (NY)

Northern California Grantmakers (CA)

Northside Funders Group (MN)

Northwest Area Foundation (NW region)

Open Society Foundations (national/global)

Orange County Grantmakers (CA)

Orchid Giving Circle at Texas Women’s Foundation (TX)

Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (national)

Philanthropy California (CA)

Philanthropy Colorado (CO)

Philanthropy Massachusetts (MA)

Philanthropy New York(NY)

Philanthropy Ohio (OH)

Philanthropy West Virginia (WV)

Proteus Fund (national)

Race Forward (national)

Resource Generation (national)

San Diego Grantmakers (CA)

San Francisco Foundation (CA)

Satterberg Foundation (WA & CA)

Seattle Foundation (WA)

Sheng-Yen Lu Foundation (WA)

Silicon Valley Community Foundation (CA)

Silicon Valley Giving Circle (CA)

Skoll Foundation (national/global)

Solidaire Network (national)

Southeastern Council of Foundations (southern region)

Southern California Grantmakers (CA)

Southwest Initiative Foundation (MN)

Stupski Foundation (CA)

Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems Funders (national)

Tarsadia Foundation (national/global)

The Boston Foundation (MA)

The California Endowment (CA)

The Communications Network (national)

The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven (CT)

The Lenny Zakim Fund (MA)

The Libra Foundation (national)

The New York Women's Foundation (NY)

Tides (national)

Tides Advocacy (national)

Tufts Health Plan Foundation (MA)

Unbound Philanthropy (national/global)

United Philanthropy Forum (national)

W.K. Kellogg Foundation (national)

William T. Grant Foundation (national)

Willmar Area Community Foundation (MN)

Wisconsin Philanthropy Network (WI)

Women's Foundation of California (CA)

INDIVIDUALS  (request to sign on here.)

For the list of individuals who have signed on to this open letter, click here.

by TFN Staff

The Rescue We Seek

By Grant Oliphant, President, The Heinz Endowments

TFN member Grant Oliphant has been President of The Heinz Endowments since 2014 and has been a positive force in philanthropy and public service for nearly three decades. A leading proponent of the idea that philanthropy must be vocal in the defense of its values, he has written and lectured extensively on issues of equity, race and social justice, and championed principles that address critical community and societal issues in Pittsburgh and beyond.

Today, Grant shared on The Heinz Endowment's blog his own reflections on what he hopes are some of the lessons we as a society learn and take to heart and put into action post Covid-19 as we rebuild from a place learning, community, and hope.

"Most of us have heard the old joke about a righteous man caught in a flood. As he prays for rescue from the rising water, first there appears a helper offering to carry him on his shoulders to safety, then a Good Samaritan in a rowboat, then a helicopter dangling a ladder. In each case, he rejects the offer, saying, “God will provide.” He perishes and, standing indignantly before the Almighty, exclaims, “But I thought you would provide!” To which God responds, “I gave you strong shoulders, a boat and a helicopter—what else did you want?!” 

Humans can be astonishingly reluctant, at both a personal and societal level, to accept what a moment in time is offering us. We blur those insights with our politics and preconceptions, our biases and opinions. Numerous studies have shown how readily we dismiss even the most compelling of evidence if it runs counter to our vigorously held beliefs. We are prone to living in a world we invent in our own heads, apparently never more so than in this age of massive information overload.

Already we can see that happening with this pandemic. It manifested in our country’s catastrophic lack of preparation as the situation in Wuhan unfolded and early dismissal of the virus as an alien phenomenon and partisan fantasy. It appears in efforts to demonize Chinese people and racialize the disease, to wish away the science of social distancing, to mock scientists and medical professionals for their warnings, to blame hospitals for equipment shortages, to dismiss the loss of life as exaggerated, to pretend we are all affected equally regardless of race and poverty, and to brandish some pathetic notion of economic machismo as the essential alternative to flattening the curve."

Read the rest of his blog here.

About the Author

Grant Oliphant has been President of The Heinz Endowments since 2014 and has been a positive force in philanthropy and public service for nearly three decades. A leading proponent of the idea that philanthropy must be vocal in the defense of its values, he has written and lectured extensively on issues of equity, race and social justice, and championed principles that address critical community and societal issues in Pittsburgh and beyond.

Following a six-year term as President of The Pittsburgh Foundation, Grant joined the Endowments where he reshaped the foundation’s grantmaking around three key strategic areas based on the core ethos of a ‘just community,’ supporting commitments and initiatives that enhance the quality of life for all.

by TFN Staff

Everything I Learned About Being a Good Neighbor During a Crisis I Learned from My Neighbor When I Was in Crisis

By Erin Barnes, CEO and Co-Founder, Ioby  

As ioby's CEO and Co-Founder, TFN member Erin Barnes has led ioby's strategic planning, governance, and fundraising for the last 11 years. In addition to her role at ioby, Erin is board chair of Resource Media and an Obama Foundation Fellow.

Recently, Erin shared a personal essay on her own experience dealing with a crisis on Medium. We know so many of our members are dealing with the many fronts of the Covid-19 virus and Erin's message really spoke to us about the big impact small things can have on someone experiencing a crisis or traumatic event.

"Many Americans are already socially isolated, and the physical distancing that we need to do as a society to prevent the spread of coronavirus will exacerbate loneliness, anxiety and despair. In the last 48 hours, I have read a bunch of important pieces about the importance of mutual aid, social solidarity, and social connectedness.

And as I was brainstorming what we as community members, as nonprofit leaders, and as a society ought to do to take care of each other during this crisis, what came to mind for me immediately is what I needed during a personal crisis.

First, a little context. From about 2010 to 2016, as ioby grew and my job became more national, I spent more of my life in everyone else’s neighborhood instead of my own. I became what I thought was more self-reliant, but what was actually socially disconnected. I came to rely on apps for everything that used to just be called favors. A ride home from the airport? I no longer called friends; I used Lyft. Pick up something last minute at the store for me? Nah, I’ll just use Amazon Prime. Walk my dog? A dog-walking service. Help me put together some IKEA furniture? Taskrabbit. Instead of asking for someone to water my plants while I’m out of town, I even built a self-watering irrigation system for my fire escape kale. I convinced myself that I had optimized my life because I didn’t depend on anyone else.

In 2016, just three months after I moved into a new apartment building, my dad was hospitalized after having a seizure and quickly diagnosed with a fast-growing brain cancer. He had surgery to remove the cancer two days before the 2016 election. He died three weeks after Inauguration Day in 2017."

Read the rest of her essay here.

About the Author

Erin Barnes is CEO and Co-Founder of ioby. She is also the board chair of Resource Media and an Obama Foundation Fellow.

Prior to ioby, Erin was an environmental writer with a background in water management. From 2007-2008, she was the environmental editor at Men’s Journal magazine, and was a freelance writer on climate change and other environmental issues. From 2003-2005, she worked as a community organizer and public information officer at the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition in Portland, Oregon.

While completing her Master of Environmental Management in water science, economics, and policy at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, she was a U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies scholar in Portuguese. She did field research on socio-economic values of water in Goyena, Nicaragua, and the Bolivian and Brazilian Amazon. Her report “Market Values of the Commercial Fishery on the Madeira River: Calculating the Costs of the Santo Antônio and Jirau Dams to Fishermen in Rondônia, Brasil and Pando-Beni, Bolivia” was published in the Tropical Resources Institute Journal in 2007.

Erin also holds a B.A. in English and American Studies from the University of Virginia. Erin lives in Brooklyn and serves as Board chair of Resource Media. The Rockefeller Foundation awarded Erin and her co-founders Brandon Whitney and Cassie Flynn at ioby the 2012 Jane Jacobs Medal for New Technology and Innovation. In April 2018, Erin was selected to join the inaugural class of Obama Fellows, recognized by President and Mrs. Obama for ioby's work in leading the next wave of civic innovation in America.

by TFN Staff

Resources and Responses from the Philanthropic Sector on Covid-19

By Marci Ovadia, Senior Associate for Equity Programs and Communications  

As funders with deep connections to the people and places you support and serve, we recognize that you and your organizations are likely formulating strategies to best support those directly or indirectly impacted by the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19.

We've created a working resource library for funders that we hope will be helpful in navigating the many implications the pandemic will have on the people and places we care about, while keeping the values of equity, inclusion and justice front and center.

While the full health, economic and social impacts of the pandemic are still unkown, it almost certainly have a disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities, including those who rely on hourly wages, gig-economy jobs and others who do not have the privilege of paid sick leave and other employer benefits.

As many of you know, we cancelled our TFN 2020 Annual Conference in San Diego, which was to take place March 16-18 in San Diego. You can read the full statement from TFN President and CEO Pat Smith here, which includes an appeal to funders to be mindful of the important role philanthropy plays in ensuring responses to the coronavirus pandemic align with our values as a sector.

Resources for Funders
Please read, and feel free to share, these resources. We will continue to compile and distribute information via the TFN blog and other platforms.

We wish everyone health and well-being today and in the days ahead.

If you have additional resources to share, please reach out to our Senior Associate for Equity and Communications Marci Ovadia at marci@fundesnetwork.org

Most Recent Updates: 

Updated 7.13.2020

Updated 4.28.2020

Updates 4.27.2020

Updates 4.24.2020

Updates 4.23.2020

Updates 4.22.2020

Updates 4.21.2020

Updates 4.17.2020

Updates 4.16.2020

Updates 4.15.2020

Updates 4.14.2020

Updates 4.13.2020

Updates 4.10.2020

Updates 4.9.2020

Updates 4.8.2020

Updates 4.7.2020

Updates 4.6.2020

Updates 4.3.2020

Updates 4.2.2020

Updates 4.1.2020

Updates 3.31.2020

Updates 3.30.2020

Updates 3.18.2020

Updates 3.17.2020

Updates 3.16.2020

Updates 3.13.2020

Updates 3.12.2020

Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy

AAPIP Statement on COVID-19 can be found here.

The California Endowment

Center for Disaster Philanthropy Resources and Information

  • Center for Disaster Philanthropy has an overview of the entire COVID-19 situation here which they are updating daily with key events here.
  • CDP has a critical needs list for how organizations wanting to respond can proceed. “As this disease continues to spread across the world and emerge in new countries, the number of responding organizations continues to grow as well. "

CDP also has this call to action on how to help: “Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP) has a COVID-19 Response Fund that provides an opportunity for donors to meet the ongoing and ever-expanding challenges presented by this virus.

CDP has also created a list of suggestions for foundations to consider related to disaster giving here with guidance on basic tips for disaster giving.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Council on Foundations

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Immune Deficiency Foundation

  • CEO statement on COVID-19 here.

Northern California Granmakers

Webinar: How Philanthropy Can Support and Enhance the Government Response to COVID-19 (March 12 at 9 a.m. PT)

Minnesota Council on Foundations

Webinar recording: Needs for a COOP and a COVID-19 plan specifically.

Seattle Foundation

US Chamber of Commerce Foundation:

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Richard E. Besser, a physician and president and chief executive of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,  penned this Op-Ed on how as coronavirus spreads, the bill for our public health failures is due can be found here.

Washington NonProfits

World Health Organization

News Stories:

by TFN Staff

Meet Our 2020 PLACES Fellows!

By Marci Ovadia, Senior Program Associate, Equity Programs and Communications

TFN is proud to announce our 2020 PLACES Fellows— 16 exemplary leaders in philanthropy who will embark on a year-long curriculum focusing on race, equity and inclusion.

A key element of TFN’s mission is to ensure these important values are reflected in the work we do — and ensuring that we support those working in philanthropy with the tools they need to turn ideals into outcomes.

As we grapple with the real-life consequences of structural racism and other inequities, it's hard to understate the important role philanthropy can play in these contentious times.

PLACES, whose alumni now number more than 140 individuals from the U.S. and Canada is designed to help professionals in philanthropy embed an equity lens into the work they do. Recent cohorts have addressed issues impacting disenfranchised communities, including structural racism, gender justice, health equity, environmental sustainability, economic development and community engagement — asking difficult questions, exploring uncomfortable truths and confronting their own biases along the way. To learn more about the PLACES fellowship and the impact it has had on alumni, we invite you to check out Going PLACES, our equity focused blog series chronicling our past fellows experiences throughout their PLACES year in their own words.

For more information about the new fellows, past alumni, and the PLACES fellowship itself, click here.

Many of our PLACES fellows and alumni will be at our TFN 2020 Annual Conference in San Diego March 16-18. Feel free to ask them about their PLACES experience, and don't hesitate to reach out to me directly if you'd like to know more about this extraordinary fellowship.

Join us in congratulating the 2020 PLACES Cohort, and we look forward to seeing you in San Diego!

Sincerely,

Dion Cartwright, Marci Ovadia, and Bina M. Patel
The PLACES Team

Le Anne Alexander, senior program associate, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
Everett Au, program specialist, for environment initiatives, The San Diego Foundation
Daniel Barrett, program officer, The Buhl Foundation / One Northside
Alexis Bivens, program director, Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation
Elizabeth Coco, program officer, The Jay and Rose Phillips Family Foundation of Minnesota
Mary Coleman, programs manager for grants and fellowship, Voqal
Anna Cruz, strategic learning and evaluation officer, The Kresge Foundation
Nancy Fasching, community impact director, Southwest Initiative Foundation
Rayana Grace, arts and culture program manager, Community Foundation of Southeastern Massachusetts
Betsy Hands, program officer, High Meadows Fund
Talib Horne, director of Baltimore Civic Site, The Annie E. Casey Foundation
Mindy Kao, program associate, Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta
Roger Perez, program officer, Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation
Stephanie Ruiz, manager, special initiatives, Hispanics in Philanthropy
Bilal Tajildeen, program officer, Connecticut Community Foundation
Omar Carrillo Tinajero, assistant director of programs, Center for Community Investment at Lincoln Institute

by TFN Staff

Going PLACES: What Are You Giving To Communities As A Healer?

By Gabrielle Sims, Project Associate, Shah Family Foundation  

Going PLACES is an occasional blog series featuring the voices and experiences of TFN’s PLACES Fellows. For more information on the fellowship, and to read past blog posts from our fellows, visit here.

El Paso was the city that I was most excited to visit over the course of my PLACES journey. Before the visit, I only knew two things about El Paso: that it had a rich and vibrant culture and that it was the epicenter of the immigration debates garnering national attention due to President Trump's policies and rhetoric. My state of mind was that this was going to be a trip that was emotionally and intellectually heavy but that I’d learn a lot from my peers in my PLACES cohort. I spent many days reading articles and looking over past notes that I took on our previous site visits to Newark and Bismarck to make sure that I could look at my time in El Paso through the same lens.

In short, I was ready to absorb the learnings. That was until  August 3, when a white supremacist drove 11 hours to El Paso to take the lives of 22 people at the city’s local Walmart.

And there it was.

Another mass shooting. Another hate crime on American soil. Another round of our politicians and their banal scripts saying that mass shootings are a mental illness problem and not a gun problem and that one "lone wolf" doesn’t mean that this country condones white supremacy. After the shooting, I was uneasy about visiting El Paso because I assumed there would be heaviness in the community that I wasn’t ready (willing?) to process because I wasn’t sure if I had the tools to adequately help.

The PLACES site visit to El Paso was a little over a month after the mass shooting and several months after news stories were filled with the crime of children locked in cages in detention centers. In order to absorb what we needed from the visit, our PLACES cohort reflected on what it meant to be in a community that’s recently experienced trauma and what we could learn by being honest about the perceptions we were carrying about El Paso. We spent the first day visiting several sites. The first was a historical center where we learned from the white men who worked there how "inclusive" El Paso was, and that the immigration issue was more complicated than both liberal and conservative media led people to believe.

The second site was Abara Frontiers, a local non-profit that worked with young people on the border who were new to the country. They do incredible work and took us to meet two border patrol officers to learn more about their roles. The border patrol officers, both Latinx, were eager to share about the danger of their duty to "protect the border from bad guys." When asked about the children who were locked in cages, one of the officers lapsed into talking points stating that "the news stories were wrong, [border patrol] would never lock children in cages and that the lawyer who broke that story wasn’t even present that day." Despite the reality that there were photographs and videos of children in cages in detention centers, the border patrol officer asked us to believe her because she knew the "real story." After the presentation from the border patrol officers, we visited an asylum shelter for recent immigrants before they connected with family elsewhere in the United States. I couldn’t imagine what these families had gone through on their journey to get to the asylum shelter so I didn’t think about it, I didn’t ask our site lead — I just focused on the smiles on the children’s faces.

The conflicting narratives at the history center and from the border patrol officers infuriated me but I pushed those inconvenient feelings aside. I needed to cling to the hope that showed on the children’s smiling faces and ignore the worried looks on their parent’s faces to continue on.

Later that night, our cohort went for dinner and reflected on the day but mostly the lighter things, like the weather and some of the contradictions in the stories that some of our guest speakers told us. I slept well that night and was ready for the next day. The next day, several in my PLACES cohort expressed their rage about what they saw at the asylum center and the Latinx border patrol agents’ complicity in the system that oppressed their own people. I felt a sense of disappointment in myself that I was so numb to everything I saw the previous day.

This is what white supremacy does. It wants those of us deeply committed to change to compartmentalize and forget about the reality around us. It wants us to continue to keep our fellow human beings in our "thoughts and prayers" but take no action to improve their lives through policy. And most importantly, it wants us to feel powerless in the face of its power, lies and resistance to change.

The reflection questions that Bina M. Patel, our facilitator, asked our cohort to think about in El Paso were: "What are you giving to communities as a healer?" and "How are you showing up?’'Before the experience in El Paso, I wrote that I give communities my "listening ear" and that I "show up humbly" without giving thought to how passive those responses were. At the end of my time in El Paso, especially after visiting the Walmart, I realized that communities deserve not only my "thoughts and prayers" and my "listening ear" but my anger at the system, my disappointment at the inertia of our political leaders and most importantly my commitment to sharing their stories.

I will never forget the wall of flowers and the photographed faces of the people that were murdered in cold blood at the Walmart — mothers, sons, cousins, fathers. The pain in El Paso is real but so is the city’s resilience. El Paso is strong. Since our PLACES visit in El Paso, there have been at least two other mass shootings in America. Statistically, there was one mass shooting every fifteen days in 2019.

Change will not happen if we remain passive. Change takes time, courage and consistently showing up no matter how many times the system tells us "no." Most importantly, creating change requires us to tell the truth about our past and present no matter how uncomfortable it is. My time in El Paso has inspired me to show up more authentically in my leadership on racial justice issues. Social justice can’t happen through silence.

"Never again" is an empty phrase if we don’t address our past.

About the Author

Gabrielle Sims is currently the
project associate at Shah Family Foundation. Previously she was the program associate for the Neighborhoods and Housing Strategy at the Boston Foundation and previously worked with Freedom House and NeighborhoodWorks America.

Want to learn more about Gabrielle? Check out her interview here with La Piana Consulting where she breaks down how she brings her values into her work, how she practices selfcare, and how she learned to reclaim her time.

by TFN Staff

Going PLACES: Small Incremental Change is Systems Change

By Sara Levine, Quality Schools Program Officer, The Rogers Family Foundation

Going PLACES is an occasional blog series featuring the voices and experiences of TFN’s PLACES Fellows. For more information on the fellowship, and to read past blog posts from our fellows, visit here.

El Paso appears like a man-made island surrounded by the vast emptiness of the west Texas desert, far from everywhere except Ciudad Juarez.  From the air the cities appear as one between two dusty purple mountain ranges, the Rio Grande snaking through the middle.  Through town, the border wall follows and departs from the river bed as the water runs intermittently through man-made channels and the unaltered land. 

You might have heard that this border is the third-most militarized in the world.  You also might have heard of the asylum-seekers — including children — who have died in US custody in the prison-like detention centers (in El Paso and elsewhere) that continue to hold thousands of separated migrant families.

I have heard these things about this border, and more, and have felt close to tears in the days leading up to our El Paso PLACES site visit.

The morning of our first day in El Paso our PLACES facilitator Bina M. Patel of Saathi Impact asks, “What do you carry with you?”

In my journal I write:  Heavy heart. Sadness.  Anger. Love. Eagerness to help.  Appreciation for the PLACES cohort.  Emotion running close to the surface.

In pairs we practice building new stories of a personal or professional moment that challenged us.  How does it become a story of triumph without diminishing the experience?  How can we as listeners, as witnesses, show up as healers? 

Healing.  El Paso continues to heal from loved ones lost to white supremacy and gun violence on Aug. 3d, 2019. 

The border is, and has been, a gaping wound and a scar. 

In conversations over the three days we are together, we keep returning to this question: How do we counteract systemic hopelessness?  How do we
— how do communities — remain resilient?  How can philanthropy support the work of movement building in the face of relentless sadness?

As witnesses and aspiring healers, we can’t take the bait of hopelessness.  The status quo is exactly what they — the xenophobes, the white supremacists, the neoconservatives — want.  Action is the antidote.

I am thankful to be in this place with my PLACES people.

We hear over and over again: El Paso’s history is textured by ancient land routes, by the constant movement of people, both forced and chosen.  It is a city that rejects the “otherness” of a polarizing national narrative again and again.  As Eric Summerford Person, president and CEO of the El Paso Community Foundation, says, “It’s who we were and who we are.”  Learning about the foundation’s efforts to do agile, culturally responsive, community-driven grant-making is heartening. 

El Paso has a deep-seated activist community.  Inside the Chihuahuita Community Center, I am humbled by the work of Fernando Garcia, founding director of the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR). With over 7,000 members,  BNHR “supports immigrant border communities in the promotion of their human rights and the demand of human immigration reform that is consistent with human rights”.   The criminalization of immigrants, the business of the border, is a moment 30 years in the making, with the last two years marked by increasingly outspoken white supremacists and emboldened armed militias.  “We are building a movement,” Fernando says. “Sometimes we don’t see it, but it’s there.”

Small incremental change is systems change, Bina said in our first meeting.  We don’t see it, but it’s there.

We meet with Krysten Aguilar and Marlene Yanez from La Semilla Food Center, based in Anthony, New Mexico.  Krysten explains that in addition to the food education, food access, and economic development programs they run, La Semilla Food Center sees food as a tool to dismantle systemic racism, through participatory leadership, paying community members for their time, and explicit anti-racism training. 

It’s not all hopeless, but the work is relentless.

We visit a shelter run by Annunciation House, a safe place for a night or two for asylum seekers who have been released, with nothing, from detention.  Young families, older women and men.  We awkwardly “tour” the center and then wait in the front vestibule of the building as the Assumption House staff finishes their business. 

“Ustedes son migrantes?” one elderly woman asks when she sees us. Are we migrants? No no, we’re just visiting I say.  She waves her hand and says, “No matter.  All are welcome.”

A few minutes later a black-haired little boy no more than 4 years old runs into the bathroom and emerges far too quickly. 

“¿Te lavaste las manos?”

Did you wash your hands? I ask in Spanish.  He looks at his hands and smiles at me with the look of little boys everywhere who have not washed their hands.  With a big smile he scampers away.

We are pulled into heartbreak but that’s not the end.  It can’t be.

On our last evening together, we sing and meditate together while playing drums under the open sky.  We need space to heal, too.  I am thankful for this group of smart, thoughtful, deeply passionate and compassionate people.  I am thankful for the joy I feel when we’re together and it is this joy, coupled with renewed commitment to action that I take home with me to Oakland.

About the Author

Sara Levine has worked in the non-profit sector for more than 15 years before joining The Rogers Family Foundation in July 2016. In her role, she leads the foundation’s strategic initiative to create the conditions for quality public schools for all children in Oakland, Calif. She previously worked with New York City Leadership Academy (NYCLA) where she consulted nationally and internationally with superintendents and central office leaders to transform their local education systems. Prior to working with NYCLA, Sara was program director at Worldfund (now Educando), where she designed and launched the LISTO program, a leadership development program for public school principals in Mexico. Sara also spent three years as the director of Raising a Reader Alameda County, an early childhood literacy program, several years working in community development projects in rural Oaxaca, Mexico, and time as a teacher in Los Angeles, Calif., and Madrid, Spain. Sara holds a Bachelor of Arts from Yale University and also earned her Master of Arts in International Affairs with a concentration in Development and Latin America from George Washington University. Sara is proud to be a 2019 PLACES Fellow with the Funders’ Network. Sara lives in Oakland.

 

by TFN Staff