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equitable recovery

COVID-19 Equitable Recovery

Act Now for an Equitable COVID Recovery

We have the opportunity of a lifetime to ensure up to 6.3 trillion dollars in recovery funds reach our communities. We must be bold in our demands because how we define “recovery” today will impact generations to come.  Incremental progress will not meet the needs of the moment.

The COVID-19 pandemic amplified pre-existing health and wealth disparities for communities of color. People experiencing hardships before the pandemic are still struggling to meet basic expenses. The road to recovery requires philanthropy to address the underlying factors that led to the economic recession, over 60K COVID-related deaths, and a deep racial divide in our country.  

We must act today, plan for tomorrow, and level the playing field for an equitable future.

7 Principles to an Equitable Recovery

Northern California Grantmakers is committed to connecting government, nonprofits and philanthropic partners to ensure federal stimulus payments meaningfully reach local communities. Our approach is guided by seven key principles that center racial equity.

1. Ensure access to quality healthcare & mental health services for all
  • Prioritize COVID-19 testing, related healthcare services and vaccines based on race and place data, regardless of documentation or insurance status
  • Ensure access to trauma-informed mental health services
2. Promote economic opportunity for all
  • Protect economic viability for essential and frontline workers
  • Support efforts to prioritize stimulus finding for minority-owned small business and nonprofit organizations serving communities of color
3. Advance housing stability strategies
  • Prevent evictions during the pandemic and mitigate the eviction cliff post-pandemic
  • Support interim housing solutions that bring unsheltered people indoors immediately
  • Keep at-risk families stably housed through rent financial assistance, mortgage assistance for small landlords with low-income tenants & housing problem solving
4. Advocate for incarcerated populations
  • Provide incarcerated populations at high-risk for COVID-19 exposure with testing & vaccines
  • Elderly and sick people and those incarcerated for parole violations should be released or recommended for release under compassionate release provisions
5. Protect California’s democracy
  • Provide a variety of safe voting options and protect the integrity of civic processes
  • Build political and organizing power in communities of color
6. Defend access to safe learning environments & youth development
  • Rebuild trust between teachers & families
  • Identify and respond to the full needs of each student
  • Deepen community-based partnerships to meet the needs of students and their families
  • Include student voices in decision-making
7. Secure a healthy and climate-resilient future
  • Build political and organizing power in communities of color
  • Resource frontline communities to address multiple and intersectional issues of health, economic, workforce, gender, educational, and climate justice

Recovery Priorities for the Philanthropic Sector

1. Ensure access to quality healthcare and mental health services for all
  • Harness the knowledge, relationships and trust of community organizers
  • Develop strategies to ensure equitable distribution of vaccines & booster shots
  • Advocate for communities left out of federal plans, including undocumented immigrants
  • Leverage ethnic media, including radio, to educate populations in their native languages. Dispel public charge concerns
  • Advocate for timely data with race and place markers to support data-driven decisionmaking
  • Train public health workers for immediate roles in contact tracing, community outreach, and health education, as well as for longer-term careers in public health and health care
2. Promote economic opportunity for all
  • Use your networks to amplify the knowledge, relationships and trust of community partners
  • Act as a convener to prioritize access to stimulus funding for Black, Latinx, Indigenous and people of color-owned small businesses
  • Ensure financial lifelines reach non-profit organizations that are led by or serve Black, Latinx, Indigenous and/or communities of color
  • Protect essential and frontline workers at greater risk of contracting and dying of COVID-19
  • Uplift protective factors for essential workers and their families, including reliable childcare, paid sick time, free testing, guaranteed income, EITC, etc.
  • Share promising innovative workforce strategies, such as social enterprises and worker cooperatives
  • Create a new economic model that centers on living-waged green jobs, including those in the care industry
3. Advance housing stability strategies
  • Invest in innovative interim housing models (e.g. cabin communities, modular construction), or the next phase of Project Homekey 
  • Invest in emergency rent relief and complementary legal assistance for tenants not covered by federal programs
  • Secure existing affordable housing with convenants that are expiring, or augment subsidies and services to serve extremely low- income individuals and families 
  • Advocate for zoning reforms and streamlined entitlement processes that encourage affordable housing development, particularly in low density areas and transit corridors
  • Invest in critical community partners that help communities facilitate housing advocacy

Source: All Home CA

4. Advocate for incarcerated populations
  • Harness the knowledge, relationships and trust of community organizers
  • Support organizations led by people directly impacted by incarceration and people of color through meaningful partnerships and long-term investments
  • Support work, policies, and organizations that strive to undo the racism, patriarchy, gender-based violence, transphobia and capitalism that is foundational to the criminal legal system and philanthropy
  • Center and trust the experience, vision, and leadership of people directly impacted by incarceration and the criminal/legal systems
  • Stand in solidarity with the movements to end policing, criminalization, and imprisonment and that mobilizes and redistributes resources to see a more just, equitable and humane world

Source: California Criminal Justice Funders Group 

5. Protect California’s democracy
  • Harness the knowledge, relationships and trust of community organizers
  • Prioritize funding to build political and organizing power in Black, Latinx, Indigenous and other communities of color
  • Fund local and regional redistricting efforts to ensure the process is diverse and inclusive of all Californians
  • Continue to engage Census efforts, and participate in shaping Census 2030
  • Advocate for permanent vote by mail and automatic ballots
6. Defend access to safe learning environments & youth development
  • Address the educational and social gaps that occurred as a result of students not being in a physical classroom setting
  • Include student and family voices in reopening efforts
  • Harness the knowledge, relationships and trust of community organizers
  • Promote restorative justice approaches within the educational system
  • Center whole-student approaches in school reopening discussions
  • Advocate for digital infrastructure in Black, Latinx, Indigenous and low-income communities

Source: Californians for Justice

7. Secure a healthy and climate-resilient future
  • Prioritize funding to build political and organizing power in Black, Latinx, Indigenous and other communities of color
  • Build and harness the knowledge, relationships and trust of community and Tribal leaders
  • Listen to local climate priorities and integrate a climate justice lens to all areas of grantmaking portfolios
  • Leverage public dollars to ensure funding goes to communities at highest risk of extreme climate events such as heat waves, drought, wildfires, and floods
  • Support research and data collection on the health and economic risks and impacts of Black, Latinx, Indigenous and other communities of color from climate change and disaster risks, ensuring resources are allocated equitably
  • Advocate for policies that protect the health and safety of communities from environmental hazards

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

The Road to Recovery: A Framework for Philanthropy

A Conversation with NCG's President and CEO, Dwayne S. Marsh and Public Policy Director, Crispin Delgado

Over the last year, we've been using guiding principles to help guide our support and offerings around COVID-19 recovery for the NCG community. We've challenged ourselves to define what an equitable recovery looks like and have used these principles to create a framework centering racial equity. NCG's President and CEO, Dwayne S. Marsh spoke with our Public Policy Director, Crispin Delgado about this new resource for philanthropy. 

READ MORE

We Draw the Lines: What California Nonprofits and Funders Need to Know About Redistricting

When: June 2021

What is redistricting? Why is it important? Hint: it determines much of the fate of our communities for the next 10 years, and NOW is the time for community feedback! Learn from CA Redistricting Commissioner Pastor Trena; Petra Silton, Director of Advocacy and Education at Thrive, The Alliance of Nonprofits for San Mateo County; and Jonathan Mehta Stein, Executive Director of California Common Cause. You can access the presentation slides here.

Speakers

  • Commissioner and Pastor Trena Turner, Member of the California Citizens Redistricting Commission, Executive Director of Faith in the Valley
  • Jonathan Mehta Stein, Executive Director, California Common Cause
  • Petra Silton, Director of Advocacy and Education, Thrive Alliance
  • Laura Seaman, CEO, League of California Community Foundations
  • (Moderator) Christian Arana, Vice President of Policy, Latino Community Foundation

Democracy Delayed, but Not Derailed

When: May 2021

There is a history in this country of suppressing the voting rights of people of color. From poll taxes, literacy tests, to ID laws, we have seen efforts based on limiting the influence of people of color to those steeped in white supremacy. The latest efforts by white supremacists are particularly threatening to the inclusivity of our democracy by using violence and policy to create barriers for communities of color. On January 6, 2021, as lawmakers were certifying the official results of the 2020 election, a group of rioters broke into U.S. Capitol to intentionally interrupt the confirmation of President Biden. As the world watched, hundreds of insurrectionists broke down doors and windows, terrorized policymakers, their staff, and Capitol police, all while temporarily derailing the U.S. democratic process. Over 140 people were injured and five people died during or shortly after this incident.

This failed coup sent a clear message to communities of color – this act of violence was not in response to voter fraud; this was a response to voter turnout. As of today, Republicans utilizing a false narrative of voting irregularities, have proposed at least 250 new laws in 43 states to limit mail, early in-person, and Election Day voting. Action is needed today to ensure communities of color can fully and freely participate in our democratic process. 

Speakers

  • Dimple Abichandani, Executive Director, General Service Foundation
  • Cathy Cha, President, Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund
  • Steve Phillips. Founder, Democracy in Color
  • Eric Ward, Executive Director, Western States Center