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2020 has truly tested our resolve. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people in prison cannot be understated. As rates of infection rose inside prisons throughout the state, we witnessed our movement partners quickly and efficiently organize in response to this crisis. We witnessed the same tenacity and steadfastness this summer, as organizers led uprisings worldwide to protest racist state violence after the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and countless others—violence that is all too familiar for incarcerated people and their families.
San Francisco, CA—Arts organizations are facing unprecedented challenges as they’ve suspended public programming to help our communities adapt to life-saving shelter-in-place orders. The Arts Loan Fund, managed by Northern California Grantmakers, has announced a COVID-19 Emergency Loan to support arts and culture nonprofits and fiscally sponsored organizations in the eleven Bay Area counties. Organizations can apply for these low-interest loans to cover basic expenses such as staff salaries, artist payments, rent, and other operating costs during this challenging time.
The Build Back Better Act has the potential to help the nation grow, as framed by the White House, “from the bottom and middle-out" by providing families with funding for childcare, expanding access to affordable housing, education, and health care, and enforcing tax laws on the extremely wealthy.
This past week, the award-winning hip hop artist and actor Common went behind the scenes in Southern California to better understand our nation’s prison pipeline, and learn from people whose lives are profoundly affected by it both on the inside and the outside.
The Community Arts Stabilization Trust’s goal is to acquire 100,000 square feet of space for arts groups by the end of 2018 and expand its footprint in Oakland. Today, the Kenneth Rainin Foundation announced $3 million in additional funding for the Community Arts Stabilization Trust (CAST), a game-changing organization that protects San Francisco Bay Area arts and cultural organizations from displacement. This three-year grant will help CAST realize an ambitious goal to acquire 100,000 square feet of space for arts groups by the end of 2018. With this funding, CAST will expand and prioritize its work in Oakland to create permanently affordable spaces for arts organizations. The funding will also help CAST continue its work in San Francisco.
Last year in July 2021, NCG hosted a conversation with trans women of color leaders and queer/trans funder advocates–including the Akonadi Foundation, Borealis Philanthropy, Funders for LGBTQ Issues, Horizons Foundation, and Solidaire–to highlight trans leadership and dispel myths that BIPOC trans leaders and their organizations were being adequately resourced, even in the Bay Area.
Trans leaders need the spaciousness–many of us understand to be provided by sufficient resourcing–to be able to dream even bigger. As funders, we must understand, now is not the time to center our individual agendas; we cannot focus on single program areas, issues, and strategies, or tepid expansion of portfolios. The Right continues to fund for the long haul, and progressive philanthropy needs to expand our funding and our imagination. If we are working toward equity, we must be steadfast in resourcing trans leaders committed to, and creating long-term strategies for, trans people to live with self-determination and full autonomy.