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Often times foundations and grantmakers can easily articulate resonant, relevant values, but just as often cannot easily identify those values within their financial due diligence practices. This session will open a conversation highlighting the choice points foundations have for building an approach to assessing a grantee’s financial sustainability that is increasingly values-aligned and can improve conversations between grantmakers and grantees and strengthen relationships
What does 2022 have in store for public policy in California?
As we enter the third year of the COVID pandemic, relief and stimulus funds continue to flow from state and federal coffers. New redistricting lines are reshaping legislatures as lawmakers introduce bills that will impact the social sector.
The 2022 wildfire season is underway. Due to the current drought and extreme heat conditions across much of the state, wildfire impacts in the coming months are anticipated to be extremely severe for people in cities and rural communities.
A recent report, Much Alarm, Less Action, from the Center for Effective Philanthropy found that both foundation and nonprofit leaders believe that climate change will negatively affect their work —no matter the issues they focus on. However, less than 2% of all giving went to building climate resilience. Continued climate inaction by the philanthropic sector, will undo existing efforts to address a multitude of societal challenges, particularly those around public health.
Over the next 20 years in the U.S., $35–70 trillion in wealth will transfer from one generation to another in the largest generational wealth transfer in history, mostly moving within wealthy white families. The policies that make possible this protection and accumulation of wealth are situated within the legacy of land theft, genocide of Native people, enslavement of Black people, and exploitation of natural resources. This context of racial capitalism has also given rise to wealth accumulation that, in part, birthed the philanthropic sector. Paradoxically, many of us working within philanthropy aim to contribute to changes in systems, structures, and outcomes that address the harms of interconnected systems like racial capitalism that favor some at the expense of others and the planet.
Anti-Black racism and white supremacy are embedded in philanthropy and in our institutions, often invisible to the majority of us, even as we work with intention towards equity and justice. As change agents within philanthropy, we are stretching to become our best selves, rise to the moment, and progress toward racial equity.
The NCG Funders for Climate Justice Group is a collaboration with Smart Growth California and the League of California Community Foundations. We invite funders who are interested in or are already funding at the intersection of climate justice and resilience to join us and to share and provide input as we collectively learnand take action on critical climate justice challenges and opportunities. Discussion topics in the group will focus on intersectional issues relating to climate justice, as well as philanthropic and community-based practices and trends relevant to northern California’s 48-county region. We also welcome topical and tactical feedback from funders as we improve this group.