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Join us in welcoming Gina Peralta to the CCJFG Steering Committee! Gina Peralta is a program officer with the Human Rights program at the Heising-Simons Foundation. Prior to joining the Foundation in 2019, Gina served as the director of site management at The W. Haywood Burns Institute (the Burns Institute), a national nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing racial and ethnic equity in the justice system by creating community-based alternatives to system involvement.
We no longer have to wonder what we would have done if we’d been around at the peak of the civil rights movement. Whatever it is, we will be doing it now. These words ring from our conference. This moment demands more from us. This moment demands we be explicitly clear: Black lives matter! This moment demands we say their names: Nina Pop, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade and remember Oscar Grant.
When we announced a few years ago that NCG would be taking up racial equity as a central part of our work we received praise, and we also encountered some skepticism. Many cautioned us that everyone seemed to be “getting into equity” and that we’d better be sure we had something distinct to add. We have taken that to heart.
This month, President and CEO Dwayne S. Marsh has officially taken the reins from Steve Barton and Phuong Quach, senior staff who’ve served as NCG’s interim leaders for the past six months. The three took turns answering questions about the moment in which we find ourselves and the possibilities ahead. As the interview was drawing to a close, Dwayne paused to check if we were going to address race explicitly. And so, signaling the new future into which we are stepping, we did.
In the aftermath of the study and catastrophic flooding following 13 consecutive atmospheric rivers across the San Joaquin Valley, an idea and partnership emerged. Read more below to hear about what worked, what didn’t, and where progress and investments are shifting in the Valley.
Thanks, Marcus and Dwayne, for your inspiring words and your leadership. As good discussions go, you’ve both got me thinking. And thanks to Marcus for tagging me and inviting me to jump into the conversation. Marcus’s “meet the moment” question for me is a good one: How does philanthropy need to work differently in these complex and turbulent times?
Launched in 2019, the Youth Power Fund is a network of foundations and individual donors committed to creating more equitable, just, and effective social, economic, and political systems in the Greater San Francisco Bay Area.