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The Libra Foundation is a family foundation dedicated to funding grassroots justice movements led by and for marginalized communities of color. The Libra Foundation’s guiding principle is that those who are closest to the issues understand those issues best. Impacted communities are not only the most equipped to build solutions, they are the most effective at implementing those solutions. We fund frontline organizations led by and for Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) transforming the criminal justice system and advancing environmental and climate justice and gender justice.
Although the missions, strategies, and goals of our foundations are different, we share the belief that the grant application process should be simpler, and it is our responsibility as funders to reduce the burdens we place on grantseekers wherever we can. That is what our newly launched Common Application for the Arts is all about.
If we have learned anything about effective community-based response to the health and economic consequences from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that coordination between governments, nonprofits, and faith-based organizations is critical to addressing the needs of people with the fewest resources who bear the greatest impact of the pandemic.
When I started at Hirsch Philanthropy Partners, I had a few impressions. First, I was sensing a desire for big change in Bay Area philanthropy that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I was engaging in conversations about race, power and decision making, which were the kinds of conversations I was having previously in the nonprofit space. I also discovered that several Bay Area grantmakers were already doing grantmaking differently, bringing diverse communities closer to the center of their work and challenging power dynamics. It felt like a ripe time for change.
If you know me, you know how central my mother was in my life. I often say I do what I do because of my father, but I am what I am because of her. So when her birthday rolled around recently and my sister Nadine mentioned she’d unearthed some more papers of hers, I was naturally interested. In particular, Nadine found notes my mother had made on a 1948 article titled Health Problems of Negroes in Richmond. I was equally impressed by the depth of the analysis of the article and the thoughtful notes my mother had made on it. Some of its findings might sound familiar:
This past week, Joe Brooks joined the ancestors, bringing to a close a powerful life and career whose impact extended deep into Bay Area philanthropy, and well beyond. Joe’s legacy in this field is vital and active through the dozens of leaders whose lives he touched in more than five decades of public service – including my own.
Even before a global pandemic, that was the question we kept asking ourselves. Children are thrown into cages. Anti-immigrant rhetoric. A threat to render our immigrant communities invisible through a citizenship question on the census. Mass shootings from Buffalo, NY to Uvalde, TX.