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This month, NCG's Collaborative Philanthropy Coordinator, Krystle Chipman, sat down with the Loan Underwriter of the Arts Loan Fund and Principal of Padma Consulting, Margaret Southerland. Margaret shared why she believes the Arts Loan Fund (ALF) can be a game changer for arts nonprofits in the region. 

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. 

NCG is excited to share the Office of the CEO is growing! Jaime Kemmer Woods (she/her) has joined NCG as the first-ever Director of Strategy and Partnerships. Jaime brings more than 15 years of experience in social impact work having held various roles from direct service and grantmaking to development. 

Investing in youth to successfully navigate their recovery from the harms of COVID-19 is a key principle of NCG’s Equitable Recovery Framework. This summer, Northern California Grantmakers began supporting the work of the Generational Recovery Fund (GRF), a pooled fund dedicated to the recovery of Bay Area youth, with a focus on supporting Black, Indigenous, and People of Color youth. 

Sometimes a name only tells part of the story. When people hear that I lead Northern California Grantmakers, they often envision a membership that serves the greater Bay Area. It’s understandable, as people frequently use the two terms frequently, presuming that NCG is synonymous with Bay Area. It is not. To be clear, our 220 institutional and 4,000 individual members are distributed throughout and serve the 48 northernmost California counties, from Kern County to the Oregon border. This region is larger than any U.S. state, save Alaska and Texas, and its home to nearly 16 million people.

The Census is one of the cornerstones of our American democracy. Mandated by the United States Constitution, it is conducted every 10 years and is the largest peacetime effort of the federal government. Census data is used for a variety of purposes from allocation of billions of dollars of federal funding to political representation apportionment to enforcement of civil rights laws. When census information is not accurate, it threatens to muffle the voices of undercounted groups and regions, and undermine the basic political equality that is central to our democracy. Institutions across the country - including local and state governments, businesses, nonprofits and foundations - routinely rely on data from the census to allocate funding, define where services are delivered and promote economic development.

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.