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All children deserve to have access to a quality education. They deserve to feel safe and supported in a place that exists to prepare them for their futures. Yet, for Black youth and other youth of color, this is far from the reality. Every day, Black children and other youth of color, some as young as six are being pushed out of classrooms and schools because of deep racial profiling. Across the country, Black high school students are twice as likely to be suspended as white students. In Oakland, while Black youth made up 26 percent of the Oakland Unified School District’s enrollment, they represented 73 percent of arrests. This vicious cycle continues to fuel pathways to prison and confinement, where Black youth are consistently over-represented, which creates additional barriers for our young people to realize and achieve their full potential.
I'm excited to share that NCG has launched its Collective Resilience Initiative, a new effort to support and strengthen the region’s nonprofit sector. The initiative focuses on the key factors impacting nonprofit sustainability in the region and the types of grantmaking practices that will best support evolving organizational needs.
NCG is thrilled to announce that Qurratulain “Q” Sajid (she/they) has joined the team as the Senior Director of Public Affairs. Q will lead our efforts to build narrative power rooted in racial equity and align our communications and public policy strategies. Join us in welcoming Q to the team! You can learn more about Q here.
Achieving racial equity and sustaining a viable democracy go hand in hand. NCG defines democracy as the processes, systems, and structures for historically marginalized and underrepresented community members to participate in a political system that fulfills the promise of an equitable multi-racial society. Northern California is a region that can model this approach, ensuring that people of color and other communities historically underrepresented and marginalized in our political process fully engage in the democratic process.
Northern California Grantmakers joins with The San Francisco Arts Commission and the arts community to mourn the unexpected death of Ebony McKinney. The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) will be holding an informal get together in honor of McKinney this afternoon, Thursday, Aug. 3 at SOMArts from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm. A local memorial is expected to be held at a later date.
My partner and I recently engaged in the annual ritual that is paying U.S. income tax. Gather your documents, fill in the forms, look for deductions that never seem to be there, watch what you really make become clear…as we approached the finish line, I wondered – how can I reframe the act of paying taxes? Then I harkened to a recent moment where paying a tax had a completely different feel, one that not only felt necessary but made a small yet substantive step toward advancing racial equity. I refer of course to NCG’s participation in paying our region’s Indigenous land and honor taxes. We began that commitment as an organization in 2022 and trust me, it’s been both vital and fulfilling.
New organizations emerged in response to COVID-19, 2020’s racial reckoning, and to meet the rising needs and service gaps in communities. Many of these organizations are led by BIPOC leaders, have small budgets, small teams, and are often fiscally sponsored. What do these emerging organizations need for long term sustainability? How can funders support these organizations?