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I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I’ve arrived as NCG’s CEO on the shoulders of many others that came before me. Two of the strongest shoulders belong to my first professional mentor and a heavyweight in philanthropic circles, Joe Brooks. During my seventeen years as a work partner and friend at The San Francisco Foundation and then PolicyLink, I learned more from him than I could ever adequately describe. He had a habit of saying things that were increasingly profound the more you thought about them. One of those sayings was, “how much do you need to know to act?”, often dropped in a setting surrounded by other foundation colleagues where he was about to propose bold action to engage some of the Bay Area’s most vexing social challenges
San Francisco, CA -- Northern California Grantmakers today released a REPORT examining the effects of the 2017 North Bay Fires on the arts communities in three counties. Commissioned with funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the report finds that artists have been profoundly impacted by the fires, due to physical and economic loss as well as emotional trauma, with the impact of the fires disproportionately felt among arts organizations serving communities of color in the region.
This is not the New Year’s message I was hoping to write. There was a moment this fall when things started feeling like they might just fall into place. We saw progress on the pandemic, and it felt like 2022 might herald a fresh beginning. But reality intervened, as it tends to do.
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.
Foundations effect greater change in the world when their funding decisions are shaped by the people and communities most harmed by inequities. While many funders agree with this notion, there is often a struggle to invest in systems change and to actualize community-centered funding. This session will discuss effective vs. extractive listening practices, provide a framework to implement power-sharing, and highlight lessons learned from regional grantmakers to evolve their practices.
We recently lost a powerhouse in our field. Gwen Walden was the Senior Managing Director at Arabella Advisors' San Francisco office. She had a long history in our community and sector serving on the Boards of the East Bay Community Foundation, the Surdna Foundation, and the Breast Cancer Fund.
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California Black Freedom Fund, the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy (the Democracy Center) at Japanese American National Museum, and Philanthropy California are hosing Shared Pathways to Heal, Repair, and Liberate.
As we work towards our vision of an inclusive, multiracial democracy, there is much to gain from sharing and exploring our parallel and interwoven fights for liberation and civil rights in this country.
Agenda
- 1:00 PM: Registration
- 1:15 PM: Self-guided JANM Gallery Exploration with Museum Facilitators
- 2:30 PM: Program at the Democracy Center
- 5:00 PM Reception
Speakers
- Anne Burroughs, President & CEO, Japanese American National Museum
- Dr. Cheryl Grills, Professor, Psychology | Director, Psychology Applied Research Center, Loyola Marymount University
- Jim Herr, Director, National Center for the Preservation of Democracy at the Japanese American National Museum
- Lisa Holder, President, Equal Justice Society
- Joanna Jackson, Interim President & CEO, Weingart Foundation
- Jennifer Noji, PhD candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature at UCLA
- Kaci Patterson, Founder and Chief Architect, Social Good Solutions
- Marc Philpart, Executive Director, California Black Freedom Fund
- Don Tamaki, Senior Counsel, Minami Tamaki LLP
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Jan Tokumaru, Reparations Committee Member, Nikkei Progressives / Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress