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Join community, philanthropic, and public sector changemakers in a discussion about the racial and economic justice opportunities in East Contra Costa County and a community-centered philanthropic collaborative activating leadership development, narrative change, and public and philanthropic investment in the region.
Investing in community-led real estate infrastructure is a powerful strategy that promotes the security of place, creates affordability, builds wealth, and supports Black and Brown leadership of community real estate development.
In 2019 Stockton SEED was the first ever Mayoral led city-wide guaranteed income pilot in the country, eventually leading to the creation of Mayor’s for Guaranteed Income (MGI). Now numbering over 100+ cities around the country, MGI helped catalyze the newly formed Counties for Guaranteed Income (CGI), which will work at the county level across the country to ensure that all Americans have an income floor.
As the political economy ebbs and flows, California finds itself dealing with significant budget deficits more frequently, which ultimately impacts our state’s most historically marginalized residents. Cuts to important programs impacting housing and homelessness, the social safety net, climate resiliency programs and much more have a disproportionate and adverse effect on women and children, low-income families, rural communities, and neighborhoods of color. Nonprofit and direct service organizations often see an uptick in their clients during economic downturns and are compelled to fill the gap without augmentation in funding and resources.
Rising sea levels due to climate change have put people, the natural and built environment at severe
risk not only on the California coast, but throughout the state. Flooding affects housing and
transportation infrastructure and rising groundwater releases buried toxics, with disproportionately
impacting low-income communities of color bearing the greatest burden. The price tag to mitigate
these dangers to community and economic wellbeing are staggering, with over $110 Billion projected
for the Bay Area alone.
The American banking system is broken, and the evidence is unmistakable. From the recent failure of one of the largest banks in the U.S. to ongoing predatory products blanketing lower-income communities, it is clear that we are at an inflection point. Bank regulators currently fall into the familiar trap of trying to fix the symptoms such as banning certain products, minor regulatory modifications without fixing the root causes of structural inequities. This results in repeated crises usually requiring taxpayer-funded bailouts but no meaningful change of the system. We must find better opportunities to address staggering losses of wealth through failures in the banking system while also building new structures that support economic equity and help build and preserve more local community wealth.
Genuine, local-level engagement between public agencies and the communities they serve is crucial to meeting the needs and priorities of people experiencing health inequities, particularly communities of color and low-income people. Public agencies often ask their communities for input, which results in low participation and feedback, perpetuating the inequitable status quo. How can public agencies re-think their community engagement practices, prioritizing people historically excluded from access to power and decision-making? And what is the role of philanthropy in this work?