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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.
August 5th marks ten years since a man with ties to white supremacist organizations killed six people in an Oak Creek Sikh temple, and August 3rd marks three years since 23 people were killed in an El Paso Walmart. The El Paso gunman claimed the mass murder was a "response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas." Many other instances of mass violence in recent years have been driven by racial or ethnic hatred and intolerance, including deadly attacks in Charleston in 2015, Pittsburgh in 2018, Atlanta in 2021, and Buffalo in 2022.
When NCG stepped into the policy space two years ago, we did so knowing that it would require us to be bold and lean deeply into our mission to bring philanthropy together to build healthy, thriving, and just communities. With the 2020 election around the corner, there is much at stake for California and our region. There has never been a more appropriate or important time for philanthropy to be advocating and using its voice in service of building a Better California for all.
Slated for Tuesday, June 18, 2024 in Downtown Oakland at the Oakland Marriott City Center, this year's conference theme, Imagine & Act, resonates deeply with the current landscape of philanthropy.
First, let’s get honest about the historical context we are operating in. Philanthropy exists as a result of capitalism and was formed through centuries of slavery, colonization, and displacement. The systems are designed to extract resources, privatize wealth, and centralize power and control of said resources. The systems are successfully doing exactly what they have been designed to do.
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.
This program is presented through a partnership between Philanthropy California and the
California Office of Emergency Services and is funded by the Listos California Grant Program.
Don’t be intimidated by program evaluation or logic models! They use specialized language, but
they are descriptions of very practical and down-to-earth realities about your program, such as
clearly describing what your program will do, counting how many people you served, or
listening to people describe how they were impacted by your program activities.