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How can philanthropy best strengthen organizational resilience? To find out, Alan Kwok spoke with Ana-Marie Jones, who has spent her career transforming organizations with her leadership on readiness, preparedness, and disaster response. Read the Q&A below to learn more about our work internally and with our state-wide membership.
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.
Three weeks ago, the two of us stepped into our new roles as acting Co-CEOs of Northern California Grantmakers. That was the same day the world learned we would need vigorous hand-washing and distance to protect each other and everyone in our community from a new rapidly spreading virus. A most unusual start in our roles. But, then again, these are most unusual times.
One of the things I love about being President of NCG is how powerfully I am reminded of the privilege and responsibility of the position. Leading the organization whose charge it is to strengthen philanthropic practice in Northern California has never had more meaning than it does today.
Over the next 20 years in the U.S., $35–70 trillion in wealth will transfer from one generation to another in the largest generational wealth transfer in history, mostly moving within wealthy white families. The policies that make possible this protection and accumulation of wealth are situated within the legacy of land theft, genocide of Native people, enslavement of Black people, and exploitation of natural resources. This context of racial capitalism has also given rise to wealth accumulation that, in part, birthed the philanthropic sector. Paradoxically, many of us working within philanthropy aim to contribute to changes in systems, structures, and outcomes that address the harms of interconnected systems like racial capitalism that favor some at the expense of others and the planet.
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.
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.