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Pathways to Housing Justice: A 3-Part Series on Intersectional Solutions
We all deserve a decent place to live. It’s a matter of basic justice and a measure of who we are as a community. Having a stable, affordable home impacts our health, ability to find and keep a job, success at school, and connection to our communities. Our whole community does better when everyone has good, safe housing.
California Criminal Justice Funders Group is honored to welcome our newest Steering Committee member: Karren A. Lane, Director of the Youth Organizing Capacity Building Initiative from the Weingart Foundation. We are grateful for her experience and wisdom. Learn more about Karren below!
The looming election seems to be top of mind for many people, and certainly top of the news cycle. To some the election is signaling hope, but for others despair or apathy. I too, feel the knot in my stomach when thinking about the election, but not because I am worried about the results. For me, it’s because outcomes aside, I see the U.S. facing a rapid descent into fascism.
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
Dear What is The Role of Philanthropy in Supporting Power-Building, I’m so glad you asked this question! We know that cutting checks alone won’t realize justice. At the San Francisco Foundation, we define power-building as "the strategic act of shifting power away from historically oppressive systems and towards a new center of gravity that advances authentic democracy, redistribution, and reparation.”
Our delegation had wrapped up a full day of meetings with congressional and agency staffers where we elevated some of the most pressing issues facing our state: housing and economic security, climate and disaster resiliency, nonprofit resiliency, and democracy and civic engagement.
Sometimes a name only tells part of the story. When people hear that I lead Northern California Grantmakers, they often envision a membership that serves the greater Bay Area. It’s understandable, as people frequently use the two terms frequently, presuming that NCG is synonymous with Bay Area. It is not. To be clear, our 220 institutional and 4,000 individual members are distributed throughout and serve the 48 northernmost California counties, from Kern County to the Oregon border. This region is larger than any U.S. state, save Alaska and Texas, and its home to nearly 16 million people.