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Recently, Dwayne Marsh, CEO of Northern California Grantmakers, and I were reflecting on how many foundations in our memberships are looking to change direction and move toward racial equity. In an ice-bucket-style challenge, Dwayne posted his thoughts and then tagged me with the question, “How best does philanthropy choose courage in the face of the unprecedented complexity the moment offers?"
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
Communication is fundamental to our lives. It’s how we connect with each other and navigate society. Yet our ways of communicating often exclude the one-in-six adults in America with a sensory or communication disability, including people who are Deaf or hard of hearing, blind or low-vision, have speech or intellectual disabilities, and many more.
This past week, the award-winning hip hop artist and actor Common went behind the scenes in Southern California to better understand our nation’s prison pipeline, and learn from people whose lives are profoundly affected by it both on the inside and the outside.
We have been working hard for the past year to create a website that reflects our current evolution. You'll find that we've updated our brand—and it's not just about changing logos or colors. We've taken a deeper look at how we communicate our values through our new design and our refreshed mission and vision statement. Our new site provides better accessibility and is more user-friendly. We hope this website makes your experience with NCG even better than it was before.
Our nonprofit ecosystem is the backbone of our philanthropic work and efforts to build thriving communities. We rely on nonprofits to drive solutions and carry the weight of justice. In turn, how can the philanthropic sector support our nonprofits in this time?
In the wake of recent violence in Half Moon Bay, Monterey Park, and Memphis I hope you are finding opportunities to collectively grieve and honor the lives of Asian, Latino, and Black community members tragically lost. At NCG we have been sitting with the heaviness of this grief. We extend empathy and solidarity to those who mourn the loss of loved ones and those supporting the injured to heal from these profoundly traumatic acts of violence.