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Dear CCJFG Member, We hope that you are wrapping up this year and preparing for a joyful and restorative holiday. As 2022 ends, it is important to reflect on the challenges and opportunities the year presented. This year the movement to end mass criminalization and mass incarceration faced serious backlash by way of fear mongering in the media and consequently, threats to the safety and security of grassroots leaders.
Midterm elections are quickly approaching, and California’s new redistricting lines are already having an effect on the voting landscape. How the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors can help voters understand the implications of these changes before they head to the polls, is one of many issues to consider. Grassroots organizations have also been working tirelessly throughout the pandemic to try to protect access to safe and secure elections while also helping voters navigate campaign misinformation and disinformation.
Governor Newsom has embarked on a massive $380M expansion of the decrepit 171-year-old San Quentin State Prison, leveraging co-opted language from the criminal justice reform movement in an attempt to rebrand the facility as a beacon of rehabilitation. Currently and formerly incarcerated leaders have developed actionable plans for improving conditions and honoring the dignity of people inside without wasting millions on prison infrastructure.
NCG Member Austin Truong shared their experience in a session center belonging at the 2023 Annual Conference. Hear their experience and how belonging impacts the future of philanthropy.
All children deserve to have access to a quality education. They deserve to feel safe and supported in a place that exists to prepare them for their futures. Yet, for Black youth and other youth of color, this is far from the reality. Every day, Black children and other youth of color, some as young as six are being pushed out of classrooms and schools because of deep racial profiling. Across the country, Black high school students are twice as likely to be suspended as white students. In Oakland, while Black youth made up 26 percent of the Oakland Unified School District’s enrollment, they represented 73 percent of arrests. This vicious cycle continues to fuel pathways to prison and confinement, where Black youth are consistently over-represented, which creates additional barriers for our young people to realize and achieve their full potential.
CCJFG’s Steering Committee recently engaged in a process to identify values and commitments to guide our work. We invite CCJFG members to review the following values, and the commitments they represent, and join us in embodying and striving towards these values from whatever current location and perspective you may hold.
Since 2020, many funders have embraced new ways of interacting with their nonprofit partners and grappled with how to shift the grantmaking power imbalance. Reporting is no exception. Funders have started to deeply consider grantee partners' work when reporting on their efforts in relationship with the grant dollars they receive.