Search Results
The COVID-19 vaccine will help keep communities healthy and safe and holds promise to bring an end to the pandemic that has had the most severe impacts on Black, Latinx, Indigenous, AAPI, immigrant, and low-income people. Systemic racism created the conditions that put people of color at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 and experiencing more severe health outcomes, and despite this urgency, California’s vaccination effort so far has fallen short of equity goals. We must reach and authentically engage local communities to remove barriers to access and address concerns to increase vaccine acceptance.
Arts and culture creates community, celebrates identity and expression, make cities vibrant, and spurs the economy. What is at risk when artists and arts and culture organizations are displaced?
As Californians, we know that our own well-being is tied to everyone else’s. California’s Immigrant Resilience Fund is making headlines demonstrating that we are standing together to make sure each and every one of us—native and newcomer—has resources to prevail through the outbreak. No one stands alone. We are one beloved community. Kathleen Kelly Janus, Senior Advisor to the Governor, and Daranee Petsod of Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees joined NCG’s Emily Katz to explain how the fund came to be, some surprising new supporters, and what it means to have a ‘Si Se Puede’ moment (Yes, We Can!)
What does 2022 have in store for public policy in California?
As we enter the third year of the COVID pandemic, relief and stimulus funds continue to flow from state and federal coffers. New redistricting lines are reshaping legislatures as lawmakers introduce bills that will impact the social sector.
According to the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, philanthropy invests most of its dollars immediately following a disaster, when media attention is at its peak. However, less than 10% of our philanthropic dollars go toward reducing hazard risk and preparing our communities for disasters.
Recently, Northern California Grantmakers and philanthropic research and strategy firm Open Impact released Get it Right: 5 Shifts Philanthropy Must Make Towards an Equitable Region, a report funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The report outlines what we need from decision-makers in philanthropy – board members, trustees, high net worth individuals, CEOs, and executive directors –to listen to communities, catch up to the moment, and align grantmaking support.
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.