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Human-caused climate change remains the defining crisis of our time, and the call for bold philanthropic action for climate is now more urgent than ever.

We know that the most impacted communities are building Just Transitions to Regenerative Economies–now. We know that they have replicable and scalable solutions, grounded in justice and sustainability, ready to meet the climate crisis–now.

We know that their solutions cool the planet, build resilience, and are ready for investment–now.

So why has philanthropy not caught up?

The Climate Justice Alliance (CJA), together with the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) and the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School (TEDC), launched a multitiered research process not only to answer that question but provide pathways for philanthropy to move the needle in this crisis decade.

This research brief, the first in a series of materials, is a snapshot of our investment alignment research prepared by NCRP, focusing on 50 highly influential climate and environment funders in the United States, and their stated missions, programs, and investments.

What we found is not great–not for environmental and climate justice groups, not for philanthropy, and certainly not for our shared future on Earth.

From just an accounting perspective, we found that most foundations are undermining their own grantmaking power and that of their grantees to make real and lasting change–getting less bang for their buck–because of the ways they invest and lock up their endowments.

What’s the bottom line?

If you’re a funder, there’s a high likelihood that your endowment is invested in ways that undermine the very communities you’re supporting, at a time when we cannot afford to waste a single minute, keystroke, seed, or dollar.

Funders must embrace new ways of thinking, collaborating, and most of all investing–and at an accelerated pace.

 

Want to learn how? Read on.

Download the Brief

Dear Reader, 

NCRP’s commitment to climate justice predates this appeal to invest in social movements. The devastation of a rapidly heating planet has been an ongoing concern; the question has always been how philanthropy should address climate change, not whether it should.

The clarion call to invest in movements is heightened when movements intersect with environmental injustices: as Indigenous communities fight corporations to protect their land and water, as migrants are forced to leave homes devastated by climate change and pollution, and as communities that have been underserved and marginalized build mutual aid to replace extractive economic models.

The same disturbances surfaced in climate justice work that we saw in other movement spaces. The needs, experiences, and expertise of communities directly affected by climate change and environmental injustice were discounted in favor of a few influential funders. Billionaires styled themselves as experts and saviors, but the push to “move fast and break things” doesn’t work for the climate crisis.

Though climate change is an existential threat to everyone, organizations on the front lines have been coming to terms with the shift and have been finding real solutions. To responsibly invest in the climate justice movement is to invest in a just transition. As our board member Farhad Ebrahimi describes as he reflects on the Chorus Foundation, “What does it look like to support the kind of infrastructure at the community level that credibly makes them that much less dependent on outside philanthropic or investment organizations such as our own?” 

The way that we address climate change has the ability to change the planet. And the ways that funders specifically support a movement of Indigenous people and people of color fighting to protect their water, air, and community has the ability to reshape the sector entirely. The just transition model has been saving communities directly impacted by pollution, disasters, and climate change. This model could be a paradigm shift in the practice of philanthropy – if we let it. 

The stakes have never been higher, and the path has never been clearer.   

Be bold,

Aaron Dorfman
NCRP President and CEO

Stylized, artistic picture of post Katrina flooding.

More Responsive Philanthropy

Summer 2023 Issue: Redirecting Climate Justice Towards a Just Transition

Displaced On Repeat: Black Americans and Climate Forced Migration

Jacqueline Patterson, Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project, writes about how the climate change that is forcing millions around the world to flee to America is also driving the internal migration of frontline Black and Latine peoples in the South and Southeast.
Chorus Foundation Retrospective: A Q&A with Founder & Chair Farhad Ebrahimi

NCRP’s Senowa Mize-Fox chats with NCRP Board Member and Chorus Foundation Founder and Chair Farhad Ebrahimi on what funder organizing looks like in the context of a just transition.
Philanthropy Must Jumpstart Just Transition to a Regenerative Economy

Marion Gee, Co-Executive Director of the Climate Justice Alliance, discusses the different regenerative practices that grantmakers and intermediaries can implement to address the climate crisis in a way that builds up, rather than steals from, impacted communities.
The Community at the Center: The Interplay Between the ICWA Decision and Environmental Justice

Dawn Knickerbocker (Anishinaabe), Vice President of Communications and External Affairs for Native Americans in Philanthropy (NAP), shares a very personal reflection of connection between Indigenous sovereignty and climate justice through the struggle to uphold 1978’s Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).
Stylized, artistic picture of post Katrina flooding.
Listening to the Experts: A Campaign to Redirect Climate Justice & Just Transition

NCRP President & CEO Aaron Dorfman details how the Summer 2023 issue of Responsive Philanthropy kicks off a multi-year campaign that seeks to encourage grantmakers to prioritize a just transition away from an extractive to a regenerative economy that invests in community and frontline power, redistributes resources equitably, and upholds deep democracy and self-determination.
Putting ‘Justice’ in ‘Climate Justice Philanthropy’

The Clima Fund Leadership Team of Laura Garcia, Chung-Wha Hong, Kate Kroeger, and Solomé Lemma describe their grantmaking experiences supporting and engaging with frontline organizations in new, innovative, but non-extractive, ways.

Dear Reader,

It is no secret that philanthropy was designed with little consideration of whether there would be space where I could find safety, community and agency.

A seat at a table where my philanthropic counterparts were not discussing their commitment to rescue some part of my identity through their giving and performative statements of solidarity. A room that has not found a reason to silence me because of its commitment to respectability, white supremacy or misogyny.

And while I have struggled to find that space that holds me in my entirety, I found refuge amongst familiar comrades: other current and former sex workers.

Sex worker–led spaces have consistently been what I have considered to be my movement homes. The frontlines across movements, from labor rights, racial justice, reproductive access, LGBTQ rights and gender equality, are being led and influenced by sex workers.

Our knowledge and experience have been vital in the work toward liberation and freedom from violence, and our presence continues to shift work in transformative ways. Despite the sector’s attempts to cast sex workers into the shadows, we are in fact your program officers, development coordinators and movement engagement managers.

Unfortunately, criminalization, violence and stigma have led to philanthropy silencing sex workers, erasing our contributions to the sector and leaving sex worker-led movements under-resourced.

From 2015–2019, sex workers received less than 1% of all human rights funding. This is a result of the sector treating sex workers and those in the sex industry as something parallel to the work that foundations have committed to, something far beyond the invisible funding lines that they have drawn. In actuality, there is not a single issue or movement that does not center or intersect with the oppressions that sex workers face.

National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) is proud to feature just a few of the sex worker–led funding and movement initiatives that help move society closer to doing more for those who are marginalized, underserved and disenfranchised.

“Funder Lessons from 4 Years of Resourcing Sex worker–led Organizing and Grantmaking at the Sex Worker Giving Circle” by Christian Giraldo, program officer at Sex Worker Giving Circle at Third Wave Fund, highlights the truths and realities of “who keeps us safe.”

The Sex Worker Outreach Project Los Angeles (SWOP LA) introduces its work that references “how a lack of funding impacts sex workers is in how it displaces us from coordinating our own research into our own lives and communities.”

In “Trans and Sex Worker Justice Needs Steady Allyship,” Maddalynn Sesepasara at the Kua’ana Project demands that “the absence of funding for trans-led and sex worker-led organizations who have decriminalization advocacy in their portfolio ensures that the battle for organizational survival will have to be simultaneously waged on multiple fronts.”

“Be Fund(ed) or Die: The Precarity of Sex Worker Organizing” by Red Schulte, with contributions and considerations from The Support Ho(s)e Collective, is about the importance of “accompliceship, not charity” and names the “potential for participatory programs led by communities directly impacted to shift the discourse away from voyeuristic donor-driven charity and into accompliceship and wealth redistribution.”

We hope you hear the storytellers from the frontlines of sex worker–led initiatives and use them as a resource and guide to allocate more funds to the work they are committed to.


In Solidarity,
Brandi Collins – Calhoun
NCRP Movement Engagement Manager

Dear Reader,

When I became pregnant with my first child, I had health insurance, financial stability and excellent prenatal care.

I had a home, nutritious food, a car, a hospital located nearby and someone to drive me there.

I hadn’t done anything to deserve these things. I had them largely because as a white, upper class woman there are multiple societal structures built to give me the right to make certain choices — and to rob others of the same opportunity.

I was able to choose to delay parenthood until my 30s because I had the right to access comprehensive sex education and contraception. I chose an OB/GYN that provided premium care because I had access to the right to health care. My parents and grandparents were not redlined or subjected to predatory lending, but instead had access to the right to housing that created the generational wealth I used to buy a home in the neighborhood of my choice.

“Choice” in mainstream, predominately white-led reproductive rights discourse typically refers to the individual right to make one specific choice: whether (or not) to have an abortion.

A reproductive justice lens looks at the society surrounding that individual — not just at one choice, but at the multiple of choices that people should be able to make about their bodies and lives and why some groups of people have the right to do so while others do not.

Who gets to make which choices — or gets a choice at all — is a structural issue. NCRP’s new focus on reproductive access and gendered violence in our Movement Investment Project continues our support for frontline groups combatting the structures that stand in the way of social justice.

We are proud to feature movement leaders who help connect the dots and urge us to think differently about the nexus of reproductive access, race, class and inclusion.

The power of personal stories to reflect and shift societal structures is the focus of We Testify, whose founder Renee Bracey Sherman contributed “Sharing abortion stories means investing in storytellers as leaders.”

In “Sex education funding: There has to be a better way,” Reproaction Deputy Director Shireen Rose Shakouri calls on philanthropy to support the right to comprehensive sex education in the face of a conservative movement that seeks to limit young people’s choices through shaming, stigma and misinformation.

“Philanthropy must invest in Black-led organizations to improve maternal mortality,” a Q&A by NCRP staff of National Birth Equity Collaborative President Dr. Joia Crear-Perry, makes clear that systemic racism is at the root of inequity in maternal health and morbidity, and investing in Black women-led organizations and solutions are the only path forward to addressing it.

We hope you engage with the critical questions and calls to action from our authors and look forward to working collectively to support reproductive justice!

 

Local Foundation Funding (2020)

Local Foundation Funding (2020) | Interactive Digital Dashboard |

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) |

Methodology

The recent coronavirus pandemic has put a spotlight not only on the longstanding inequitable cracks in the nation’s health care system, but also on the vast gulf in resources different communities have on hand to respond to immediate emergencies.

The personal health and economic impact of COVID-19 is felt most acutely by marginalized people, including the millions of immigrants and refugees that have been disproportionally impacted, unfairly scapegoated and, in many cases, excluded from relief packages.

The pandemic has exposed the deep-rooted inequities that have constituted an ongoing crisis for many communities in America. Many immigrants and refugees are people of color who are over-represented in the ranks of essential workers who are at highest risk of contracting and dying from the virus.

Snapshot of local Foundation Funding of Immigrant & Refugee Communities

The unique vulnerability of these communities to the disease is directly related to years of increasing xenophobia in state, local and federal policies combined with historic levels of anti-immigrant rhetoric and violence since the election of Donald Trump.

We expect local charitable institutions to be first in line to service the needs of our communities and especially of the most vulnerable among us. One measure of local philanthropic responsiveness is the degree to which their grantmaking reflects local community demographics.

An NCRP analysis of the latest publicly available data shows that, as a whole, the largest local foundations are failing to provide financial support that is proportional to the number of immigrants and refugees in their states and the threats they face.

While immigrants and refugees represent 14% of the nation’s population, local foundations gave barely 1% of their total grantmaking to benefit these communities in 2017 and 2018.[1] Furthermore, less than half of a percent of local funding is for pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement groups engaged in organizing and advocacy.[2] In fact, more than 50% of the largest local grantmakers of each state didn’t even fund one of these movement groups.[3]

 

 

 

Access the Digital Dashboard

The numbers mirror what NCRP discovered last year in its first Movement Investment Project brief, the State of Foundation Funding for the Pro-Immigrant Movement. That brief reported that barely 1% of funding from the nation’s largest U.S. foundations went to organizations serving immigrants and refugees, with national networks and grassroots groups being particularly underfunded.

What this year’s analysis and accompanying data tool does is place that national trend in a state-by-state context, identifying just how much work local funders and leaders need to do to ensure that all communities get the support they need to thrive.

THE UNJUSTIFIED THREAT TO IMMIGRANT & REFUGEE FAMILIES

Over the last 2 decades, billions of taxpayer dollars in Democratic and Republican administrations have been budgeted to attack this population. A combined $23.8 billion in 2018 was set aside for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agencies, an increase of 39% from 2012 through 2018. Not surprisingly, the Migration Policy Institute has found that removals and returns carried out by CBP and ICE in 2018 increased 17% and 13%, respectively, from 2017.[4]

The Trump administration has intensely sought multiple avenues to harass and intimidate both documented and undocumented people living in the U.S. This includes:

  • Efforts to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
  • Imposing a wealth test for legally present immigrants and their families that punishes sponsors who may have used social safety net programs like Medicaid or Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP).[5]
  • Overseeing a 35% increase in backlogs for green card processing.[6]
  • Making application errors, missing paperwork and even pregnancy grounds for visa application and renewal denials, which can be used to trigger nearly instantaneous deportation orders with limited opportunities for appeal.[7]

Amidst these attacks, immigrants and refugees are risking their lives for their communities daily. They are over-represented among the ranks of workers that are on the frontlines of responding to the current coronavirus pandemic.

The New Economy Research Fund notes that as many as 16.5% of all health care workers in the U.S. are immigrants, including home health aides (36.5%), physicians (28.7%), nursing assistants (22.0%), registered nurses (15.7%) and respiratory therapists (13.6%). They are also a key constituency of essential non-health care workers, like grocery and supermarket workers (16.7%), food delivery workers (18.2%), freight laborers (15.8%) and butchers and meat cutters (34.7%).[8]

Even the libertarian Cato Institute points to the critical role immigrants are playing, noting the important work immigrant farmworkers (42.1%) are doing to ensure that all Americans have food, and how maids (46.7%) and janitors (25.7%) are on the frontlines of making sure that public spaces, businesses and homes are cleaned and disinfected. [9]

Foundations can rise to meet the challenge of the current moment by funding these communities and this movement at levels proportional to the threats they face and their share of the state population. No matter a foundation’s focus or geography, a robust movement that supports the rights of this community is critical to securing safety and wellbeing for all.

BY THE NUMBERS [10]

THE GOOD:

  • There has been an increase in total funding during the Trump era, with the yearly average of local foundation grantmaking benefiting immigrants and refugees in 50 states and the District of Columbia increasing from $226 million in 2012-2016 to $304 million between 2017 and 2018. The yearly average of local funding for the pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement groups also increased from $42 million to $116 during this same period.
  • A sample of 530 of the largest state-based grantmakers in each state [11] and the District of Columbia found that 254 across 49 states (47.9%) gave at least one grant to organizations that service this population in 2017-2018.
  • Slightly more than half of the 254 funders (132 across 35 states) in this sample of top local funders also gave at least one grant to movement groups involved in organizing and advocacy.
  • At least 50% of this sample of top local funders across 26 states financially supported immigrant and refugee servicing organizations. In standout states Illinois, Massachusetts and Minnesota, a full 90% of their state’s largest local funders dispersed funds to these nonprofits.
  • More than a quarter of foundations in our sample (157 funders across 47 states or 30%) matched or exceeded their state’s aggregate share of funding for organizations’ benefitting immigrant and refugee communities.

THE BAD:

  • Despite increases, the amount invested in local immigrant and refugee communities in 2017-2018 continues to be disproportionate to the population and the threat, at just 1% (for servicing organizations) and 0.4% (for movement organizing) of all local foundation dollars given out.
  • Foundations in most states didn’t even hit these total percentages: In 2017-2018, foundations in less than a third (14) of states met or exceeded the 1% threshold for local funding benefiting immigrants and refugees and foundations in only 8 states matched or exceeded 0.4% of their shares of local funding for pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement organizing.
  • Just 14 foundations in 10 states in our sample of the largest local funders met their state’s current demographic representation threshold by distributing funds at or above the same percentage as foreign-born populations’ share of total population in each state.
  • Only 8 states had a majority of their largest local funders match or exceed their state’s giving percentage to immigrant and refugee movement groups.
  • A little more than half of foundations (271) in our sample of the largest local funders in all locations didn’t give a dime to nonprofits serving immigrant and refugee populations or to movement groups engaged in pro-immigrant, pro-refugee organizing and advocacy.

LEADING BY (LOCAL) EXAMPLE

Despite the overall need for more state top 10 funders to increase their financial support of immigrant and refugee communities, there is enough evidence to believe that foundations as of 2017-2018 are moving toward being more responsive to foreign-born populations in their states.

Many of the 14 foundations in our sample that matched their state’s share of the foreign-born population also invested in movement groups at shares greater than their state’s total percentage to movement groups. However, 2 grantmakers among this group of 14 stand out for distributing grants to both population serving organizations and movement groups at shares that matched their state’s foreign-born population.

  • Rose Community Foundation in Colorado gave out 15.8% of their total funding in 2017-2018 to organizations serving immigrants and refugees and 13.6% to movement groups. This exceeded not only the state’s percentage of foreign-born residents (9.5%), but its 0.4% and 0.2% shares for immigrant and refugee serving organizations and movements. The figures are even more impressive when you consider that from 2012-2016, the foundation only gave those 2 sets of grantees 4.2% and 0.9% respectively.[12]
  • In a state with a foreign-born population of 13.1%, the Legal Foundation of Washington has always seemed to have the immigrant and refugee population in its funding strategy. So, some might argue that the increase in their share of funding to foreign-born serving populations and movements wasn’t quite as dramatic as Rose Community Foundation, going from 12.5% in 2012-2016 to 16.2% for both groups in 2017-2018. However, that cynicism ignores not just the foundation’s consistent population and movement financial support over this period, but also this truism: Sometimes the hardest part of the journey is the final stretch before the finish line and finding the internal will to match and exceed funding goals.

It’s important to note that within each state, the difference between shifting the needle and enabling more funds to flow through these community groups often lies within a manageable set of relationships that advocates are working through, but whose efforts may not have yet borne fruit. Still, the issue in many places is not a question of education or even will, but of urgency.

Immigrants and refugees are an integral part of America’s social and economic fabric, as coworkers, neighbors, family members and friends. They are also a key part of our future, as one in every 4 children in the U.S. lives in an immigrant household.

While every funder is different, every foundation in every state can do more to support their immigrant and refugee neighbors. Local grantmakers have an opportunity to provide important leadership – not only in the current crisis, but long-term.

What actions can funders take? Here are 3 practical steps:

1. Make giving match your community, now and for the long-term: Local philanthropic leaders should come together to ensure that their collective giving for immigrants and refugees, at minimum, reflects the demographics of their community. As they do, they should provide rapid flexible support to meet this moment and pledge to integrate such funding into their portfolios over the long-term. While the ultimate target goal may seem ambitious, they should look to find comparative benchmarks that allow them to urgently build on their efforts without lulling colleagues into complacency. Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR) has created local “Delivering on the Dream” pooled funds in several cities and states to support immigrants and refugees and can guide foundations to join these existing efforts.

2. Prioritize the pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement as a crucial partner. When providing these funds, local foundations must prioritize giving to local pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement groups. In addition to providing crucial services, these groups organize and advocate with the community to challenge the roots of inequality and provide power and protection when systems fail. Don’t know who these groups are in your city or state? Each state profile on this report’s dashboard lists nonprofits working alongside the pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement serving that state who can serve as resources to aid your work in identifying local grassroots organizations.

3. Wield and share your power to act as an ally: Grants are necessary, but funders can do much more. By meeting directly with local pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement groups, funders can identify other institutional opportunities to support their neighbors including screening endowments for companies that profit off of detention and deportation, making public statements against raids, racism and xenophobia, and courting immigrants and refugee community members for your board, staff leadership and advisory councils.

While the above steps are doable, concrete ways to move forward, they represent a shift from the way many funders operate. It takes collective leadership, coalition-building and courage to embrace change in order to do the right thing. But now is a critical time to make bold choices.

This work comes in the context of a nation engaged in an ongoing power struggle between 2 visions. One led by movements seeking to create a more equitable, just society for all. The other is led by a status quo pushing hard to maintain hundreds of years of state-sponsored racist, xenophobic, sexist and homophobic systems of exclusion that have built deep inequities into and across institutions that deliver services and distribute power.

It also comes within the backdrop of a pandemic that is revealing just how far leaders and institutions are willing to go to support equity goals and values. While there are signs that local philanthropy is trying to step up to respond to the way that COVID-19 is disproportionately wreaking havoc on communities of color regardless of legal status, initial data shows that funding is still are not reaching the neighborhoods that need it the most.

When NCRP launched our Movement Investment Project in 2019, we noted that philanthropy has an urgent opportunity to support immigrant communities organizing to combat hate and create a better future for all. The progress that has been made is nowhere near proportional to the challenges our immigrant and refugee neighbors, coworkers, caregivers, family and friends confront, especially in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

When local foundations invest in immigrants, refugees and movement groups, lives and grant outcomes are better for everyone. The question remains: What will it take for more local funders to seize this current opportunity to act on this urgency?

ENDNOTES

1. Local to local funding refers to funding by grant makers to recipient organizations located in and serving the population of the same state (e.g. an Alabama-based funder giving to an Alabama-based organization). For more information on how we calculated those numbers, visit this brief’s Methodology section

2. In this brief we compare funding for two sets of groups. “Organizations that serve or benefits immigrants and refugees” are non-profits who have received funding to do either directly provide services for or whose work benefits immigrants and refugees, including but not limited to those that are led by those impacted communities. The other set – “the pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement groups” are primarily advocacy non-profits whose primary function is advancing the movement’s vision of safeguarding basic civil and human rights for families not born in the United States but who seek to thrive here just like anyone else. For more information on defining movement groups, visit this brief’s Methodology section, as well as the first MIP brief, the State of Foundation Funding.

3. In addition to analyzing local philanthropic data in the aggregate, we also examined the largest local funders in each state and D.C. We looked at the largest ten in each state except for California and New York, where we examined the top 20. We expanded the field of examined foundations in these two states to factor in the large size of the state, its foreign-born population and the number of immigrant and refugee servicing non-profits in those areas.

4. Batalova, Jeanne , Brittany Blizzard, and Jessica Bolter. “Frequently Asked Questions: Immigration Enforcement.” Migration Policy Institute. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/frequently-requested-statistics-immigrants-and-immigration-united-states#Immigration%20Enforcement [Last accessed May 14, 2020]

5. Ibe, Peniel. “Trump’s attacks on the legal immigration system explained.” American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Blog. https://www.afsc.org/blogs/news-and-commentary/trumps-attacks-legal-immigration-system-explained. [Last accessed May 14, 2020]

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid

8. New American Economy. “Report: Immigration and COVID-19.”New American Economy Research Fund.https://research.newamericaneconomy.org/report/immigration-and-covid-19/ [Last accessed: May 14, 2020]

9. Bier, David J. “Immigrants Aid America During COVID-19 Crisis.” The Cato Institute. https://www.cato.org/blog/immigrants-aid-america-during-covid-19-crisis [Last accessed: May 14, 2020]

10. The data compilations here can be seen visually seen on the interactive data dashboard. Text tables of these compilations are available upon request.

11. See End Note 3.

12. In April 2019, The Latino Community Foundation of Colorado (LCFC), which had operated as an initiative of Rose Community Foundation for 11 years, became a separate, independent 501(c)(3) organization. Because 2019 funding data is not publicly available, this report does not address the impact this shift may have had on state and local rankings and/or the Rose Community Foundation’s share of funding in particular.

READ MORE

Local Foundation Funding for Immigrant & Refugee Groups
Interactive Digital Dashboard
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

A personal reflection by Dawn Knickerbocker (Anishinaabe), Vice President of Communications and External Affairs for Native Americans in Philanthropy.  

Forty-five years ago, Congress passed a pivotal law. Recognized as the Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, this law is connected to Tribal sovereignty, and holds a deeply personal significance for my own family.  

It is unfathomably painful to comprehend the reality endured by so many Native Americans during the time of child removal, and yet it continues to shape our present-day experiences. If you are not familiar—the federal government, through the Child Welfare League of America, allocated funds primarily to churches to remove Native children from their homes, placing them in white households. The scars of this injustice linger, etched upon our collective memory, and serve as a stark reminder of the ongoing struggle for healing and justice.  

Thirty years before the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) was passed, my father and his siblings were swept up in the colonial project and government policy of assimilation designed to make Indians forget who they are, and forget their culture, language, and community. When my dad was about ten years old, he and one of his sisters were taken away—put into the state foster care system. He recounts that time in his life very rarely, and nearly always with sadness. “We were sent to the wolves,” he would say.  

Some of his siblings were “lucky,” and were put into foster homes with caring people and were eventually reunited with our Tribe and relatives. My father and his sister were adopted by a family who were abusive and severed all ties with our Native culture, traditions, and Tribe. It was only after my dad was emancipated at the age of sixteen that he began to try to find his way back. With court records sealed and with no support, it took him years to locate a sibling.  

Dawn Knickerbocker (Anishinaabe)

When my father finally found one sibling, then several others, and eventually his mother, father, grandparents, and aunts and uncles, the land was gone—and the community was fractured and many of our relatives in crisis. To this day, we are on a healing journey. While some of my dad’s siblings did not survive, my dad lives on to tell his story and to work to make us whole. 

Against all odds, all has not been lost. I am proud to come from a very long line of Anishinaabe farmers and caretakers of the land. As young children, my siblings and I were taught how to sow seeds, how to plant and harvest with the seasons. Along with the knowledge of how to care for the land, is the connection to our language and stories that hold the instructions to our way of life. In my estimation, it is a miracle that I have this knowledge today and pass teachings to my own children. In every generation, there has been an attack on the wholeness of my family. Our family continues to heal from the policies of the past. 

After ICWA passed in 1978, we became a foster family. Several of my cousins who were lost to the system found their way into our home. This practice of healing in my family has continues and two of my siblings are now social workers, and our family has now adopted and are raising three children who we would not have known if it had not been for ICWA.  

ICWA came to pass after a big national survey  found that about a third of Native children had been removed from their family and their Tribes. For my own reservation, White Earth Nation, many recall the pain of removal and estimate that over 25 percent of the children and placed into non-Native/ white foster and adoptive houses.  

Native families were told that adoption was the only option if they were to survive, others, like in my family, were a part of church-sponsored programs that facilitated Indian children working in families’ homes –like live-in domestics–while purposefully stripping away their culture and identities in place of a colonized identity. This very racist thinking is hard to fathom today. However, this is the living, breathing reality and present-day experiences of Native Americans. 

At the same time as the removal of our children, there was an effort to remove our land. In my band, White Earth —85 percent of the land is held by non-Native landholders, including the federal, state and county governments. One of the essential elements of Native culture is the profound connection and sense of reciprocity that the people of this continent maintain with their lands and connection to the Mother Earth. As this land’s stewards, we have intimate knowledge of the caretaking and protection of the ecosystem, the biodiversity, and the relationships with the water, air, and animals.  

Woven deep within our family and the Anishinaabe People, is the memories of the caretakers of the land since time immemorial. My ancestors have observed glaciers come and go, the dance of countless species, the nurturing of seeds passed down through generations, and the rise and fall of Nations upon our sacred homeland. Against the relentless tides of change, our sovereignty and culture have endured, resilient and unyielding. The sacred lessons and the gifts of the wisdom of my ancestors—on how to care for the land—remain intact. 

When ICWA Faced the Supreme Court

There is a small group of people who claim ICWA is a bad law. The chief complaint is that this law prevents white people from adopting whomever they wish. There exists a small contingent of individuals who express criticism towards ICWA, arguing that it is a flawed law. Their main concern centers around the perception that this legislation unfairly restricts white individuals from adopting children without limitations. 

The focal point of a recent Supreme Court case revolves around a toddler of Navajo and Cherokee descent. During his infancy, a white couple residing in the suburbs of Dallas expressed a desire to adopt him. However, federal law mandated that Tribal involvement was necessary for the adoption to proceed. Initially, the Brackeens’ case appeared to be a typical adoption dispute. However, the situation took an unexpected turn when one of the most influential corporate law firms in the United States took up the couple’s cause, assisting them in launching a federal lawsuit. The repercussions of this case extend far beyond the fate of one child or the future of a single law. Rather, they pose a genuine threat to the entire legal framework that safeguards the rights of Native American communities.  

Amidst this contentious landscape, it is important to note the resolute support that ICWA receives from a diverse range of advocates. Child welfare champions, constitutional scholars, bipartisan elected leaders, and Tribal Nations across the country stand united in their endorsement of ICWA. They recognize it as the benchmark for child welfare legislation, setting the standard for protecting the safety, well-being, and health of children. The Justices’ decision to take up this crucial law harkens back to a distressing era when Native children were disproportionately separated from their families. 

The significance of ICWA stretches beyond mere adoption preferences. It symbolizes a commitment to justice, resilience, and rectifying historical injustices. The law embodies our collective determination to protect the rights and well-being of Native children, safeguarding their cultural heritage and forging a path towards a more equitable and inclusive future.  

Connection to Environmental Justice  

We are living at a time when resistance to the progress we have been making on racial equity is heightened, with books being banned in our schools and African American and Native American studies courses are altered or removed. There are concerted efforts to ban even conversations about race in our classrooms, workplaces and government. 

In the courts, we are facing attacks on tools used to address unjust patterns of racial discrimination and exclusion. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on a series of cases that could determine whether race can be acknowledged and factored in voting rights, tribal sovereignty and the Indian Child Welfare Act, and affirmative action in higher education. 

Collectively, these movements to separate us from reality are meant to silence the truth and connection to this land. My people’s land was stolen, acre by acre. The case against ICWA seeks to redefine Tribal membership as a racial rather than a uniquely political designation, as a steward of this land, contending that it puts white foster parents at a disadvantage when attempting to adopt Native children. The fact that white foster parents were supported with the best lawyers petro dollars can afford reveals the new strategy to steal land, child by child. 

Rebecca Nagel, the host of This Land podcast , writes “It’s sinister…but when you understand history, using the children of Native nations to attack Tribal sovereignty is sadly something the U.S. has been doing for generations.” 

For funders that are interested in taking the next step but are not sure where to start, we suggest four commitments to strengthen partnerships with Native organizations and communities: 

  • Learn about Native peoples and their history.
  • Evaluate your organization’s practices.
  • Build relationships with Native communities and nonprofits and with peer funders that have relationships in Indian Country.
  • Begin funding.

We can speak for ourselves, and you have to actually look at people who are your colleagues who are serving. When we are at the table, the conversations change 

Click here for a list of resources for Native families interacting with the child welfare system from the National Indian Child Welfare Association. 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

For the purposes of this article, the terms Native, Native American, and Indigenous are used interchangeably. The term “Indian,” “Indian Tribe,” and “Indian Country” are legal terms referring to US Federal Indian laws and policies (see, e.g., Title 25 of the US Code, titled Indians).  

Stylized, artistic picture of post Katrina flooding.

More Responsive Philanthropy

Summer 2023 Issue: Redirecting Climate Justice Towards a Just Transition

Displaced On Repeat: Black Americans and Climate Forced Migration

Jacqueline Patterson, Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project, writes about how the climate change that is forcing millions around the world to flee to America is also driving the internal migration of frontline Black and Latine peoples in the South and Southeast.
Chorus Foundation Retrospective: A Q&A with Founder & Chair Farhad Ebrahimi

NCRP’s Senowa Mize-Fox chats with NCRP Board Member and Chorus Foundation Founder and Chair Farhad Ebrahimi on what funder organizing looks like in the context of a just transition.
Philanthropy Must Jumpstart Just Transition to a Regenerative Economy

Marion Gee, Co-Executive Director of the Climate Justice Alliance, discusses the different regenerative practices that grantmakers and intermediaries can implement to address the climate crisis in a way that builds up, rather than steals from, impacted communities.
The Community at the Center: The Interplay Between the ICWA Decision and Environmental Justice

Dawn Knickerbocker (Anishinaabe), Vice President of Communications and External Affairs for Native Americans in Philanthropy (NAP), shares a very personal reflection of connection between Indigenous sovereignty and climate justice through the struggle to uphold 1978’s Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA).
Stylized, artistic picture of post Katrina flooding.
Listening to the Experts: A Campaign to Redirect Climate Justice & Just Transition

NCRP President & CEO Aaron Dorfman details how the Summer 2023 issue of Responsive Philanthropy kicks off a multi-year campaign that seeks to encourage grantmakers to prioritize a just transition away from an extractive to a regenerative economy that invests in community and frontline power, redistributes resources equitably, and upholds deep democracy and self-determination.
Putting ‘Justice’ in ‘Climate Justice Philanthropy’

The Clima Fund Leadership Team of Laura Garcia, Chung-Wha Hong, Kate Kroeger, and Solomé Lemma describe their grantmaking experiences supporting and engaging with frontline organizations in new, innovative, but non-extractive, ways.

Insufficient Progress:
Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back

Since NCRP’s first report describing the state of foundation funding for immigrant and refugee groups, the world has grown more dangerous for people on the move.

Although COVID-19 slowed migration for a short time, climate disasters and deteriorating social, political, and economic conditions around the world have led more people to seek homes in new places. In the United States, right-wing politicians have continued their decades-long tactic of treating immigrants and refugees as political pawns.

Former President Donald Trump used migrants as an easy scapegoat for division, effectively zeroing the country’s refugee resettlement goals throughout his presidential term. In 2021, Customs and Border Protection officers on horseback were caught on camera using whips to drive Haitian asylum seekers away. Several Republican governors sent buses or planes misleading migrants north in a craven political stunt. And after 10 years of instability, the Supreme Court looks poised to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for good, meaning more than 600,000 people who have built their lives in the United States will become vulnerable to deportation. These attacks are unfair and harmful not only to people moving across borders, but to all of us.

NCRP’s new data shows that more funders participate in pro-immigrant and pro-refugee philanthropic spaces today than they did in the past. This is progress, but it’s far from enough. NCRP also found that the pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement’s share of all foundation grants has shrunk 11% since DACA was first introduced, even as foundations themselves have grown richer. Too many foundations and major donors have ignored groups that are adept at advocating for their communities and holding political leaders accountable. Because of this, the migrant community – and our country – face more precarity today.

In the last few years alone, pro-immigrant and pro-refugee groups have resettled refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine, advocated for the specific needs of queer migrants, organized Black-led groups in a model of mutual aid, strengthened safeguards for our democracy and focused attention on urgent climate emergencies, all while sounding a constant message of welcome. Migrant organizations, especially movement advocacy groups, have done this in the face of an increasingly hostile political environment with extremely limited resources because funders have fallen short.

Now more than ever, foundations must move with intention and urgency to center, support and follow the lead of the pro-immigrant and pro-refugee movement.

This isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s also necessary if funders hope to meet their racial justice commitments, support dignity for all and reach groups with underappreciated solutions for each of their “issue” portfolios.

NCRP hopes this tool, informed by the deep wisdom of so many community and philanthropic leaders, will help move the philanthropic sector toward justice.

 

 

 

 

 

>> Next: Philanthropic trickle creates no-win regional competition

Dakota Hall

It is time for philanthropy to fund the bold 501(c)(4) political activities of youth-led organizations. Youth organizers building power for their communities year-round need the sustained ability to take partisan political stances on the issues. For young people, it is often necessary to employ a mix of heightened lobbying and aggressive political activity to achieve policy wins. We are at a critical moment where we cannot leave the issue education to chance at the ballot box. This is what true victory looks like.   

It is harmful when philanthropy demands huge impact with small budgets. To sustain innovative and impactful organizing work at the local level, youth-led organizations need to be well-resourced and c4 funding must increase. Currently, c4 funding moves too late and only in election years. It is no secret that funders are risk-averse and do not invest in new strategies, but we cannot even maintain the current status quo with the type and level of funding that philanthropy is currently willing to give.  

AZ PODER

For local youth-led organizations in the Alliance Network, partisan political funding enables organizations to deepen their impact, be innovative in building power for their communities, and allows youth organizers to have the conversations that need to be had in our communities year-round. These dollars are critical for accountability work, growing a pipeline of strong political champions, and how we win elections and policy change. With c4 funding, youth organizations would have the ability to hire more staff to run electoral programming, provide young leaders with paid development opportunities, create impactful digital voter guides in multiple languages, and target specific communities for legislative efforts. Funding 501(c)(4) activities allows youth organizers to make lasting structural change in their communities and deepen youth civic participation. This isn’t about political parties; it’s about moving the political process closer to the people. It’s about investing in a more accurate and engaged electorate by allowing the groups on the ground to have the full, robust conversations our communities deserve.  

 Young people delivered the election for President Biden and Democrats. In 2020, 50% of all young people under 30 voted, up from 39% in 2016 – making up 13.8% of all ballots cast. This is what happens when youth organizations are invested in far before fall semester. But we know what happens when funding goes away from the youth movement. In 2014 – after funding for youth organizing went away and the infrastructure cracked – we saw youth voter turnout lag behind more than any other group with people under 30 making up only 7.2% of ballots cast. In 2018, no age group saw a larger surge in turnout than voters under the age of 30 – growing their ballot share to 11.4%. What changed in four years? Funders saw the errors of divestment and reinvested to rebuild some of the youth infrastructure lost. But there is still much to rebuild.  

New Hampshire Youth Movement

We cannot afford to go back to 2014. Young people must be at the center of any winning coalition, and not be an afterthought. Youth-led organizations must receive multiyear investments, to stop the guessing game of where money will come from, not just when fall semester starts in an election year.  

The brilliance of youth organizers is always evident. In Kansas, young people at Loud Light are fighting against partisan gerrymandered maps and winning. In Cook County, young people at Chicago Votes were able to write and pass legislation that ensured that individuals within Cook County Jail had the ability to register to vote and put polling locations within that jail. In Wisconsin, because of the dedication of young people at Leaders Igniting Transformation to fight the school-to-prison and deportation pipeline, young Black and Brown students can attend school safely in Milwaukee. 

The youth movement knows how to organize people. Now, we need philanthropy to organize money to deliver bold resources to match our energy, so that together we can build power to delivery victories. Investing in youth organizations to run 501(c4) programming will allow us to have the power necessary to motivate voters, and drive unprecedented turnout in November, and far beyond.  This funding must be sustained year to year and not just in major election years, to ensure young people have a voice in shaping public policy that directly impacts their lives. 

Engage Miami

The Alliance supports a growing network of the best youth electoral and issue organizing groups in the country. We are in 18 states, supporting 20 groups that have been building trust and power in the communities for years – and in some places over a decade. The combined power of our network is astounding. When an Alliance organization registers a young person to vote, those young people turn out on average at least 10+ more than 10pts higher than the state average. We are able to achieve that because we don’t stop at voter registration, we organize before and after voter registration to ensure young people’s voices are heard at the ballot box. We all win when young people are organized, but it takes organized money to make that happen.  

Persuasion and mobilization are important. There is no mobilization without early persuasion of young voters to participate in elections. And that requires c4 funding. Young people mobilized year-round by Leaders Igniting Transformation, MOVE Texas, and New Era Colorado were 26% more likely to vote than those who were only contacted in the final days and weeks before the 2020 election. It is local youth-led political homes organize youth daily, not just for elections, but a full spectrum of activities that combines leadership development, advocacy, and civic engagement. To produce these kinds of results, our groups need investment now , especially c4 investment, to be sustained for years to come. Not just as an afterthought in September. 

But this is more than just about elections. This is about movement change. For young people’s vision about their community to become reality, they must be resourced. Groups that led historic youth turnout in 2020 are struggling to raise resources to keep staff on board, invest in growing team skills, adjust program, and scale to new communities in an environment where newly passed voter suppression laws, gerrymandering, and lack of federal action set up crippling barriers to grassroots organizing.  

Young people continue to lead some of the most transformative work in our country, whether they are fighting to save our planet, demanding livable wages, or ensuring our communities are thriving, safe, and healthy. We challenge philanthropy to think bigger and bolder in how it supports groups in building long-term power, infrastructure, and sustaining year-round civic engagement organizations to get the desired outcomes we want in our communities. Investing political activity dollars in youth organizing now will aid groups in laying the groundwork for what is to come in 2024 and beyond. 

 

Dakota Hall is the Executive Director of Alliance for Youth Action and Alliance for Youth Organizing, a national network of local organizations that works with young people to engage in our democracy as voters, organizers, and leaders. In 2017, Dakota founded an organization named Leaders Igniting Transformation (“LIT”) to help Black and Brown youth in Milwaukee achieve social, racial, and economic justice. Under Dakota’s leadership, LIT successfully advocated to remove the Milwaukee Police Department from the Milwaukee Public Schools and ended the use of metal detectors on campuses and suspensions for children in elementary school. 

Abortion storytelling is labor. It’s time philanthropy invest in it. 

When I had my abortion in 2005, I was 19 years old, and I was sure I might be the 4th person ever to have an abortion — after my then-favorite rapper Lil’ Kim, a close cousin and an ex-best friend.  

Of course, that was not true, but that’s what it felt like as I walked up to the clinic unsure of what the future would hold.  

I felt so lonely in the clinic, even as the clinic workers’ smiles warmed every room I sat in for counseling and an ultrasound. I was certain in my decision, but that didn’t change the fact that I still felt the need to hide it from my pro-choice family.  

I was worried that they might judge me for becoming pregnant in the first place and begrudgingly support my decision to have an abortion. I wasn’t willing to take a risk that I might not get the exact unflinching support I needed at the moment, so I didn’t tell any loved ones that I was having an abortion.  

What I know now is that everything I was feeling stemmed from abortion stigma — defined as the shared understanding that abortion is morally wrong and socially unacceptable.  

Abortion stigma is everywhere; it’s the general messaging that abortion is bad, the decision should be kept a secret and it should be apologized for.  

It shows up in the way in which politicians use euphemisms to avoid saying the word, to labeling those of us who have abortions as “fast girls” or “loose women.”  

These signals are all over our society and tell those of us who have abortions that even if we decide to seek out care, we should do it in secret and never talk about it again.  

But this isolation leads to loneliness and the feeling that we’re among the only people in our community, or even the world, who have abortions — as I felt for so many years. 

We Testify abortion storyteller Kenya Martin speaks at the oral arguments for the June Medical Services v. Russo case at the U.S. Supreme Court, March 4, 2020. Photo credit: Center for Reproductive Rights.

We Testify abortion storyteller Kenya Martin speaks at the oral arguments for the June Medical Services v. Russo case at the U.S. Supreme Court, March 4, 2020. Photo credit: Center for Reproductive Rights.

The importance of abortion storytelling 

During the next 6 years, I only told a few people that I’d had an abortion. The more I shared my story, the more I’d hear “I had one, too,” in response.  

As I met more people who’d had abortions, I realized how much commonality we had in our stories, yet they weren’t being shared widely nor were they represented in public discussions of abortion access.  

Moreover, when experiences were brought into the conversation, they focused almost exclusively on young, white cisgender women who sought abortions in order to finish college studies.   

While those women’s stories are vital, they only give us a glimpse into a narrow narrative that doesn’t necessarily reflect the experiences of most people who have abortions — the majority of whom are people of color, already parenting, living on low-incomes and navigating difficult financial, logistical and legal barriers to abortion care.  

Our narratives deserve to be told, not just so we can find one another, but also because the exclusion of our experiences means the full truth about abortion is not being told. 

Without our stories, the anti-abortion movement and those who want to restrict access to abortion care are able to fill the void with caricatures of us, usually based on racist, sexist and xenophobic stereotypes long ingrained in our nation’s memory.  

They talk of “taxpayer funding of abortions” to conjure the anti-Black “welfare queen” trope in hopes that the audience will forget that Medicaid insurance recipients also pay taxes and that no matter what, everyone deserves unfettered access to medical care.  

They have a vested interest in keeping us silent so they can tell a different story, one that erases our humanity and encourages people to ignore empathy in favor of more restrictions, criminalization and white supremacist control of our families.  

We cannot undo the harm of white supremacy without confronting the real experiences of the people it impacts. 

Abortion story tellers need support 

When I began sharing my abortion story, it was to counter the horrific messages that anti-abortion leaders were spreading about Black women like me who had abortions.  

I wanted to talk about the complexities of becoming pregnant when I wasn’t ready to parent and the ways that the lack of sexual health education and racist and sexist stereotypes about young Black women impacted me.  

But when I shared, I often found myself as the lone Black person sharing my story, which opened me to vicious threats and violent harassment. I questioned whether storytelling was a safe vehicle for change. 

The reproductive health, rights and justice movement had not invested in protecting abortion storytellers to ensure that when they spoke out, their voices would be met with love, support and care.  

Storytellers were asked to share their stories at public testimonies and left to handle the backlash on their own.  

We needed to see abortion storytellers as the leaders they are and invest in their future, health and well-being so that their storytelling experiences were good ones, not solely memories of harassment and threats.  

The more we can support abortion storytellers — in public, with love, encouragement and accolades — the more we’re modeling what the treatment of people who have abortions should look like and more people will be willing to step into the sunlight with their truths. We had to create a new theory of change. And we did it through We Testify. 

We Testify Executive Director Renee Bracey Sherman hypes up the crowd as the rally emcee at the oral arguments for the June Medical Services v. Russo case at the U.S. Supreme Court, March 4, 2020. Photo credit: Center for Reproductive Rights.

We Testify Executive Director Renee Bracey Sherman hypes up the crowd as the rally emcee at the oral arguments for the June Medical Services v. Russo case at the U.S. Supreme Court, March 4, 2020. Photo credit: Center for Reproductive Rights.

Elevating abortion storytelling through We Testify 

We Testify is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the leadership and representation of people who have abortions. We invest in abortion storytellers to elevate their voices and expertise, particularly: 

  • those of color. 
  • those from rural and conservative communities. 
  • those who are queer-identified. 
  • those with varying abilities and citizenship statuses. 
  • those who needed support when navigating barriers while accessing abortion care.  

Through We Testify, people who’ve had abortions meet one another to build fellowship and solidarity around their shared experiences and learn about the challenges that others experienced in obtaining care.  

The We Testify storytellers support each other as they speak out on abortion access issues, as well as other intersecting reproductive justice issues such as incarceration, immigration, sex work, disability justice and more.  

The bond of their cohorts creates the support and confidence they need to speak out and change the conversation about who has abortions and why.  

The pressure to keep our abortions a secret is a weighing one that can only be lifted by openly sharing, being validated and knowing that others who have similar experiences are waiting in the wings to share their stories, too. 

As part of We Testify, we deeply believe in reproductive justice, which is a human rights framework ensuring everyone is able to decide if, when and how to grow their family, and raise their families free from violence and coercion.  

To operationalize this, We Testify storytellers are encouraged to not only share their abortion experiences but the systemic issues that set in play the various barriers or privileges that affected their experience.  

The storytellers share our stories with a goal to let others know they’re not alone and identify the systemic changes that could make access easier for those who need abortions in the future. 

Through We Testify, abortion storytellers attend a retreat where they receive training to ensure they’re able to share their stories as they want and in a way that feels most empowering to them.  

They also receive training to protect themselves from targeted harassment, not perpetuate abortion stigma and communicate effectively with reporters and media.  

Philanthropy must support abortion storytelling 

Because storytelling is labor, the We Testify storytellers are compensated for their engagement in the program.  

Many are living on low-incomes, have experienced financial hardship as a result of sharing their abortion stories with loved ones, or are trying to break into the social justice movement. Compensating them for their labor is core to our economic justice values. 

But that can only continue if philanthropy values storytelling as a theory of change and storytellers as our next generation of leaders.  

Storytellers have long been seen as messengers for fundraising events and presentations, but if we are to create true change in our communities, we have to see that they are leaders who can create a new vision for abortion access.  

They’ve been closest to the pain, so they must be closest to the power. That can only happen if storytelling is invested in as a way of organizing and building the power of people who have abortions, and then seats at the table are created for us to sit in and imagine a different world. 

Abortion storytellers have been breaking the silence for decades and are leading the way to envision what the future of justice we seek to create will be.  

Their legacy is in the truths they tell about our nation’s healthcare system and how people are treated when we’re collectively told not to love out loud people who have abortions or honor them with the respectful care they deserve.  

We’d be wise to not only listen to their wisdom but deeply invest in their leadership. Storytellers are our messengers for the future and will always remind us that someone we love has had an abortion. We have the tools to create a better system. It’s time that we listen and invest. 

Renee Bracey Sherman is the founder and executive director of We Testify. 

Jacqueline Patterson
Defining the Climate Continuum in the Context of Cyclical Black Displacement 

From the Trans-Atlantic human trafficking massacre to the impacts of the current climate crisis, a consistent thread in the story of Black people in America is displacement and forced migration. These are not disparate incidents but directly interconnected actions rooted in systemic racism.

In the same way as we view the inextricable historic underpinnings of the plight of Black Americans, we must see the systemic roots of climate change through the same lens as a continuum from the drivers of climate change to the impacts being experienced today.

As such, a review of the relationship between displacement/migration and climate change includes the abuse of the environment that also harms Black communities and encompasses the disproportionate impacts on Black communities when the earth fights back, as manifested through catastrophic climate change.

The Elusiveness of “Home” Has Characterized Black Existence in the United States  

From the time we were taken from our lands, our homes, our families, our culture, and what would have been our generational wealth, to then become the generational wealth of settler colonialists and their progeny, we have lived an existence with displacement at its foundation. Post emancipation the properties that were available to us were the land that was hardest to farm. And we were not provided the land grants that White Americans had access to in the 1860s and beyond, such as the Morill and Homestead Acts. From anticipation onward, Black communities had extreme housing and land insecurity and substandard quality. By design. 

Pollution is a direct driver of both climate change and Black displacement. 

Greenhouse gas emissions, driven by energy production and manufacturing industries that are more concerned about profits than people and planet, are responsible for the climate crisis. At last count, 71% of Black Americans lived in counties in violation of federal air pollution standards and an African American family with household earnings of $50,000 was more likely to live next to a toxic facility than a white American family with earnings of $15,000. As a result, Black Americans are more likely to breathe contaminated air, live on toxic soil, drink poisoned water, and be displaced from unlivable conditions. 

  1. Mossville, Louisiana is located in the area that has come to be known as “Cancer Alley”. Over many years, Mossville has been inundated with industrial activity and its accompanying extreme pollution. This has resulted in cancer of epidemic proportions and eventually, a buyout of this community, at a egregiously unfair rate for the Black residents, and the creation of a “ghost town”.i 

  2. Historic soil contamination spanning decades in East Chicago, Indiana resulted in the forced relocation of over 1200 people after the soil in the community found to have lead levels upwards of 30x allowable levels and the blood tests of 31% of the children in the community revealed concerning levels of lead. ii 

  3. After the poisoning of the Flint, Michigan river by manufacturing industries and the subsequent poisoning of the Flint water supply, the city’s population has dropped 21% and reached its lowest point in more than 100 years, according to the results of the 2020 U.S. Census. iii 

As Black People, we continue to be forced from our native lands due to greed via climate impacts 

From the images of Haitian people being chased by US border patrol agents who used their reins as whips to the images of immigrants from various African nations stuck in Mexico in substandard conditions, one can glean the desperation that drives people from disaster stricken, drought ravaged, or otherwise uninhabitable circumstances to seek refuge in the United States. Seven of the nations most vulnerable to climate impacts are countries inhabited primarily by Black people. The United States is 4 percent of the global population yet it’s responsible for 25% of the emissions that drive climate change. Yet when it comes to offering sanctuary in this land of plenty, we have some distance to follow to live up to the value implied in “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses….”

At the Holding Institute in Laredo Texas, which provides services to hundreds of immigrants per day, the director, Pastor Mike, shares that the majority of people who come into their care have left their countries due to the drying of the breadbasket due to climate change. The people crossing the Mexico border are not only from Latin America, but also include people who emigrated from nations in Sub Saharan Africa because it is easier to enter the US through the Mexico border. 

Marie and her sister Jean live in Maryland. They are originally from Cameroon. Marie speaks with great sadness of how her sister came to be in the United States.  When Jean’s farm dried up due to climate change driven drought, and she was unable to earn a livelihood and feed her family, she engaged in a risky border crossing. While crossing the border she was sexually assaulted and became HIV positive. Eventually she made it to the United States, but the path was one of trauma and tragedy. The uncertainty she faces as someone who is undocumented means that insecurity and vulnerability persist. 

“No one puts their child in a boat, unless the water is safter than the land,” Excerpted from “Home” a poem by Warsan Shire, a Kenyan Born Somali Poet. 

Black Farmers Have Lost 90% of Land We Owned in 1910—And Now, Climate Change  

By 1997, Black farmers lost more than 90 percent of the 16 million acres they owned in 1910, due to lack of access to financing.iv Black American farmers lost roughly $326 billion worth of acreage during the 20th century, according to the first study to quantify the present-day value of that loss.v At this point, only 2% of farmland, across the entire United States, is owned by Black Americans.vi  And climate change is further deepening risk for farmers. “Global warming does not discriminate, but the system that prepares farmers for it does.”vii 

Outside of Birmingham Alabama, Denise, a Black farmer, fears for the future of farming along the Black Belt as she and her fellow growers do not have the means to install complex irrigation systems or take other measures necessary to mitigate the impact of climate change on their crops.  

The Seas Are Rising. The Lands Are Becoming Inundated. Black Communities Are Being Displaced. 

Black Americans are more likely to live in coastal states and cities.  Though Black households are less likely to be waterfront properties, they are more likely to be in low lying areas that are prone to flooding. As these communities face chronic flooding, neighborhoods are being displaced. And those who are fortunate enough to live in areas that aren’t being flooded, are being displaced as owners of waterfront properties are moving inland to escape inundation by the rising seas.  Besides often being deprived of stormwater management infrastructure, Black communities also face inundation when development hampers natural protections such as wetlands. 

“That oil refinery shouldn’t be here. That road shouldn’t be here. My house shouldn’t be here. Mother Nature is mad, and she has come to reclaim her land.” Resident of Port Arthur, Texas as she looked out over the floodwaters and the ravages of Hurricane Harvey.  

 A housing complex in an area in Lee County Florida that is dubbed, “Little Haiti” because of the proliferation of Haitian residents, was severely damaged by Hurricane Michael.  Unlike other communities that received help, this housing complex were provided little assistance. Local leaders were convinced that it was because there was an intention to starve people out of that land as it was prime real estate. Near the water but not flood prone. They were convinced that the aim was to provide no assistance to this community in hopes that people will leave, paving the way for take over and redevelopment of the property at a hefty profit.  

Spoken word artists and survivors of Super Storm Sandy, Naima Penniman and Alixia Garcia of Climbing Poe Tree in speaking of sea level rise, disaster capitalism, and displacement asserted, “They are selling the rain. They are leasing the rivers. They are auctioning off the ocean to the highest bidders. As giant chunks of ice dislodge from the North Pole. There is disaster profiteering from the torrential storms and the wrath of global warming. Who gets paid to rebuild? And who will they rebuild for?” 

Picture of New Orleans underwater after Hurricane Katrina
New Orleans underwater after Hurricane Katrina
In the Eye of The Storm: Black Communities Are Caught in the Climate Driven Disasters’ Crosshairs

Due primarily to compromised housing stock, storms tend to cause greater damage and loss in Black Communities.  Displacement happens when access to resources, such as homeowners’ insurance, is lacking and recovery resources are insufficient for filling the gap, thereby rendering people unable to garner the means to re-establish themselves. Lower-income Black populations are also more likely to be renters and lack the financial resources to rebuild in places where disasters strike, making them more likely than white people to be displaced from their homes.

Disaster driven displacement of people can also lead to gentrification when displaced residents are unable to return to their homes or neighborhoods and are replaced by higher-income residents. Disasters can also accelerate the process of gentrification by creating opportunities for real estate speculation and development. After a disaster, developers may be attracted to areas with lower property values, leading to an influx of investment and higher housing costs that displace existing residents.

Climate Action: When Purportedly Good Intentions Backfire for Black Communities. 

Urban Renewal programs dating back to the 80s were derisively dubbed “Negro removal” as these projects resulted in displacement of Black communities.  Similarly, efforts including the community development block grants ended up being a windfall for developers but losses for communities. Without centering community driven planning and decision making for climate action planning, Black communities face similar risks, given the myriad vulnerabilities already detailed here.  

“In Brooklyn, New York, various sustainability projects, including park cleanups, riverbank restorations, and the transformation of a toxic industrial canal into the “Venice of Brooklyn,” have all sought to improve the quality of life and environmental health of communities in the densely populated borough. But these environmental improvements have helped fuel affordability challenges. Rental prices have increased disproportionately around Prospect Park, which underwent a $10 million restoration beginning in the 1980s. A recent geospatial analysis found that housing around community gardens in Brooklyn catered primarily to higher-income residents.”viii  

Another illustrative example is the unintended harm that can be caused by programs such as FEMA Flood Risk Mapping, which is ostensibly intended to identify areas of risk and provide resources to ensure that communities located in flood plains can relocate to safety. In the case of Sandbranch, Texas, a predominantly Black community 14 miles south of Dallas, FEMA declared the community to be in a 1% flood zone.  The community has never been flooded since its inception in 1865. This designation has been used to displace residents in this unincorporated area after county officials have denied the community access to basic resources to make the community livable, including running water and trash pick-up. As a result, reportedly, after assessing the property values, which are exceedingly low given lack of basic services, and subtracting an assessed amount for demolition the homes on the property, community members have been offered checks for $350 for their properties. Out of desperation after suffering under such conditions, some have taken the offer and, in effect been forced out by making their community unlivable. Meanwhile, after the sale, when one reviews property values, in some cases they have quadrupled, leading to speculation that there are other plans afoot for the land the community occupies.  

Displacement Leads to Ripple Effects for Impacted Black Communities:

Socio-Cultural Erosion 

Displacement driven by gentrification or otherwise disrupts the familiar and established ties of a place, creating a disorienting new locale. For people displaced as the neighborhood becomes unaffordable, this is more than just nostalgia or discomfort with the unfamiliar. Often, they must accept longer commutes and separation from the support structures provided by old neighbors and family. 

Violence Against Women 

Post disaster displacement and the relief and family unification systems can put women who have escaped their abusers at renewed risk. Crowded living conditions in temporary shelters in the aftermath of a disaster can result in women and girls being forced to live with strangers in relatively insecure settings, which can increase the risk of violence and sexual assault. Post disaster increase in stress and trauma can exacerbate existing tensions and conflicts within households and communities, leading to an increase in violence against women as a way of exerting power and control. Loss of livelihoods and economic insecurity can also increase the risk of violence against women as they are forced to rely on men for financial support or engage in transactional sex to meet basic needs, putting them at greater risk of exploitation and abuse. 

Redistricting and Gerrymandering 

Displacement due to disasters impacts redistricting resulting from the shifts in population distribution. As population numbers change, some take advantage and, in a bid to institutionalize compromised democracy, they will redraw district boundaries to consolidate power. This practice, called gerrymandering, exacerbates the already existing political marginalization of frontline communities. Even the distribution of disaster recovery resources can be impacted as communities are compromised in their ability to advocate for fair and equitable distribution.  

 

Systemic, Intersectional Challenges, Rooted in Racism, Require Multi-Solving Models  

Any tactic that occurs within the context of a racist, extractive economy will be a band aid at best because it will be happening in a system that is designed to continue to harm, objectify, instrumentalize, and displace Black communities.  As such, the only real solution is complete systems change, shifting from an extractive economy to a regenerative/living/solidarity/caring economy.  

Jacqueline Patterson is the Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project.

Stylized, artistic picture of post Katrina flooding.

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Summer 2023 Issue: Redirecting Climate Justice Towards a Just Transition

Displaced On Repeat: Black Americans and Climate Forced Migration

Jacqueline Patterson, Founder and Executive Director of the Chisholm Legacy Project, writes about how the climate change that is forcing millions around the world to flee to America is also driving the internal migration of frontline Black and Latine peoples in the South and Southeast.
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Philanthropy Must Jumpstart Just Transition to a Regenerative Economy

Marion Gee, Co-Executive Director of the Climate Justice Alliance, discusses the different regenerative practices that grantmakers and intermediaries can implement to address the climate crisis in a way that builds up, rather than steals from, impacted communities.
The Community at the Center: The Interplay Between the ICWA Decision and Environmental Justice

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Stylized, artistic picture of post Katrina flooding.
Listening to the Experts: A Campaign to Redirect Climate Justice & Just Transition

NCRP President & CEO Aaron Dorfman details how the Summer 2023 issue of Responsive Philanthropy kicks off a multi-year campaign that seeks to encourage grantmakers to prioritize a just transition away from an extractive to a regenerative economy that invests in community and frontline power, redistributes resources equitably, and upholds deep democracy and self-determination.
Putting ‘Justice’ in ‘Climate Justice Philanthropy’

The Clima Fund Leadership Team of Laura Garcia, Chung-Wha Hong, Kate Kroeger, and Solomé Lemma describe their grantmaking experiences supporting and engaging with frontline organizations in new, innovative, but non-extractive, ways.