Southern cities are growing – many at a much more rapid pace than the national average. According to the U.S. Census, eight out of the 15 cities with the largest population gains are in the South.

This is due in large part to historically cheap real estate, minimal regulation (which conservative legislators intend to keep in place) and corporate relocations from the North fueled by massive tax breaks.

While unemployment is at a historic low, stagnant wages and precarious employment have made it hard for the average southerner to see much fruit bearing from their labor.

Organizers and community leaders are moving forward with city-based strategies to bring equity and democracy into development, because place does matter.

Despite anti-democratic state pre-emption tactics, well-documented voter suppression tactics and gerrymandering, grassroots coalitions and local movements remain resilient and are fighting back.

Georgia STAND-UP, the long-time Atlanta affiliate of Partnership for Working Families, has fought for a more inclusive city amidst an era of tremendous growth and rapid displacement that will have a lasting impact on the city’s skyline and cultural fabric for generations to come.

Investment in movement-building organizations and leaders in the region by philanthropy is paramount to sustaining and preserving the South’s rich history of resistance.

Similar to findings pointed out in Grantmakers for Southern Progress and NCRP’s series As the South Grows, the Partnership believes that building sustainable, and local, sources of funding and lifting up voices from the region is key to building an even stronger movement for the long haul.

There isn’t a better time to organize with and build community in the South than now. I have been inspired by the tenacity of Stand Up Nashville (SUN) to put communities and transparency first as its city experiences the largest development frenzy in decades.

This year, the coalition was instrumental in the passage of the “Do Better” Bill, legislation that requires developers and contractors to disclose wages, hiring practices, and health and safety records as a condition of receiving tax breaks from the city.

The coalition has been one of the loudest voices calling attention to the injuries and fatalities crisis in the construction industry, where 16 workers have died from preventable injuries on the job in the last two years alone.

SUN recently launched a campaign demanding a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) at a proposed Major League Soccer (MLS) stadium development, securing the first agreement of its kind in Tennessee. This CBA sets a new standard for how development should happen in Nashville, and potentially cities across the South, with affordable housing, wage standards, training and enforcement requirements.

The Durham Equitable Development Collaborative is also organizing to develop a similar equitable development model in the face of rapid redevelopment of public housing in its downtown core, all while navigating the retaliatory nature of the state’s General Assembly.

The collaborative is led by Power Up NC and groups like Durham CAN, the North Carolina A. Philip Randolph Institute and Durham For All.

For more than a decade, the Partnership for Working Families and its network for 19 grassroots and community organizations has driven and supported comprehensive trans-local campaigns to transform cities and institutions that have historically benefitted from and perpetuated racialized inequality.

Building movements and building leaders in the South is critical to the dismantling of the legacy of slavery and creating real power and victories for working people of color and immigrants.

“For people of color, it’s always implied that we are beneficiaries of the system – not that we are the system,” said SUN Co-Chair Odessa Kelly. “And once we shift that perspective, that’s when we start to change things. When we change the perspective, then we change what people desire and want, and that’s how we make changes on the state and national level.”

Over the last two years, we have developed a set of recommendations based on what we are learning about best practices in equitable development campaigns in Nashville, Tennessee, and Durham, North Carolina, thanks in part of generous support from the Open Society Foundation.

We developed these recommendations with our allies at Estolano LeSar Advisors, a community-development consulting firm with decades of experience advising cities, foundations and advocates.

Our project also provided local capacity and support to our community-based partners in both cities.

Organizing with communities and leaders in the South must be rooted in and respectful of the lives of the people most impacted by the transformation.

And, while conservative and corporate forces have dismantled or turned government on its citizens, local government remains one of the arenas where everyday people can have a say.

Recommendations for Building a New Model for Community-Centered Development:

Invest in people:

  • Leadership development – both inside organizations and outside in the community, such as members and resident leaders – is core to building the confidence and expertise to move a program and campaign.
  • Organize, organize, organize! We must empower residents to want and achieve greater access to the development decisions that affect their everyday lives. Building a coalition that represents diverse stakeholders and approaches is crucial. A campaign is only as strong as the people it reaches, beyond boardrooms and council chambers.
  • Build power for the long haul, not just short-term solutions. The tools and strategies we covered are intended to set your communities on a trajectory for building power in cities and having a movement that continues beyond its first victory. There will be losses and struggles in the process.

Democratize development in our cities:

  • Build statewide advocacy to ensure cities have all the policymaking tools at their disposal to alleviate crises, respond to the needs of their residents and create innovative policies that address displacement, unemployment, low wages and other issues.
  • Adopt transparency and accountability policies, especially for projects receiving public subsidies, that provide the community with opportunities to learn about and engage in decisions made about publicly owned land and publicly subsidized developments in their neighborhoods that will affect their health and well-being.
  • Empower communities with the tools and leverage to ensure that development creates benefits that protect workers, create good jobs and affordable housing, address environmental mitigation and identify other strategies to navigate state interference.
  • Enlist elected leaders and local government staff as partners in developing solutions and in navigating state interference where possible.

You can find our toolkit here.

Jackie Cornejo is Southern region equitable development strategist at Partnership for Working Families. Follow @JackieCornejoG and @P4WF on Twitter.

Image courtesy of Partnership for Working Families

An expert in Latino politics and policy issues, Angelo was featured in various media outlets such as The Nation, CNN and CNN en Español, National Public Radio and many others.

He was the founder of the National Institute for Latino Policy.

Angelo Falcón during the National Hispanic Media Coalition's 3rd Annual New York Impact Awards. Photo courtesy of NHMC.

Angelo Falcón during the National Hispanic Media Coalition’s 3rd Annual New York Impact Awards. Photo courtesy of NHMC.

Angelo served on numerous boards, including the National Hispanic Media Coalition and the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda. He served on NCRP’s board of directors from 1996 to 2006.

We will remember Angelo for his steadfast leadership, passion and drive for equity and justice. In a 2001 profile in The New York Times, Angelo described himself as a “guerilla researcher.” “I’m always busting chops,” he said.

We invite those of you who were touched by Angelo’s to share your memories of him below.

In a May 7 op-ed in USA Today, Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), publicly acknowledged changes to the foundation’s annual Sports Award. This annual competitive award is intended to recognize “sports teams, athletes and community-based organizations that use sports to catalyze and sustain changes to make communities healthier places to live, learn, work and play.”

Besser said the foundation would no longer consider award applications from sports teams that denigrate American Indian people. He humbly noted that the foundation – whose mission targets health equity – never considered “the fact that the team names, mascots and misappropriation and mocking of sacred symbols like headdresses do real damage to the health of people across the country.”

Among numerous efforts, First Nations Development Institute and various partners are involved in a “Supporting Community Intellectuals in Native Communities” project. Included in the photo are Shelly Fryant, Rene Dubay and Michael Munson of Salish Kootenai College, Carnell Chosa and Regis Pecos of the Leadership Institute at Santa Fe Indian School, and Darren Kipp of The Piegan Institute. From First Nations are Michael Roberts, Raymond Foxworth, Catherine Bryan and Marsha Whiting. Photo by First Nations Development Institute.

Among numerous efforts, First Nations Development Institute and various partners are involved in a “Supporting Community Intellectuals in Native Communities” project. Included in the photo are Shelly Fryant, Rene Dubay and Michael Munson of Salish Kootenai College, Carnell Chosa and Regis Pecos of the Leadership Institute at Santa Fe Indian School, and Darren Kipp of The Piegan Institute. From First Nations are Michael Roberts, Raymond Foxworth, Catherine Bryan and Marsha Whiting. Photo by First Nations Development Institute.

This remarkable admission and the change in policy serve as a clear example of how Native American communities and their allies can influence philanthropy to change practices that may (unknowingly) harm Native people and communities. Besser and RWJF should be applauded for their willingness to listen to Native communities and act on their feedback and concerns to make change. Notwithstanding, we need to understand that this recent admission, while laudable, illustrates a symptom of a larger illness in philanthropy: patchy bids and willful reluctance to learn more about Native communities, their issues and community-led solutions.

What’s in a Name?

Besser’s op-ed came after months of organizing by Native American organizations and tribes, including the National Congress of American Indians, Center for Native American Youth, First Nations Development Institute, the Oneida Nation of New York, and with the support of other partners like Dr. Howard Stevenson, director of RWJF’s Forward Promise National Program Office at the University of Pennsylvania, Kathy Ko Chin, president and chief executive officer of the Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum, and many others.

These groups authored letters and attended learning sessions that helped compel RWJF to stop allowing sports teams that use racist stereotypes to apply for RWJF’s prestigious award.

Research has documented that mascots depicting Native Americans are harmful to Native people, especially children. Imagine being largely invisible in all forms of media and popular culture except for those instances in which you are depicted in stereotypical, comical or historical imagery. This is the reality for Native American children.

Research has found that this leads to all sorts of negative outcomes, including damaged self-esteem and identity, and overall diminished well-being. This growing body of research has also documented that these limited and racist representations of Native people curtail self-understanding and how Native youth see themselves fitting into contemporary society.

Similarly, scholars have found that the use of Native American mascots exacerbates cross-community conflict, creates limited understanding of Native people by the larger society and also creates hostile spaces of learning for Native children. Even professional associations like the American Psychological Association have publicly objected to the use of Native mascots for the reasons cited above (and they did this in 2005). 

Proponents of Native American mascots have cited public opinion polls showing support for their continued use, including purported surveys of Native Americans themselves. But these surveys were created in a feeble attempt to justify the continued use of these racist images, and to lamely try to refute the scientific research that demonstrates the detrimental effects these mascots have on Native children.

Ultimately, however, these efforts in no way contradict or negate the scholarly research noted above.

Understanding a Larger Illness

A recent nationally-representative survey launched under the Reclaiming Native Truth project, which is co-led by First Nations Development Institute and Echo Hawk Consulting, found that most Americans rank themselves high on their own individual familiarity of Native American history and culture, yet a majority of Americans cannot correctly answer basic true-or-false questions about Native American people.

Similarly, while most Americans professed generalized support that more should be done to help Native Americans, when it came to talking about specific kinds of support, including banning the use of Native American mascots, support significantly declined. In fact, only 39 percent of Americans said they would support such a ban.

Moreover, our survey data revealed that a majority of Americans still see Native people in stereotypical ways, including seeing them as more spiritual and closer to nature, while also holding other negative stereotypes. This includes a majority thinking that Native people get access to government benefits such as free education, or other “Indian Money” that is not available to other U.S. citizens. Alarmingly, more than half of Americans hold these opinions. These are, of course, just not true.

But it is not just the broader public that has limited (or completely wrong) knowledge about Native people and communities. In an ongoing research project funded by the Fund for Shared Insight, First Nations is working to understand how philanthropy perceives Native people and communities.

Data collected thus far (which will be detailed in a forthcoming report) highlight that philanthropy does not have much knowledge of or connections to Native people or communities. Moreover, the data highlight that many of the stereotypes the general public hold about Native people are also held by individuals who work in philanthropy.

This should not be terribly surprising given that the inputs of knowledge about Native Americans at all levels (including media, school systems, etc.) fail Native American people and communities.

Though the lack of knowledge and connection to Native people is not surprising, what has surprised us in both of these projects is that individuals are fairly open in discussing their racist, discriminatory and/or uninformed opinions of Native people (things that would not generally be tolerated when it comes to other marginalized groups).

This suggests that people are so far removed from understanding Native people, and Native people are so invisible (or irrelevant) in the lives of most Americans, we have generally become desensitized to understanding Native people and communities in contemporary society.

Moving Forward

In Besser’s op-ed, he pondered how a philanthropic institution that is focused on health equity could get something so wrong. “It’s worth asking ourselves what else we as a society are missing,” he noted.

This, indeed, is a fundamental question we must ask ourselves. And a corollary to this is the following: How is it that in 2018, we are still complacent in subjecting Native people to deliberate mistruths and falsehoods and rendering them invisible in American society, including in philanthropy? How is it that now, when information is more readily available than at any other time in history, we continue to be content in our ignorance of Native people and communities?

While we are only beginning to unpack the mistruths and falsehoods that individuals have about Native people, invisibility of Native Americans in philanthropy is rampant. Not only is it reflected in the declining levels of annual investment going to Native communities, but it shows in the lack of representation of Native people in the philanthropic sector and the dismissal of Native people and communities in philanthropic reports often relegating them to an asterisk that often notes “not enough data” (to matter).

How do we begin to change? Naturally, this is the quintessential question and a much larger topic than this article can address. Widely-discussed practices by diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) authors and scholars – including increasing diversity among staff and boards, being willing and open to listen and learn from the communities served by foundations, and being deliberate about including DEI frameworks in organizational mission and giving policies – all serve as a starting point for change. But these practices alone will not move us beyond willful ignorance or ambivalence when it comes to Native people.

Nevertheless, this RWJF incident does provide a bright spot highlighting the power of how communities can organize across communities of color to push for change. As NCRP and others have documented, developing tools and methods to hold philanthropy accountable has been difficult.

But this single instance demonstrates that organizing and mobilizing multiple communities can be a mechanism to leverage relationships to push for change. Would RWJF have changed its practice if only Indian Country mobilized around this issue? We do not know, but we do know that leveraging other communities to support Native children did provide a broader base to effect change.  

It is my hope that Besser’s op-ed serves as a call to action to philanthropy and other sectors of society to learn more about Native people and communities. First Nations has released recommended reading lists, other Native organizations have released fact sheets, and these are all at the tip of our Googling fingertips.

Moreover, there are more Native American nonprofits than at any other point in history, and these organizations can serve as resources of knowledge if people are willing to ask, listen and learn. 

Raymond Foxworth serves as vice president of grantmaking, development and communications at First Nations Development Institute, a Native American-controlled national intermediary that supports Native American communities in reclaiming direct control of their assets. He is a citizen of the Navajo Nation and his family is from Tuba City, Arizona.

Image by Fibonacci Blue. Used under Creative Commons license.

We’re excited to announce that Timi Gerson, strategic advocacy and communications consultant at Gerson Strategies, will be NCRP’s new Vice President and Chief Content Officer beginning May 21.

Timi will oversee NCRP’s research and assessment efforts as well as public policy campaigns, which for more than 40 years has been used to push foundations to be more accountable, transparent and responsive. Recently, NCRP has released:

  • As the South Grows, a series of reports with Grantmakers for Southern Progress exploring the challenges and opportunities for progressive change work in the South.
  • Power Moves, a guide for foundations to self-assess how well they are building, sharing and wielding power and identify ways to transform programs and operations for lasting, equitable impact.

“I am very excited that Timi is joining NCRP to lead our content team. Her commitment to supporting grassroots social justice work is impressive, and her communications and advocacy experience will be a great benefit to NCRP’s work promoting philanthropy that is responsive to those with the least wealth and opportunity.” 

– Aaron Dorfman, President and CEO, NCRP

Timi will use the goals and strategies laid in out in NCRP’s 10-year strategic framework, released in late 2016, to inform future content.

Under the strategic framework, NCRP provides social justice movements and their current and potential funders with useful resources that will help increase impact and win important campaigns. We are also expanding programming to encourage wealthy donors to give in ways that promote equity and justice.

“NCRP’s vision and values deeply align with my own. We share a belief in the power of collective action for the public good, a commitment to accountability, transparency and inclusivity, and a focus on results, not rhetoric. I am thrilled to be joining their work to transform the philanthropy sector at a time when it is more urgent and relevant than ever.”

– Timi Gerson

ABOUT TIMI GERSON

Photo of Timi Gerson

Timi Gerson

Timi will join NCRP later this month after finishing her work at Gerson Strategies. Gerson was previously the director of advocacy at American Jewish World Service, a vice president of Fenton Communications, and field director and senior organizer at Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.

She serves on the board of Jubilee USA Network, is a member of the Washington, D.C., chapter of Showing Up for Racial Justice and is a volunteer organizing coach for Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice.

Timi holds a Bachelor of Arts in Women’s Studies from Earlham College.

We’re all looking forward to having Timi on board. Help us share the news on Twitter and Facebook.

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” – Aboriginal activists group / Lilla Watson, Queensland, 1970s 

Funders that care about health equity have come a long way in the last 20 years. They increasingly emphasize social determinants of health, think intentionally about how to work with communities, and want to make sure those relationships are more authentic and driven by community priorities.

The next frontier for health philanthropy is to squarely name and redress power imbalances and systems of oppression – racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia and ableism – at the root of health inequities.

A recent blog post in Health Affairs posed the question: “Power: The Most Fundamental Cause of Health Inequity?” The authors state:

Addressing the social determinants of health – at least in the manner that they have been conceptualized and measured to date – alone will not support our nation’s efforts to reach our health potential … It is time to address power … Advancing equity, therefore, requires attention to power (as a determinant) and empowerment, or building power (as a process). 

We’ve been more explicitly naming the centrality of power in our work to advance health equity at Human Impact Partners (HIP):

  • In our research and advocacy we work directly with community organizers, who have a keen analysis of power and are committed to building power in communities.
  • In our capacity- and field-building, we’re developing a stronger social justice identity and practice within public health, and building bridges to connect the public health sector to community organizing.
  • In diverse settings we unapologetically advance our perspective, including in government and other institutions that have been complicit in creating inequities.

So what would it mean for health funders to focus on power? We’ve learned much from the incredibly inspiring approach of The California Endowment. As we’ve experimented with this question, we offer a few ideas for funders to consider. While some ideas are primarily relevant to health funders, most are applicable to any grantmaker that is working toward equitable, thriving communities.

1. Develop a theory of change that includes how power and oppression constrain – or support – policy, systems and environmental change.

To eliminate health inequities at the root, funders should develop an analysis and understanding of how power is at play – currently and historically – in the issues they care about. Consider housing: Access to affordable, safe housing is unquestionably a determinant of health. But why is housing so unaffordable and of such poor quality in certain neighborhoods?

I think about our social and political history, and how redlining and housing covenants kept people of color in racially and economically segregated communities. This is just one example of how public policy was actively manipulated by those in power to physically and emotionally marginalize people of color and poor people. This pattern repeats itself across issues health funders care about, from education to employment to the environment.

Developing an analysis of power is essential to break these cycles and be realistic about what it takes to achieve social determinants of health policy change – where the status quo is often entrenched and resistant to change. Having this analysis would help funders widen the type and scope of interventions and strategies they consider funding and potentially be more successful at advancing health equity.

2. Learn from, ally with and support those who believe in power-building to make headway on the issues you care about (read: work with community organizers).

Mindset shift is essential. Health funders need to see themselves as part of a larger social justice fabric where their health identity aligns explicitly with social movements. This means learning from and supporting foundations and organizations that focus on building power and see themselves as part of the same ecosystem. Health funders could directly support power-building by funding grassroots movements and organizations, to advance solutions to the problems communities identify.

Community organizers may not necessarily see health as a top challenge and may not lead with it. Health funders would have to grow comfortable funding organizations that never talk about health. They would have to trust that grassroots organizing for policy, systems and environmental change around the social determinants has downstream benefits for health and equity.

3. Uphold a narrative within health philanthropy that’s about building power to advance health equity, which acknowledges entrenched systems of oppression.

Developing an analysis is not enough. Narrative change within health is daunting but needed. Narratives are values-based stories about how and why the world works as it does, which frame our responses to the problems we see.

Funders must actively hold each other accountable to change entrenched narratives that impede progress on health equity. They must tell the story of how power imbalances and oppression created unfair and unjust systems that led to poor health and persistent health inequities.

Importantly, the narrative cannot be based just on numbers and facts – we also want to activate hearts and minds by centering people who have been harmed by racism and other forms of oppression. This can happen through listening, storytelling, examining our history and owning our piece of it.  

4. Create a framework for measuring outcomes and progress. Fund the development of appropriate metrics for organizing and advocacy that advances health equity.

I’m incredibly proud of our progress, but I can’t necessarily tell you how we’ve changed health outcomes yet. I’d love to have health funders’ energy and support in defining success, which includes process metrics about developing transformative relationships, changing the conversation, developing leaders and innovating around strategy.

Most recently we’ve seen the potential of this approach in Massachusetts, where a new criminal justice law expands the use of alternatives to incarceration for parents of dependent children. Formerly incarcerated women from Families for Justice as Healing wrote and advocated for the “primary caretakers” provisions, and our team at HIP wrote a report on the health impacts of the policy and educated public health stakeholders, who rallied behind it.

This successful collaboration, with research funded by The Kresge Foundation, came about because HIP explicitly names the centrality of power in advancing health equity.

The shift to a social determinants frame in health philanthropy was a huge accomplishment. Given the wider reckoning in our society, we can’t wait another 20 years to explicitly name power and oppression’s role in creating health inequities. Let’s get clear on these root causes and shift the conversation, and our efforts, to challenge them. Only then can we be confident that we’re truly creating a society in which everyone can thrive. 

Lili Farhang is co-director of Human Impact Partners, which brings the power of public health to campaigns and movements for a just society. Follow @HumanImpact_HIP on Twitter.

Before we get too far into 2018, I’d like to take this opportunity to remember some of the bright spots of 2017 related to philanthropy that advances equity and justice. 2017 was NCRP’s first full year of implementing its new strategic framework, enabling me to delve more deeply into health equity issues and the world of individual donors.

Here’s my chance to give a shout out to activities and organizations I learned about and wanted to blog about but couldn’t find the time:

Public Health Heroes. While I was familiar with highly impactful health access advocacy and organizing groups, the role of public health professionals specifically in advancing equity was eye-opening for me. I was blown away by the women I met who are using their backgrounds in public health to do critically important and cutting edge systems change:

Speaking Truth to Power. A number of innovative strategies that challenge philanthropy to be more responsive and accountable to their constituents, and especially to those advancing justice and equity, are taking off:

  • Thanks to Linda Campbell of Building Movement Project for meeting with me to learn about how small, people of color-led organizations have banded together in Detroit to push foundations to invest more in their grassroots efforts. The Detroit People’s Platform and Allied Media Project released detailed recommendations, then organized several learning sessions for funders conducted by community leaders in neighborhood settings. Learning tours in other regions are in the works to inform local efforts to create a community-led participatory grantmaking program that would fund community organizing in Detroit. The Ford Foundation funded the report.
  • Grantadvisor.org offers a platform for nonprofits to rate funders and give feedback on their performance, and for grantmakers to respond to the feedback. The creators of this website may finally be succeeding where others have failed, including Inside Philanthropy, which scuttled a little-used interface for rating program officers, and our own Philamplify initiative.
  • Old Money New System is an evolving community of social justice leaders and donors seeking to elevate and promote equitable and participatory approaches to grantmaking in social movements. Additionally, this community aims to challenge the status quo in philanthropy to end extractive practices. Initially convened by Movement Net Lab, this group is gearing up to grow its influence and presence in the sector in 2018.
  • Jara Dean-Coffey, principal of the Luminare Group, and colleagues at the Center for Evaluation Innovation and the Johnson Center are taking on the sacred cows of research and evaluation to challenge how foundations measure performance and impact. They argue that many of the presumed best practices in evaluation actually work against equity and inclusion. Equitable evaluation is necessary to ensure funders don’t undermine their equity goals when assessing their effectiveness. 
  • The Movement Voter Project has grown from a year-to-year operation to an ongoing organization, one that is proving highly successful at helping donors identify effective grassroots organizations mobilizing and organizing voters. MVP offers state-by-state and issue-focused web search features as well as high-touch one-on-one advice. MVP helped drive donor giving to local groups that successfully educated and turned out voters in the recent Alabama senate election.

Kudos to the foundations and donors supporting these initiatives. Also, a shout out to the state of Michigan – four of the women I met are Michiganders!

Because of these individuals and organizations, as well as others I learned about in 2017, I’m hopeful about what social movements can accomplish in 2018 and beyond – with strong funder support.

Lisa Ranghelli is the senior director of assessment and special projects at the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. Follow @lisa_rang and @NCRP on Twitter.