It’s time for philanthropy to think differently about reproductive access

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.  

Sharing abortion stories means investing in storytellers as leaders

The power of personal stories to reflect and shift societal structures is the focus of We Testify, whose founder Renee Bracey Sherman contributed this first-person account on abortion storytellers.

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! 

Fundraising, especially for small grassroots nonprofits, is often a necessary, but daunting task. For those who are working hard toward ending the exploitative nature of much of our economic system, it can be especially frustrating to have to engage in that very same system in order to continue their fight and support local residents.

However, a different, more transformative story is emerging from the organizing efforts of groups like Siembra NC. The organization’s members in North Carolina are stepping into leadership and providing direct assistance to neighbors impacted by the immigration system and COVID-19.

What it shows is that if centered on the direct needs of impacted vulnerable communities, fundraising efforts led by the most impacted can not only raise money but can also enhance other power building activities.

Siembra’s Immigrant Solidarity Fund

Virtual, social media-driven fundraisers have helped empower Siembra’ s members to raise money for community residents.  Photo credit: Siembra NC

Siembra NC was founded in 2017 as an explicitly pro-Black, pro-undocumented, pro-working class, pro-woman, pro-LGBTQ, pro-transgender, and pro-Indigenous organization of Latinx people building power “with papers and without papers.”

A fiscally sponsored project of the national Mijente Support Committee, its members across 6 North Carolina counties have won new policies to limit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement-local law enforcement collaboration, helped defeat anti-immigrant state legislation and supported immigrant worker wage theft campaigns that won over $60,000 in back pay and damages for their members.

Last year, they knocked on hundreds of Latinx voters’ doors in Durham to help win a $95 million affordable housing bond, the largest housing bond referendum in North Carolina history.

One of the most significant efforts has been their ability to directly provide cash assistance to community residents caught up in the nation’s detention machine. Much of $80,000 raised before this year was initially raised by undocumented immigrants at “pop-up” fundraisers and with help of groups like Church World Service, who helped expand the fund permanently to cover some of the most populous counties with more of the state’s ICE detentions, including Raleigh and Durham.

The effort came about as a response to a direct need, as families who had lost their primary breadwinner to ICE detentions needed direct support. (Of people detained by ICE in North Carolina who came in contact with Siembra, 95% were men and the vast majority were a family’s primary earner).

It was that attention to the practical service needs of their members that also forced them to adjust the focus of their work in the aftermath of COVID-19.

Responding to the moment

People of Latin American descent make up 34% of North Carolina’s confirmed COVID-19 cases, despite making up just over 12% of the state’s population. The majority of Siembra’s members and Latinx people in the state also work in industries considered “essential” and were never forced to close.

Siembra members distributed their own masks to community residents to help combat the coronavirus pandemic. Photo credit: Siembra NC

Siembra’s inaugural survey of impacted Latinx North Carolinians revealed the problem early on.

While nearly 70% of those interviewed lived in a household where at least one person had lost work, only 13% lived in a household where someone was receiving federal aid, with as many as 45% reporting at being unable to pay rent.

Their 24-hour detention hotline organically became a COVID relief hotline, with hundreds of people across the state calling to find out everything from the proper social distancing measures to how to electronically pay a utility bill to navigating job terminations after revealing that they tested positive.

“As has been true during regional tornados and hurricanes, Siembra instantly became a critical source of Spanish-language information for our 30,000 Facebook followers and thousands more who receive our text message alerts,” says Siembra’s Interim Director, Andrew Willis Garcés. “We started hosting livestreams in Spanish with public health experts, tenant organizers and local city attorneys and others who could explain not just the shutdown orders, but how they could virtually organize to advocate for themselves and family members.”

Some of those virtual conversations pulled in as many as 10,000 views within a few hours, as Spanish-speaking North Carolinians listened to advice on how to navigate situations like what to do about a rural school district not making accommodations for students who did not have Wi-Fi at home or how to handle outbreaks at work where they were not being offered preferred provider organization coverage — in violation of the CARES Act.

When getting PPO equipment became an issue, Siembra members relied on their sewing skills to create a mask making business that not only provided basic protection, but also raised funds for families who could access traditional government assistance.

Donors to the detention fund reached out to ask Siembra if they’d be willing to expand the fund’s mission to support immigrants impacted by COVID-19.

“Initially we said ‘no,’ because up until this point we had been able to support 100% of the people who had asked us for support with detention navigation after an ICE arrest, and we did not want to be in a position to serve as gatekeepers for scarce resources,” said Garcés. “However, rather than make the decision ourselves, our staff team convened our member leaders over Zoom and put the question to them: “Would you all want to design an eligibility process and distribute the funds to people impacted in each county?” They said ‘Yes’, and elected three undocumented delegates from each leadership team to form community driven decision-making body, our “Comité de Fondo”.

Siembra members put their sewing skills to the test to make their own masks for community residents. Photo Credit: Siembra, NC

Members of the new Comité created a bottom-up eligibility process, holding Zoom meetings to establish criteria for their “People’s Stimulus” relief funding.

They decided to award funds to other undocumented people ineligible for federal stimulus funds or unemployment, with additional priority given to families with active COVID-19 cases, households with fewer earning adults (often headed by single mothers), and who had experienced significant income loss.

As they continued to see people detained by ICE in county jails, those families received priority as well.

It was not easy. A lot of unpaid time was spent talking for hours about how much aid to provide to each family. The overwhelming sense among the leaders was to try to “get this out to as many people as possible,” leading to them to settle on a donation range of $300-$750 per family.

Recipients were identified both after calling Siembra’s hotline looking for a referral for financial support and by members themselves canvassing their neighborhoods and workplaces.

However, according to Garcés, making hard choices about aid eligibility made many of those members feel more ownership of the organization and of their leadership teams. Seeing families getting checks in their hands motivated them to do more, empowering them to take the lead on other service activities like “drive-thru” mask distribution and voter registration events.

They also recruited many other Latinxs new to Siembra who learned about the Relief for All work on social media or in local businesses to become volunteers and, later, dues-paying members.

The result is a people-powered campaign that has raised more than more than $200,000, with over $100,000 from individuals as part of their #ShareYourCheck campaign. Additional support has also come through grants from various foundations and through the cities of Winston-Salem and Greensboro.

For these leaders, being charged with giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars has given them both a greater sense of purpose and a deeper sense of larger community issues and problems. When Latinx immigrant members this summer showed up at over a dozen demonstrations led by Black partner organizations in multiple cities, it led to 2 different member study groups to learn about the history of anti-Black racism and the ways their struggles are connected.

Philanthropy’s key role is evident and imminent

Giving Siembra members the opportunity to learn how to wield financial power for others has helped positively define their local leadership journey. Yet, for all of their fundraising success, the vast majority of financial support that the organization has received has been for direct cash assistance, not to pay staff to oversee funds distribution or the other program work. Even worse, there is a real fear that foundations won’t see the need to help a group that seems to have learned how to survive – though maybe not thrive.

So what is the opportunity for local, regional and national funding networks with groups like Siembra? A generation-defining chance to not just economically stabilize families, but also produce Black, Indigenous and People of Color leaders that will care about issues across racial, economic and gender lines.

Imagine how many people Siembra members could help if this kind of experiential fundraising training were directly funded? By directly supporting this kind of resource building, philanthropy has the opportunity to develop the individual and collective economic power of local communities beyond the structural obstacles that threaten to keep us all back.

Continued racial injustice, increased ICE enforcement and a looming housing crisis already has many across the state reaching out to all sectors for guidance and direct financial support. At Siembra, members know that they are the seeds of change that communities need to grow. They are more than willing to collectively tend and till the soil. However, to successfully nurture the environment that people need to reach their potential, they need more people to pay for the water, not just deliver it.

Elbert Garcia is NCRP’s director of strategic communications. Follow @ElbertGarciaFl and @NCRP on Twitter.

Top Photo: Siembra members celebrate delivering “Relief for All” checks to families. Photo credit: Siembra NC

Part 2 of our discussion with Comunidad Colectiva’s Stefania Arteaga. Read part 1 here.

When it premiered in August, Time Magazine called Netflix’s “Immigrant Nation” one of the year’s most important documentaries.

NCRP Field Director Ben Barge continues his conversation with Stefania Arteaga about what philanthropy can learn from the film, especially in this crucial moment in our history.

BB: I think a lot of people in philanthropy may watch this show and say, “This is horrible, but I don’t fund immigrant justice.” What would you say to that?

SA It’s extremely important to see immigration as a fundamental justice issue because it is. We have large, privately run detention centers and a federal mandate that requires a body minimum in a detention center per night.

And our taxpayers pay for that! This is a subset of our mass incarceration system, and a key part of the criminalization of Black and brown bodies. Black immigrants are deported at much quicker rates.

This whole system has no accountability or due process for those detained. So I really encourage funders to see that we can’t live in a world where we have separate systems of punishment for people and a total absence of justice.

We also need to do away with the bad immigrant, good immigrant narrative, because then you just don’t talk about the over-criminalization of folks.

BB: That parallel system exists in philanthropy, too. Senior foundation leadership is notoriously whiter than the rest of the country, and white-led groups typically get more money, with less vetting, because they feel more familiar and comprehensible to these decision-makers.

As part of our Movement Investment Project, we’ve found that less than 1% of foundation funding in the U.S. goes to benefit immigrants and refugees, and far less than that goes to the pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement.

Our interactive dashboard about local foundation funding for the movement shows a similar disparity. So if philanthropy is serious about tackling anti-racism and inclusion, then these unjust standards have to be dismantled too, right?

SA Absolutely. As someone new to this process of foundations and fundraising, it’s been a learning curve for me.

The treatment has been eye-opening, realizing who embodies the ideals of a funder versus who doesn’t. As I defend my community, I’m also working my full-time job, which makes all of this 10 times harder.

This is primarily volunteer work. We’ve organized 9,000 people here in Charlotte. We have over 30,000 Facebook followers who simply follow us because we provide consistent information about immigration operations.

Unrestricted, consistent funding is important because we have to be flexible for our community, from the services we provide to the power we build every day.

BB: When they do invest, funders often look for a state law or ballot initiative to justify their money. But that can leave organizers in places like Charlotte, where a win may look different, at a disadvantage.

The South is crucial for national progress, which NCRP has argued frequently through our As the South Grows reports and with partners like Grantmakers for Southern Progress. How would you encourage funders to understand success?

SA: Often when I go to conferences there’s an automatic comparison to places like New York or Boston or L.A. A Southern win may seem like what L.A. was in the 1980s, but it’s extremely relevant and important to people in the South.

For example, when we recently elected historically progressive sheriffs North Carolina, only 1,000 Latinos went out to vote, but that was a 110% increase from the previous primary.

We can have a big impact with small numbers, and, more importantly, it allows people to feel hope, to keep going.

Ben Barge is NCRP’s field director. Stephania Arteaga is co-director/strategist of Comunidad Colectiva and the Carolina Migrant Network. Read Part I of their interview here. Q&A: Leadership, lights, camera y Comunidad! (Part I)

Part 1 of 2: How a Netflix documentary on nation’s immigration system puts a spotlight on the Comunidad Colectiva and the Carolina Migrant Network. 

Last month, Netfix premiered “Immigration Nation,” a multi-part documentary about the nation’s current war on immigration and the toll it is having on families in and out of the system.

Sister organizations Comunidad Colectiva and the Carolina Migrant Network are among the many organizations that the series focuses on.

NCRP’s Field Director Ben Barge sat down to speak with one of the organizations’ key leaders, Stefania Arteaga, about their work supporting and organizing immigrants down South.

Their continued struggle against criminalization and for funding, despite their achievements on the ground, is another reason why NCRP calls on funders to double down on their support of the pro-immigrant and -refugee movement.

Ben Barge: Immigration Nation recently premiered on Netflix, and when people get to episodes 3 and 4, they’ll see your incredible work with Comunidad Colectiva and the Carolina Migrant Network. How did this all begin?

Stephania Arteaga is co-director/strategist of Comunidad Colectiva and the Carolina Migrant Network

Stefania Arteaga: Comunidad Colectiva came to be because we had a gap in our community around grassroots organizing. A lot of us were involved in the momentum for comprehensive immigration reform in 2010, and when that sizzled, a lot of people burned out, including myself.

But we stayed involved, especially as the 2016 presidential election started ramping up. And then, here in Charlotte and across the Southeast, we saw so many youth being picked up at bus stops or on their way to school because of Operation Border Guardian, which was designed to pick up Central American migrants who had aged out and had exhausted all legal remedies.

And so we realized we had to be more intentional about our organizing. We’re really just a bunch of folks who grew up together and organized a youth group who said, “we need to do something about this.” I think I was the youngest, I was 20 at the time.

We began organizing community defense watches to limit ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and protect people from their retaliatory behavior.

But there was no nonprofit in the state providing bond representation to people detained. And so people would call our hotline to report ICE activity, or worse, to say “so and so has been detained” or “so and so hasn’t come home in a couple of days, can you help us find them?”

And our only option was to refer them to pro bono representation with a backlog of 3-4 months. So we created the Carolina Migrant Network to really address the retaliatory nature of ICE operations, which you see in the Netflix documentary.

Currently, it is the only organization in the Carolinas providing pro-bono bond representation to people detained by ICE.

BB: Our immigration system and ICE enforcement is getting more attention under the Trump administration, in part because it’s become even more extreme. But a lot of what’s happening now also happened under previous administrations. What would you say to funders who have given a one-time grant or an emergency commitment to support the pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement, but think with a different president the need for funding will go away?

SA: First, DHS (U.S. Department of Homeland Security) isn’t stopping, and their funding isn’t stopping. If anything, they’re growing.

An organization that just came about in 2003 and only required a small percentage of our federal budget is now overwhelmingly requesting more and more funds.

They have even taken dollars away from FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), while we’re in the middle of (Hurricane) Isaias coming through the Carolinas.

It’s really difficult, especially for communities in the South. You know we are kind of ground zero. We are a new community that is experiencing a lot of retaliation and disenfranchisement in local government. And as a rogue agency with no accountability, ICE takes advantage of that.

The documentary shows the lengths to which ICE is willing to go to punish and undo the will of voters who decided they did not want Immigration and Nationality Act Section 287(g) in their communities. i

They’ve pushed anti-immigrant bills and new 287(g)-like programs with no expiration date in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Florida, as a testing ground for the rest of the country.

So our work isn’t over. We need more funding, for the legal support to reunite our community and the capacity to help them organizing.

BB: It takes a lot of courage to share your story with the world. What’s the biggest lesson that you hope folks take from the show?
SA: First, listen to directly impacted people and organizers, because they’re not exaggerating about what’s happening on the ground and sometimes it’s even worse.

Two weeks after Trump was inaugurated, we had series of raids in Charlotte and across the state and when we reported that to news outlets, they said, no, that cannot be true, because ICE has said that they have not been conducting any operations.

A week later, we got 8,000 people out on the streets in Charlotte to shut Uptown down, to let them know that yeah, there’s people here who have been impacted.

We’re often stuck on red or blue, but the bigger point is that policymakers can screw somebody’s life over if we don’t hold them accountable.

Throughout all of this, we were followed and surveilled to intimidate us and limit our First Amendment right to free speech.

It shows the level of resources this the federal government is willing to place on their destructive policies while communities are, you know, are trying to operate on sticks and chewing gum.

Second, I strongly believe that investing in communities is feeding a lineage of organizers. I wouldn’t have been able to do what I am doing now, if it wasn’t because 10 years ago a funder decided to fund the Latin American Coalition, who created this youth group who then taught me how to do what I’m doing now.

Right now is the time to invest in new Southern innovative organizing – funding towards directly impacted people. We need somebody to invest in us so 10 years from now, there’s going be other Stefania-likes. So that would be my pitch. If we want change, we need to invest in it.

Ben Barge is NCRP’s field director. Stephania Arteaga is co-director/strategist of Comunidad Colectiva and the Carolina Migrant Network 

Read Part 2 of this story, when Ben and Stephanie discuss what philanthropy can learn from the documentary and Comunidad Colectiva’s work.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric has become all too common in the Trump era – most recently in this week’s State of the Union address. But it’s not all talk.

Last week, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Supreme Court ruled to allow new “public charge” immigration rules to take effect – affirming the same kind of wealth test that condemned tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants to die during World War II.

By privileging wealth, education and English proficiency, this policy disproportionately impacts non-white immigrants and would deny them a future in the U.S. if they have ever used, or are judged as likely to use, public assistance for basic needs, like food, healthcare and housing. 

Even though it is unclear how this policy will be implemented, the damage has been already done to immigrant families and communities.

While the rule would apply only to people applying for a green card, the Urban Institute says that confusion and fear about what the policy means and who it affects has caused 1 in 7 immigrant adults to avoid public benefits and services. Even if the rule does not apply to them.

This fear and confusion causing immigrant families to withdraw from services providing critical needs would have devastating effects for all communities.

It’s time for all of philanthropy to act.

When the public charge was first introduced in 2018, Grantmakers Concerned for Immigrants and Refugees organized more than 60 funders, grantmakers and philanthropic support organizations (PSOs) submitted public comments against the rule.

However, philanthropy cannot merely maintain its status quo of funding and support – it must also ramp up its support of the communities fighting in the face of xenophobia.

A lack of a dedicated portfolio for immigrants is not an excuse for inaction. Immigrants are parents, neighbors, business owners, teachers, students and more. They are an integral part of all sectors of American life.

By risking the health, safety and prosperity of immigrants, we are risking the health, safety and prosperity of all of our communities.

The administration’s new policy especially harms the 1 in 4 children in the U.S. who have at least 1 immigrant parent. 

Grantmakers that care about health cannot have healthy communities if families that are scared to enroll in Medicaid do not have access to care for urgent health needs and chronic conditions.

Grantmakers working in education risk lowering education outcomes for the whole community if children cannot succeed in school because they don’t have regular health care or receive proper nutrition.

Grantmakers risk the economic well-being of the whole community if immigrant families that are scared to use housing assistance risk their economic security to pay for rent, in addition to worrying about medical bills or worrying about food.

Expanding the pot that funds the fight

Communities and organizations have been fighting this rule and will continue to fight. As we heard anecdotally during interviews with leaders in the pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement for the Movement Investment Project, many of the victories for immigrant communities come from the state and local level.

But funding for local grassroots organizations and national networks accountable to communities dedicated to advancing immigrant justice was an even smaller share of an already small pot of funding.

Data for NCRPs Movement Investment Project showed that barely 1% of funding from the top 1000 foundations benefits immigrants and refugees.

In fact, U.S. foundations in 2016 gave more to leisure sports than to empowering immigrant communities to change policies that threaten them.

To effectively channel our outrage, it is imperative that local and state organizations have the resources and support they need to protect our communities.

Here are a few ways philanthropy can take action:

1. Examine your grantmaking portfolio to see if you are already supporting the immigrant and refugee community. Increasing threats to immigrants and refugees means increasing threats to the health, education and economic security of all communities. You may already be funding immigrants through the communities you’re supporting, even if you don’t have a dedicated portfolio.

2. Fund the work necessary to protect communities and fight against harmful policies. Support organizations in your community that do outreach and build power within immigrant and refugee communities. Community education and legal assistance are critical components for communities to make empowered decisions that can change harmful systems and policies. 

3. Learn from and join pro-immigrant and refugee networks to move resources quickly and effectively. Four Freedoms Fund, Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees, Rise Together Fund, FIRM, Protecting Immigrant Families and We Are All America are resources, as are NCRP’s community of nonprofit member organizations working on immigrant and refugee rights and justice.

4. Stand in solidarity with your communities. This goes beyond funding and includes lifting up critical voices in the movement, including campaigns like #protectfamilies campaign on social media, making public statements against policies that harm immigrants, and using your political and reputational capital to influence peers.

While immigrant and refugee communities have been facing increasing threats over the past few years, the administration’s new policy stands contrary to the values of liberty, refuge and a chance for prosperity of our country.

This policy, in addition to the recent announcement of the expanded travel ban that disproportionately targets Black and Muslim immigrants, is a radical move in the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda, and it demands radical action from all grantmakers who care about the health, safety and prosperity of their communities.

We know the horrifying consequences that inaction has cost us in the past. Philanthropy must now take a stand or be held responsible for the harm that inaction can have on all communities in America.

Stephanie Peng is NCRP’s senior associate for movement research. Follow @NCRP on Twitter.

Photo by Paul Rollings. Used under Creative Commons license.