Mitchell Kapor Foundation Weblog

The month of May wore me OUT! So much going on – can I capture it in 300 words or less? Here goes!

On Tuesday the 19th, I headed to Denver for the FCCP spring convening, Shifting Landscapes: Exploring Civic Engagement Strategies, Partnerships and New Possibilities. These gatherings are always informative with interesting people, and this was no exception. I presented a brief historical overview during the session Turning Promise into Practice: Strategies for Transforming Antiquated Voter Registration Systems – a fired up name for a strategy session on voter registration modernization. Check out the slideshow (pdf) for more information.

California’s special election was also held on Tuesday. We were concerned about the potential (and realized) low turnout for an election with huge budget implications, so the Foundation made a grant to Citizen Voice in support of their nonpartisan Special Elections Project. In two weeks they reached over a million people! See more on their website.

I also moderated a panel at A Dream Deferred: The Future of African American Education, the annual conference sponsored by The College Board. Our panel, The Black Boys College Bound Initiative: A Philanthropic and Community Collaborative, highlighted the work and strategies of three of our grantee organizations – Young Scholars Program, M3 Education Foundation, and SACREA’s My Brother’s Keeper Summer Algebra Academy. Again, check out the slideshow (pdf) for more details.

Last but certainly not least, I attended a U.C. Berkeley commencement ceremony to happily witness my colleague Carmen Rojas as she received her Ph.D. in City Planning. Many congrats, Carmen! Or should I say “Dr. Rojas”?

More stuff next week. I’m going to rest.

Flickr photo by Mark Jarvis

To my great delight I stumbled on this article featuring one of our grantees, Hip Hop Caucus Institute, which was one of the headliners on the Yahoo! news page. They’re holdin’ it down! Check it out!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090519/pl_politico/22684

Over the course of the last three weeks, I attended 3 conferences, 2 meetings, and 1 planning session all of which were focused on addressing the issue of climate change. Although these conversations ranged from identifying individual strategies to green one’s life, like changing the type of light bulbs you use and riding your bike to work, to the implementation of AB 32 & SB375, California’s 2006 Global Warming Solutions Act and supplemental 2008 Act to promote sustainable development, the one thing that was clear from all of these conversations is that the time to act on issues of climate change is now. I’m not sure if it was the image of the polar bear latched on to an ice cube in the Arctic or the data presented that shows how communities of color disproportionately experience the negative impacts of climate change (like the impact of extreme weather change), what I do know is that after these meetings the urgency is very real. There were some speakers at these events that I found to offer useful tips and compelling arguments for this urgency, so I compiled a resource list readers could use to act now.

Asian Pacific Environmental Network: http://www.apen4ej.org/

Apollo Alliance: http://apolloalliance.org/

Blue Green Alliance: http://www.bluegreenalliance.org/

Communities for a Better Environment: http://www.cbecal.org/

Ella Baker Center for Human Rights: http://ellabakercenter.org/

Environmental Justice & Climate Change Initiative: http://www.ejcc.org/

International Rivers: http://internationalrivers.org/

Movement Generation: http://www.movementgeneration.org/