Mitchell Kapor Foundation Weblog

Looking for some food justice? How about a good fight for the planet? Or maybe seeking out a venue to hear your favorite activist or poet give a 20 minute talk? If your answer is yes to any of these, here go 3 places you should be at at in the next couple of months

Eat Real Food Festival

August 28-30, 2009

Jack London Square, Oakland, CA

Street food, fresh summer fruits and veggies, live music, handcrafted local beers, ice cream sold from the back of a bicycle. Come find it all and more at Eat Real, a free festival, taking place August 28-30 at Jack London Square. Buy from your favorite street food vendors, pick up a ticket for the Beer Shed and sample from among the 40-something microbrews, or shop in the Market for local produce and artisanal snacks. In between the good eats, enjoy the non-stop entertainment and activities that include chef demonstrations, dance performances, bands, films, food competitions, and lots more, for free

Proceeds from the event benefit People’s Grocery, La Cocina and Community Alliance with Family Farmers

Momentum 2009:

September 7-9, 2009

W Hotel, San Francisco, CA

Momentum brings together some of the world’s most innovative thinkers and dedicated activists to challenge, inspire, and energize each other. It’s a conference and it’s a community where ongoing connections are built between key social issues and strategies. Tides first convened Momentum in 2005 as a way to keep the energy and dialog from the 2004 elections open and productive. From that first gathering of donors, Momentum has evolved to embrace the larger Tides community in active, authentic dialog. In 2008, Momentum was re-envisioned with a unique format, placing the spotlight on innovative, emerging and challenging ideas while fostering collective experience. With each Momentum gathering, the forum expands and evolves to embrace a broader vision of community. Momentum’s engaging and brilliant speakers share their passion for new approaches to familiar problems, giving their most intriguing presentations in just 20 minutes.

Crude Screening

September 25- October 1, 2009

Landmark Lumiere, San Francisco, CA

Three years in the making, Crude is the epic story of one of the largest and most controversial environmental lawsuits on the planet. The inside story of the infamous “Amazon Chernobyl” case, Crude is a real-life high stakes legal drama, set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film subverts the conventions of advocacy filmmaking, exploring a complicated situation from all angles while bringing an important story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus.

The landmark case takes place in the Amazon jungle of Ecuador, pitting 30,000 indigenous and colonial rainforest dwellers against the U.S. oil giant Chevron. The plaintiffs claim that Texaco – which merged with Chevron in 2001 – spent three decades systematically contaminating one of the most biodiverse regions on Earth, poisoning the water, air and land. The plaintiffs allege that the pollution has created a “death zone” in an area the size of the Rhode Island, resulting in increased rates of cancer, leukemia, birth defects, and a multiplicity of other health ailments. They further allege that the oil operations in the region contributed to the destruction of indigenous peoples and irrevocably impacted their traditional way of life. Chevron vociferously fights the claims, charging that the case is a complete fabrication, perpetrated by “environmental con men” who are seeking to line their pockets with the company’s billions.

IN OTHER NEWS!

Carmen and I (Tiffany) attended CompassPoint’s Nonprofit Day today.  It was an exciting day that started out with an inspiring opening plenary by Benjamin Jealous, CEO of the NAACP.  Ben got everyone even more jazzed about movement building with strong statements about being clear about our convictions, being clear about who shares our conviction, and always trying to act like ‘converts’ who are passionate about the causes we’re working for.  My favorite quote from his speech was about Ben’s pastor who said, “Success is going from failure to failure without lack of enthusiasm.”  Now THAT’S conviction!!

I also listened to a strong panel of experts who also spoke about movement building, learned about how to build coaching into my communication with colleagues and others, and many other hot topics.  If you went to the event, I hope you gained some great networks and kernels of wisdom just like I did!

See you at the next event!!

Check out the guest commentary in Philanthropy News Digest by yours truly (with input and inspiration from Freada Kapor): Make a  Socially Responsible Investment in Young Black Men.

Our society’s deeply-ingrained disregard for young black men, especially low-income brothas, continues to stun me. I saw a 40-something man in the BART station with a “Thug Life” tattoo – amidst the collars and creases of the Financial District commuters – and thought “Is that what you really believe about your self-worth, bro?”

We can do better, and we need to do something. Many things. Now.

This last Wednesday, August 19th, I joined the family members and friends of the Supportive Housing Employment Collaborative’s (SHEC) Recycling Interns to recognize their success in completing their program. If you haven’t heard of the SHEC or their training programs… stop reading and look them up right now. They are at truly at the forefront of the green jobs movement! Over the course of a three-month paid internship, formerly homeless individuals work with staff and mentors to learn about the 4 R’s (reduce, reuse, recycle, and rot) and work in their individual buildings and in city-wide events to expand recycling and increase waste diversion throughout San Francisco.

The recycling program is just one of the SHEC’s employment readiness and job training programs. They also provide previously homeless individuals with multiple barriers to entry into the labor market with a set of wrap around services, which include counseling, retention and placement services, and adult education and GED preparation. Their success rate is outstanding. In 2008, they served 261 people:

• Over 75 percent of those who enrolled in a job training or education program graduated.
• 71 percent of graduates were placed into permanent employment.
• 65 percent maintained employment for three or more months.
• 90 formerly homeless individuals were placed into permanent employment in the last year.

As we continue to see the growth of the green jobs movement, it is important that we include those in our community that are so often forgotten and remember what Van Jones has so often noted: “As the new ‘clean and green’ economy emerges, there will be countless opportunities for people to improve their work, wealth, and health. Those opportunities must be made available to everyone–especially those people who have found opportunities so hard to come by in the pollution-based economy… If not, it will be tainted by the same racial and class stratification that has for so long prevented America from fulfilling its promise of freedom.” The SHEC is the first step towards green jobs for everyone.

Mitchell Kapor Foundation grantee’s have been on the move this summer. The work of VoICE and Green Access grantees has come together through the national Green the Block campaign . On August 4th, Green For All and the Hip Hop Caucus announced the launch of their new partnership ‘to educate and mobilize communities of color to ensure a voice and stake in the clean-energy economy’. The four pillars of the Green The Block campaign are:

• Education and awareness
• Legislative advocacy
• Youth activism
• Private-sector development

These organizations are working together because they understand that a clean energy economy can address both the crisis of poverty and pollution and we agree. Congratulations Green for All and Hip Hop Caucus for your leadership in our communities!

IN OTHER NEWS, Compasspoint’s Nonprofit Day is just around the corner!  It’ll be held on August 27th at the San Francisco Hilton.  NAACP (one of our grantees) CEO, Ben Jealous, will be the keynote speaker at the conference, and there will be numerous opportunities to learn about nonprofit leadership, movement building, and how to cope during these difficult economic times.  Plus, there are always great networking opportunities at this event.  If you haven’t registered already, do it fast!!  Registration fees increase after August 14th!!  See you there!

Looking back, 2009 will be remembered as a critical moment in the movement towards a greener, leaner, and cleaner U.S.  Whether we are looking to Michelle Obama’s garden and the growing understanding of why fresh, local, and organic matters or the Cash for Clunkers program, which trades old fuel inefficient cars and replaces them fuel efficient vehicles, this presidential administration has been making moves in the greening of the economy, our society, and our communities.  A critical part of this move has been the introduction and partial passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES).

On June 26, 2009, ACES passed the U.S. House of Representatives.  A critical force in the passage of ACES has been Green for All, which has insured that the act benefits low income communities and communities of color as well as the environment. By linking environmental protection with economic revitalization, Green for All has called for wide-spread support of the act for two reasons. First, it allows the government to  take immediate action to repair our deteriorating atmosphere.  And second, this bill takes a first step not just towards a green economy, but also towards a fair economy.

Recognizing that the bill is limited in its ability to address the issues of emissions reduction and has created an incentive market that could be manipulated by heavy polluters, Green for All has tried to push an equity framework into the act.  As a result the cleaning of the environment will happen hand in hand with the revitalization of low-income communities and communities of color.  The two additions offered by Green for All are the inclusion of direct funding for the Green Jobs Act, which will provide training and employment opportunities to individuals with multiple barriers to entry into the labor market.  The second addition is community-benefit requirements to ACES.  They argue that by ‘mandating that well-trained, local, low-income workers perform a certain amount of the work on ACES-funded construction projects, we can guarantee that these projects do not just improve the local environment, but also invest in the local economy’.

Although the bill is not a panacea for addressing environmental and equity issues, we are definitely making moves towards having low income communities and communities of color breathe cleaner air and access to quality jobs.

Act Language: http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2454/show

Green for All: http://www.greenforall.org/