Mitchell Kapor Foundation Weblog

Hi everyone! It’s been an exciting couple of months in the world of Green Access to say the least. We’ve been planning for the Foundation’s 2010 roll-out, following the amazing work of our grant recipient organizations and partners like Green for All and Movement Generation fighting the good and hard fight for racially and economically just climate change solutions in Copenhagen, Denmark, and we had our end of the year convening documenting what works in the movement for green jobs, climate justice, and food security in low-income communities of color. We’ve been a busy bunch at the Foundation to say the least.

Our end of the year What Works! zero-waste convening was a great success with almost 100 participants, 3 panels, and 15 presentations from some of the nation’s leaders in building a racially and economically just green movement. The panels were rich reflections of on-going work in our neighborhoods, across our state, and throughout the country. On the local panel we heard from people like Adam Kruggel from Contra Costa Interfaith Supporting Community Organizing, which is organizing families to fight for a just green economy in Contra Costa County and Joshua Arce from Brightline Defense Project describing their strategies to shut down power plants throughout San Francisco.  On the regional panel we heard from Juliet Ellis from Urban Habitat describe the need to build political power by training our community leaders to run or be appointed to local and regional boards and commissions and Nikki Bas from the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy who has been working tirelessly to green our ports.  Our final presented the work of Nile Malloy from Communities for a Better Environment, which is working tirelessly  to extend local power to Sacramento in order to shape and inform California’s toxics exposure policy and  Jakada Imani from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights highlight the organization’s ability to inform and shape the State’s green jobs training program.  All in all, the day has been described as inspiring, innovative, and energizing.  In closing 2009 on such a high note, we are ready and waiting for the movement building and systems change to come in 2010.

Happy Holidays and we’ll see you next year!

Just returned from a full week on the East Coast, where I experienced weather-related lows and highs (24F in Washington and 86F in Miami) and attended two mightily impactful meetings.

The Funders Committee for Civic Participation winter convening was chock full o’ learning and strategizing opportunities. Yours truly had the honor and pleasure of not only attending my first meeting as a newly-elected member of the Steering Committee, but also chatting with Lani Guinier, our keynote speaker. Professor Guinier, now serving on the faculty of Harvard Law School, is a prolific academic and author. She is perhaps best (and unfortunately) known for being thrown under the bus by a panicky first-term Bill Clinton during hearings about her nomination as Assistant Attorney General.

Professor Guinier continues to challenge traditional thinking about race and power in the U.S. She spoke with this rapt audience about the “electocracy” and questioned whether our current electoral system truly allows for representation. Actually, it wasn’t that simple; her assertion is that there are precious few spaces for public discourse around determining policy issues. She cited promising examples in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and domestically, in Chicago with a collective budgeting process (and thanks, Professor, for emailing me the article!).

FCCP participants also heard and discussed much new information about a precipitous drop-off in potential participation in the mid-term elections. Many voters who were energized by last year’s presidential elections are turned off, burnt out, or simply not motivated to vote in 2010. A similar civic burnout may also hamper participation in the dicennial census, due to kick off in March. Both of these events – elections and the census – have huge implications for communities across the nation – redistricting and reapportionment of Congressional seats, budget allocations according to population shifts, governor-ships, and the President’s policy agenda.

Just when I thought we might have a little respite, 2010 promises to be a tough year. Kudos to FCCP for yet another stellar meeting of the minds. These opportunities for funders synch up are always valuable and serve our individual and collective work well.

I also had the great pleasure of attending the “Transformational Leadership Retreat” sponsored by the Open Society Institute and the Knight Foundation in Miami. Organized by and for OSI’s Campaign for Black Male Achievement grant recipient organizations, this three-day convening provided a forum for networking, reflecting, and most importantly, galvanizing around a common agenda for promoting efficient and effective work with black men and boys in programs throughout the nation.

After dodging a contamination scare, and without betraying any confidences from the conversation circle, I found it liberating to finally break the unspoken tension around the role of gender equity and inclusion in this work – namely, how do we appropriately and respectfully include women in this male-focused work? While we collectively recognize the importance of focusing on this very “endangered” demographic group, we also need to develop an appropriate gender lens – what do we mean, exactly, when we talk about “manhood”?

While the discussion was impassioned and even tense, it was a very necessary bridge to cross as we try to work together as a community to ensure better pathways and futures for young black men and their families, neigbhorhoods, and greater communities.

All in all, the trip was simultaneously terrific and sobering. And I got to wear shorts and a pea coat in the same week.

Hmm. Just came across this New York Times article, “Grab Bag of Charities Grows, Along with U.S. Tax Breaks.” The angle is that “Experts say nonprofits are skillfully exploiting the tax code’s broad and elastic definition of what constitutes such a charity…The $300 billion donated to charities last year cost the federal government more than $50 billion in lost tax revenue.”

I hadn’t before heard that kind of spin on nonprofit sector work, almost as if it’s detrimental to the economy (or am I taking the story too personally??). I’ll admit that I’m one of the folks who has occasionally wondered aloud if there are too many nonprofits – mostly small, local niche operations – for the sector to sustain them all. The flip side of the tremendous demand (last year we received an average of three inquiries/requests for every one grant made) and the “unusual” groups highlighted by the article (although doesn’t everybody know about the Sisters?)  is that people are taking the initiative to address areas of need. Seems rather like a red-blooded American truism: have a reasonably good idea to improve any particular plight? Roll up your sleeves, call your neighbors, and start a nonprofit. In other words, take action.

This article makes for an interesting discussion on the pros and cons of nonprofit entrepreneurialism. Please, discuss among yourselves.