Mitchell Kapor Foundation Weblog

A couple of months ago we invited Annie Leonard to our offices to present her amazing project of the Story of Stuff. Through a creative vehicle of live animation, Annie has transformed how people around the globe understand global production & consumption, the climate change debate, the environmental impact of bottled water, and now the industrial undersight of the cosmetics industry and the impact that lax regulation has had on the well-being of millions of people.

This past week her work was featured in the Los Angeles Times.  Throughout the article, “Telling Science with Cartoons” the author highlights the new approach to addressing the pressing issues of climate change and rampant consumerism.  In short, we are way beyond the droll power point presentations and yawn inducing data points, we are in a new moment of popular science brought to you be engaging and relevant narratives.  What is missed in the article is a deeper level of work that is happening through the efforts of activists 2.0.  She is not only opening up a scientific and economic discussion to millions of participants, she is also doing the work that many of our newspapers have forgotten how to do in the last 15 years: investigate the critical issues facing people and the environment and offer insight into the sources of these issues.  She is not only educating through animation, she is informing a popular debate about some of the most critical issues facing everyone and making sure that we can all actively engage in that debate with meaningful information.

I was an open skeptic of this year’s US Social Forum.  I crossed my arms and huffed when anyone mentioned it.  I imagined an event teetering between Woodstock and the WTO protests in Seattle and although I loved Seattle, I wanted to make sure I stayed good and far away from Woodstock 2010.   I’m working on respecting process and consensus and folks in my life will emphasize the work part of that sentence.  After meeting with Tammy Lu from the Labor Community Strategy Center and cajoling from our own Mario Lugay, I landed in Detroit last Tuesday at 2am.

Detroit reminded me of the landscape in dystopic science fiction movies. While walking though the city Sadiyah Seraaj from the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy said that it looked like a city that was once vibrant and in a moment of crisis everyone stopped what they were doing and ran through the streets and out of Detroit.  So imagine this background, with  30,000 people from across the country meeting to build a national movement for social justice.  It was just amazing.  I visited amazing farms and gardens, connected with restaurant and domestic workers, and saw the future of movement building in this country.  

We’re very proud to share that our own Carmen Rojas has been tapped to serve on the EPA’s Environmental Education Training Program Task Force, one of five people in the *nation* to serve in this capacity!! The task force is charged with reviewing education materials that are developed and distributed to low income communities on pressing environmental issues. Many congrats to Carmen for representing community interests at the local, state, and federal levels!

Over the last couple of years the city of Oakland has become home to numerous blogs discussing the pressing political, community, and economic issues of the day.  These include Oakland Focus, A Better Oakland, Oakland Local, and Living in the O.  These blogs provide a much needed space for everyday people in the city to connect to each other, engage in city life, and sadly fill the space of our lacking newspaper.  I have to admit that I have mixed feelings about citizen journalism- on the one hand I think they provide an important look into how different people live and experience the city and on the other I feel like they too often mistake commentary with in depth journalism.

That said, last week I was invited to be a guest on OaklandSeen and had a great conversation with Aimee Allison on the state of Oakland.  We had an interesting conversation on issues ranging from the city’s gang injunction to economic development opportunities for the city’s long term residents.  Listen HERE and let us know what you think.

BP’s trial and error approach to cap the unmanageable oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is damaging more than just BP’s financial outlook.  The oil spill has leaked between 19.7 million and 43 million gallons, according to government estimates.  BP will undoubtedly recover financially from what is being considered the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, but unfortunately this disaster may render irreversible damages to the environment and an economic trade that is supplemented by natural resources.

While wildlife will suffer the most visible effects of this calamity, those who inhabit the coastal lands of Louisiana will have to endure the economic and environmental effects associated with this spill, most notably Native Americans.  For many of these coastal tribes, fishing is a big part of life.  For the Pointe Aux Chenes Tribe, who resettled in the Louisiana marsh lands after being forced from their lands more than a century ago, seafood is not only a big part of their dietary intake, but also their primary export.  Having little to no resources to combat the spill and hurricane season approaching, the tribe, along with many other coastal inhabitants, is in great danger of having a low surplus of food for the upcoming months and potentially suffering from water contamination.

This spill is a call for government to become more active in pursuing alternative ways to attain oil and, more importantly, invest more money in developing a green energy plan that focuses on renewable energy sources.  But until the government puts talk into action, organizations across the country need to continue being vocal about environmental issues and the benefits associated with going green.  In addition, society must become more cognizant that low-income communities of color are suffering at a disproportionate rate from environmental injustice.  Our Green Access program at the Mitchell Kapor Foundation seeks to create meaningful opportunities for low-income communities of color thus ensuring fairness and sustainability.  Every community, regardless of class or race, should be afforded green and sustainable living, free from financial exploitation from large corporations.

photo source: Micheal Murphy, Examiner.com

We’ve just completed a process to identify new key partner organizations. And while the bulk of our funding will support this cohort, I want to reiterate to the broader community that we are still able to consider quarterly grant requests for special opportunities and efforts like convenings and tech-related work.

If you’re interested in learning more, please feel free to check out our regularly-updated guidelines (or keep reading the blog) and contact us to discuss your ideas.

Who would have thought the days of 2010 could go by so fast? It’s already February and we’re in the midst of a convening frenzy at the Foundation.  We are planning a number of really exciting convenings and conferences and to kick them off, we are sponsoring a fundraiser for Art in Action featuring Van Jones and Phaedra Ellis-Lampkins from Green for All.  Art in Action empowers youth leaders by engaging arts for social change through personal, social, political, and cultural education. They work collectively with youth from diverse historically disenfranchised communities impacted by violence through programs in music, media arts, spoken word/poetry, dance/theater, storytelling, and painting.  2009 was a great year for Art in Action as they were able to rehabilitate an office space and transform it into an amazing Green Youth Arts Media Center.  With support from the Mitchell Kapor Foundation as well as from the Pea Pod Foundation, they opened the doors this January to a space with recording studios, dance space, and a community garden.

This fundraiser is to make sure they are able to keep their doors open through 2010.  Since we recognize these are hard economic times and $200 maybe too steep for interested individuals, a number of tickets will be held at a discounted price.

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!

Hi there! It’s been a booming and bustling couple of months with trips to Alaska and Washington DC, planning for next year, and making sure that all of our ts are crossed before we let go of yet another year. On the Green Access front, we’ve had an amazing couple of months.

I was lucky to work with a couple of amazing leaders in social justice philanthropy to pull together a panel for this year’s Environmental Grantmakers Association (EGA) convening in Anchorage, Alaska. The panel titled, “Broadening the Base: Redefining Environmentalism in the Age of Ecological and Economic Crisis” featured the work of amazing leaders from WeAct from New York, Power U from Miami, and the Indigenous Environmental Network from Arizona. The panel was a great reflection on how low-income communities of color are building power to address these pressing issues. That same month, I contributed a journal article to the EGA journal titled, “Minding the Justice Gap: Bay Area Collaborations Offer a Model for Hard Times”, which you can find here.

Last week I was in Washington, D.C. with an amazing collaborative of funders at the 10th anniversary Health and Environmental Funders Network meeting. The meeting offered a rich learning environment and an opportunity to connect with progressive funders that are building bridges between climate change, community health, reproductive justice, and food security. The highlight of the meeting was learning about the Cleveland Green Co-op model, which has been an amazing engine for economic development, a solid pathway out of poverty, and a hands-on strategy to fight climate change.

This weekend is the Green Festival. If you haven’t been, you really can’t miss it! Its three days filled with the best in green with more than 150 renowned speakers and 400 green businesses, this event is great for everyone, so get out there and fight the green fight!