Mitchell Kapor Foundation Weblog

Yes, it’s true that we’ve been falling off with our blog entries. As some of you have already heard first hand, we’re (hopefully) in the final stages of our program planning for 2010, which we started in earnest last July.

When this grantmaking program structure was launched in August 2007, we decided to learn about and participate in the respective program arenas, green justice and civic engagement, by meeting key players and supporting promising work by effective organizations. This learning process would allow us to evaluate our work and make better decisions about how to better target our resources and efforts for the long haul in the progressive movement. In trying to maintain the equilibrium between our capacity, our interests, and the revenue available for grantmaking and programs (which was cramped by the economic recession, of course), this may mean that we work with fewer organizations over time toward a commonly-identified goal. As a matter of fact, all of the supplementary research and thinking that we’ve done thus far supports that strategy. But our plan ain’t finished cookin’ yet.

By the beginning of December, we hope to have our 2010 program plans in place. Our three core program areas – Green Access, VoICE, and the College Bound Brotherhood – will stay the same. We will still have a general request for applications.  But we will most likely have other, deeper changes in store.

Please stay tuned and check back with us (via the website) in December about moving forward in 2010. We’re getting ready by spending more time planning and less time blogging!

(Artwork borrowed from thewritingloft.com)

Painting by Robert Shetterly, from his Americans Who Tell The Truth series

I went to bed last night and did that thing you’re never supposed to do in order to get a good night’s sleep: opened my laptop, went to the New York Times, and started poking around.

About half way down the page was the news of Van Jones’ resignation from the Obama Administration as the Special Adviser for Green Jobs. Within seconds of reading the article, the sad truth about the limits of this presidency became very, very real.  I met Van briefly when I first moved to Oakland in 2000 and our paths crossed numerous times as my great friend Zachary Norris deferred NYU law school because he was so inspired by the work of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights and the leadership Van offered.  Van is a true intellectual, an amazing orator, and the most down to earth human being you will ever meet.

Over the course of the last months, I’ve been a giggling skeptic of the power that Glenn Beck has over the state of American politics.  I imagined it to be peripheral, on the margins of American society, and at the end of the day powerless.  Today, I can’t help but think: What have we done?  As progressives, we have let one of our great leaders, activists, and thinkers fall and still the streets of Oakland, DC, and  New York are quiet.  As progressives, we continue to let the administration fall under the relentless scrutiny of Republicans and, worst yet, right-wing talking heads and assume that it will have little to no effect on the movement we worked so hard for.  What have we done?  And more importantly, what can we do to make sure this never happens again?

Can’t stop won’t stop: http://cantstopwontstop.com/blog/time-to-knuckle-up-on-van-jones-resignation/
Sierra Club: http://sierraclub.typepad.com/carlpope/2009/09/we-all-blew-it.htm

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!!

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/

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/

On Tuesday April 7th, we hosted over 50 nonprofits from throughout the Bay Area to learn more about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (aka The Stimulus) and the opportunities it offers their communities. Radhika Fox and Ruben Lizardo from PolicyLink presented an impressive overview of the stimulus and the opportunities nonprofits have to position themselves as drivers and advocates for stimulus dollars. Before listing out all of the resources available, here are some quick tips for nonprofits:

• Translate the equity principles, working models, and policy wins you have made through organizing into the standards and best practices for implementation of stimulus projects in your community and region.
• Insist that existing equity and environmental mandates are adhered to in implementation of stimulus-related programs.
• Take advantage of in-roads made in decision making at municipal, county, state, and federal levels.

And now to the goods, below you will find a list of supporting and supplemental documents and weblinks from the Stimulus 101 convening. The following documents can be found at www.mkf.org/grants/BlogDocuments.html:

• Bringing Home the Green Recovery
• Green Jobs Criteria
• Recommendation for Prevention & Wellness to Obama Administration
• Stimulus Resource List
• Environmental Justice & Stimulus Report and Recommendations
• Green for All Recovery Tool Kit
• Recommendations to Gavin Newsom
• Stimulus 101 Handout (PolicyLink Power Point for Stimulus 101)

Additionally, the following can be found on other sites:

• Environmental Justice & the Stimulus
• California Green Stimulus Coalition

.

Last Friday March 27th, Tiffany, Stephen, and I took a trip to the city of Richmond to hear about the amazing work and prospects of one of our grantees, Solar Richmond.  If you haven’t heard, Solar Richmond promotes and inspires the use of solar power and energy efficiency in order to bring the economic benefits of the green economy to the city of Richmond.  This organization, with the leadership and vision of Michele McGeoy, is at the forefront of  the green workforce development movement .  By providing training and leadership opportunities to city residents, they are transforming the face of the green movement to include  faces from communities of color and low income communities.

After a very informative presentation on the potential of establishing a solar grid in Richmond and the feasibility of putting solar panels on nonprofits throughout the Bay, we took a tour through their neighborhood on an amazing yellow bio-diesel bus.  We met participants whose lives were changed by the training program and opportunities provided by Solar Richmond.  “You know some of these folks come in here and say, ‘this is my second chance at a first class life’.”  That is how Program and Training Manager Angela Greene described the impact of Solar Richmond’s work.  There was the Richmond job seeker seeking to expand her horizons, the single father from Seattle that got a late night call from his father in Detroit  and moved to Richmond to join the program, and the Floridian who came to Richmond to gain tools to take back to the sunshine state; all in all the program has been successful in drawing the attention of  job seekers, decision makers, and policy advocates across the country.  With a wait list of over 300, the program is in an amazing position to expand to a community, neighborhood, and city near you.