When Stockton’s community organizations first mapped out a behind-the-scenes tour of the reinvention of their city, the route and the accomplishments it featured would easily have taken several days to traverse.
Join Moss Adams, RBC Wealth Management and Philanthropy California for a Not-for-Profit Education Series event featuring Rick Cole, Supervising Project Manager for the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).
The changing demographics and political attitudes of the Central Valley - a traditionally conservative region of California - demand new strategies for community and civic engagement.
Tuesday, April 9, 2019
Optional Pre-Session - Census 101: 10:00 - 11:00 a.m.
Program: 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
The California Endowment 2000 Franklin Street, Oakland
Californians will head to the polls to decide on a ballot measure that could drive more money to education.
What practices help buy ourselves up amid continued suffering, outsized need, and needless violence and put our shoulders behind possibility, transformative movements, and new connection? How do we maintain steadiness and clear-sightedness about the steps toward a future worth living?
In philanthropy, we sometimes overlook or deprioritize the interpersonal skills required to do this work well. This includes the ability to connect dots, show up in an emotionally intelligent way, listen actively and empathically, and know when to get out of the way. It also requires a clear understanding of power, and how power imbalances between funders and grantee partners are exacerbated by race, gender, and class inequities. Cultivating and advancing effective interpersonal skills requires practitioners to bring self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, and willingness to take multiple perspectives into account.
The work we do in philanthropy—and the work of our nonprofit partners—is not immune to the complexities and chaos of a changing world. Amidst a global pandemic, threats to our democracy, and environmental devastation, we are pushed to be hyperproductive problem-solvers. While these tendencies are brought to bear “in the heat of the moment,” they’re limiting over the long-term, especially when strategic thinking and attuned sensitivities are needed. We cultivate the latter by slowing down, stilling our minds, getting in touch with signals from our body, and allowing the resulting data to inform our action. Beneath our professional titles and roles, trust-based philanthropy acknowledges that we are one piece of a longer arc of time and a larger ecosystem, and that sometimes, we have to go slowly if we want to go far.
A stronger, more just California becomes possible when every Californian, regardless of what they look like or how long they’ve been here, can shape the future of our state. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, around 80% of California’s registered voters voted, the highest since 1964.
Trust-based philanthropy is anchored in an understanding of power and privilege, historical and systemic racism and structural oppression, and how these shape people’s realities in profoundly different ways. As grantmakers, we have a responsibility to confront the reality that philanthropy originated from and has often contributed to systemic inequities, both in the ways wealth is accumulated and its dissemination is controlled. While these discussions may be challenging and difficult, this type of self-reflection is fundamental to the work of trust-based philanthropy. As individuals and institutions, we must be willing to recognize historical trauma and systemic power, examine our own relationship to power and money, and be willing to give up some of that power and control in a spirit of service and collaboration with those who are closer to the issues at hand.
Trust-based philanthropy encourages us to rethink our notions of traditional philanthropic roles, which tend to prioritize transactions over relationships. In fact, a trust-based approach encourages us to understand our roles as partners working in service of nonprofits and communities. Traditional Philanthropy has institutionalized and perpetuated harmful tropes about funders as experts and nonprofits as needy people who need to be held accountable. This has been perpetuated institutionally through our grantmaking practices, but also in less obvious ways, such as job descriptions, theories of change, program descriptions, and the language we use to describe our work.
Addressing Community Needs and Resilience Arising from Drought, Extreme Heat, and Wildfires | Part 3
Discussion theme: Enhancing Wildfire Mitigation in Low-Income Neighborhoods
Addressing Community Needs and Resilience Arising from Drought, Extreme Heat, and Wildfires | Part 4
Discussion theme: Climate and Disaster Resilience with California’s Tribal Communities
Communities across the country – especially those continuing to struggle with economic and health impacts from the pandemic – are hoping to access part of the billions of dollars in economic recovery dollars deployed to support economic recovery.
With more than 30 new state legislators taking office in Sacramento, a $25 billion budget shortfall projected by the Governor, and the looming threat of recession, 2023 presents significant changes and challenges for those of us in the charitable sector working to support vulnerable Californians throughout the state. Get your bearings for the year to come! Join the California Policy Forum and a slate of in-the-know speakers for an overview of the changing political and economic landscape in our state.
In 2019 Stockton SEED was the first ever Mayoral led city-wide guaranteed income pilot in the country, eventually leading to the creation of Mayor’s for Guaranteed Income (MGI). Now numbering over 100+ cities around the country, MGI helped catalyze the newly formed Counties for Guaranteed Income (CGI), which will work at the county level across the country to ensure that all Americans have an income floor.