The Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE) is a multiyear project intended to increase the amount and effectiveness of resources aimed at combating institutional and structural racism in communities through capacity building, education, and convening of grantmakers and grantseekers.
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March 27, 2012 East Lansing, MI
State of Opportunity: The Road Ahead for Michigan; Council of Michigan Foundations
Making the Case for Change in Michigan
To explore the state of opportunity and equity in Michigan, particularly as it relates to the P-20 Continuum (prenatal care through age 20) and ways that grantmakers and others are working to expand opportunity and equity.
Jocelyn Sargent, Program Officer, W. K. Kellogg Foundation
Panelists:
Amber Arellano, Executive Director, The Education Trust-Midwest
Karen Holcomb-Merrill, Policy Director, Michigan League of Human Services
James Vander Hulst, President/CEO, West Michigan TEAM
Marianne Udow-Phillips, Director, Center for Health Care Research & Transformation, University of Michigan and former director, Michigan Department of Human Services
Moderator: Lori Villarosa
March 24-26, 2012 Seattle, WA
Professionals Learning About Community, Equity & Smart Growth (PLACES) Program of the Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities [By invitation only for PLACES Fellows]
March 24:An Attempt to Unwind Institutional Racialization: Race and Social Justice in Grantmaking and the Seattle Race and Social Justice Initiative
Seattle's Race and Social Justice Initiative (RSJI) is a citywide effort led by the Seattle Office of Civil Rights and an interdepartmental team of City staff to realize the vision of racial equity by eradicating its biggest barrier: institutional racism.
Discussing grantmaking trends and tools to address race and social justice and provide tangible examples of how PLACES fellows can deepen a focus on racial justice within their grantmaking and community activities.
Presenters and workshop guides:
Glenn Harris, Director, RSJI
Lori Villarosa
March 25: How Grantmakers and Local Non-profits Work to Implement Racial Equity in Seattle: Panel of Grantmakers in Race and Smart Growth Areas
Understand how grantmakers and local non-profits define the area of equity and smart growth, how they define a strategy for a solution and how funding is shaped to address the issues - or might be in the future.
Panelists:
Zeke Spier, Executive Director, Social Justice Fund NW
Estella Ortega, Executive Director, El Centro de La Raza
Heidi Hall, Impact Capital, head of the Equity Caucus for the Sustainable Communities program in King County
Vu Le, Executive Director, Vietnamese Friendship Association
Dustin Washington, AFSE, Tyree Scott Leadership School
Moderator: Lori Villarosa
For full details on all events, visit our news page.
March 19, 2012 San Antonio, TX
Grants Managers Network Annual Conference
Incorporating Diversity into Grantmaking
Integrating diversity is a hot topic in philanthropy. Countless initiatives and programs seek to ensure grantmakers are meeting the needs of all communities. How can you track and evaluate the diversity of your current and potential grantees, and what systems need to be in place to ensure that you meet your organization's goals around diversity? This session will build on the knowledge of grants managers and highlight the unique role that grants management plays in data collection, management, and analysis.
Speakers
Bryan Glover, Communications Officer, Funders for LGBTQ Issues
Lori Villarosa
March 16, 2012 Columbus, OH
Transforming Race 2012
Race and the Future of Social Justice Philanthropy
Looking ahead 30 years, we can imagine a future in which significant advances have been made to achieve racial justice. What might those advances be? What role has philanthropy played in getting us there? What kind of strategic partnerships might be formed with funders in alliance with racial justice efforts? Where should leadership originate? How might philanthropy engage with the broad field of organizations, leaders and networks to help build powerful campaigns that could win changes in structural racism? A panel of racial justice funders will explore these and other questions and invite conference participants to share their perspectives as well. This session intends to create the outline of a plan that might deepen the impact of philanthropy in achieving racial justice.
Session leaders:
Lori Villarosa; James Gore,Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation; Archana Sahgal, Open Society Foundations; Alvin Starks, Kellogg Foundation; Meg Gage, Proteus Fund, facilitator
January 20th, 2012 Seattle, WA
Governing for Racial Equity
The daylong event will be an opportunity to deepen skills in promoting inclusion, diversity and racial justice and to build institution's ability to address racial equity. The conference is a networking opportunity for all government employees and officials. The event is hosted by the City of Seattle Race and Social Justice Initiative (RSJI). More information on RSJI and an event flyer can be found at www.seattle.gov/rsji or call 206-255-7556.
Plenary:Working with Government for Racial Equity
What are the challenges in working with government, and what are the opportunities for partnering?
Participants:
Kalpana Krishnamurthy, Gender Justice and RACE Program Director, Western States Center, and PRE Advisory Board Member
Dustin Washington, Community Justice Program Director AFSC and People's Institute Northwest Trainer
Lori Villarosa
Workshop:Structural Racism: Measuring Racial Equity
What is structural racism, and how do we measure progress toward structural equity?
Kalpana Krishnamurthy and Lori Villarosa will be facilitating and coordinating this presentation.
Webinar
This webinar addresses challenges, offers examples of current evaluative efforts, and shares suggestions to help us ask the right questions from various roles of community activist, advocate, researcher, or funder.
Presenters
Michelle Fine, Distinguished Professor,The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Rinku Sen, Executive Director, Applied Research Center and Colorlines Magazine
Maya Wiley, Executive Director,Center for Social Inclusion
Coordinated and moderated by PRE's Lori Villarosa
We are pleased to announce the publication of A Continuing Dialogue, Mobilizing Community Power to Address Structural Racism an introduction to the fourth volume of a series that aims to deepen the discourse around important progressive racial justice issues within philanthropy. Community organizing, civic participation and racial justice work have all evolved significantly in recent years as faster and more widespread changes have occurred in all realms of our society. While the changes may be well-known and understood within their own spheres, like so much of the nonprofit and funding worlds, even when there is clear reason for overlap, we often find ourselves in completely separate rooms and conversations. The challenge is to craft strategies to integrate these efforts so that a racial justice lens and focus on structural change can gain traction throughout our social justice movements.
Toward this end, PRE invited a number of leading community organizers and activists to engage in a daylong discussion to explore the intersections of work on structural racism, community organizing and civic participation, raising key opportunities, challenges and questions for peers and funders to consider further. We hope that the following highlights from the meeting, along with some additional observations raised by some of PRE's board members, help jump start your own thinking and discussions about this moment and what supports are needed to strengthen the integration of these approaches with a structural racism analysis to improve outcomes for all. This brief publication previews our upcoming Critical Issues Forum, Volume 4, which will share direct essays and interviews from a range of community activists delving more deeply into the issues raised here.
Save the Date for The Applied Research Center (ARC)'s,2012 Facing Race National Conference ; November 15-17, 2012-Baltimore, Maryland. Funders are encouraged to both attend and to consider supporting travel scholarships for their grantees to attend the largest national, multi-racial gathering of leaders, educators, journalists, and activists on racial justice. ARC Executive Director Rinku Sen is a PRE Advisory Board Member.
Western States Center, where PRE Advisory Board Member Kalpana Krishnamurthy is the Gender Justice Program and RACE Program Director, has renamed its signature community training event from CSTI (Community Strategic Training Initiative) to AMP (Activists Mobilizing for Power). AMP's work is about getting voices heard, to amplify the stories and challenges that communities face. AMP is a unique three-day training and networking event for community-based leaders, staff, and volunteers of groups organizing for justice in the West that has been going on for over 20 years.
PRE Advisory Board Member, Makani Themba with The Praxis Project, published Fair Game:A Strategy Guide for Racial Justice Communications in the Obama Era; The Praxis Project, May 2009. A workbook-style guide designed to help racial justice advocates navigate new political waters. Through case studies, planning tools, and the latest research, Fair Game invites readers to explore proven strategies that offer promise for future success, and to consider what we must do over the long term to regain lost ground.
Keith Lawrence, of the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change and a PRE Advisory Board Member, recently edited Race, Crime and Punishment: Breaking the Connection in America. With essays by Michelle Alexander, Eric Cadora, Blake Emerson, Ian Haney Lopez, Marc Mauer, Alan Mobley, Alice O'Connor, Jonathon Simon and Phil Thomson, the book examines the linkage of race, crime, and punishment in the public mind, and offers strategies for reducing the severe racial disproportionalities in the criminal justice system.
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PRE commends Funders for LGBTQ Issues for its recently released Common Vision Guide to Structural Change Grantmaking . It is intended to help foster conversations and contribute to the building of resources and tools about grantmaking that advance fundamental change in society. PRE was pleased to be among the co-sponsoring partners and advisory committee members for the Common Vision Project, and we encourage grantmakers to share reactions as this interactive web-based tool seeks to grow and evolve.