Ford Foundation

Lessons from America’s pastime: Support organized labor

Richard Zuluaga — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 13:00:00 +0000

A year ago, professional baseball made some welcome and overdue decisions. No, not the pitch clocks or larger bases introduced last season, but a more meaningful change off the field. The true home run came from the players themselves, who, by tipping their caps to organized labor—another great national institution—were able to change America’s game for the better.

The Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA), the union for Major League players, expanded last year to represent the 5,500 Minor Leaguers coming up through the player-development system, where many of this year’s MLB draft picks started their careers. And last April, through the power of collective action, team owners and the newly-formed Minor League bargaining unit ratified their first-ever collective bargaining agreement, finally addressing the unjust conditions at the underbelly of America’s pastime.

For decades, a broken minor league system left players living below the poverty line, sleeping five or six to a room, working multiple off-season jobs, and skipping meals to make ends meet. The standard Minor League salary was less than $15,000 and as little as $5,000, making these athletes some of the most poorly compensated workers in the United States. They often had to uproot their lives for baseball, breaking leases and incurring debt for mid-season moves. These conditions often depleted players not only for a season or two but sometimes for their entire career.

And, as they so often do, these hardships fell hardest on players of color—especially Spanish-speaking players from Latin America, living and working far from their families. When a Dominican player’s wife gave birth and he couldn’t afford a plane ticket home, teammates passed a hat so he could meet his daughter.

Beyond low wages and poor living conditions, players struggled with an uncertainty shared by too many workers in our economy. They were isolated from colleagues on small-town farm teams and perpetually at risk of alienating the clubs and owners who controlled their destinies. With few resources and little recognition, they had only one recourse: unionization. Former Double-A pitcher-turned-labor lawyer Garrett Broshuis, catcher and vlogger Matt Paré, and other leaders took up the cause, making their case player-by-player for forming a league-wide team for labor rights, until the rumblings swelled from batting cages and travel buses into an industry-wide roar.

As a veteran of organized labor and the leader of a foundation that champions workers’ rights, we both recognized the players’ cause as our own and were proud to follow their courageous lead, respectively helping fund and found Advocates for Minor Leaguers. With funding from the Ford Foundation and seed money from the MLBPA, the nonprofit hired an executive director, a Spanish-speaking organizer to facilitate player outreach, and a communications director to amplify their stories. Advocates appeared in news coverage and organized protests, raising awareness and generating public sympathy; then, with fans and Major League players in their corner, they finally shifted the balance of power and won union recognition. At a critical moment, the MLBPA entered the picture, throwing its weight and resources into organizing the Minor League players into the MLBPA, making MLBPA their exclusive representative.

As a result, Minor League salaries have doubled and tripled in many cases, fairer meal and transportation standards have been negotiated, and some Minor Leaguers now have access to their own bedrooms while on the road, while players with spouses and children receive special accommodations.

While Minor League Baseball’s move towards unionization played out in dugouts and on diamonds, similar stories are unfolding in kitchens, on farms, and throughout countless other workplaces across America. Whether or not we directly interact with these workers, we all benefit from their labor, and we all bear a responsibility to use whatever power and privilege we hold—our dollars as funders and consumers, our attention, our advocacy—on their behalf.

In baseball, we see a blueprint for recognizing injustice and building coalitions to correct it—for listening to workers and following their lead, amplifying their voices, and joining in the fight for a just economy that honors their dignity and values their contributions.

The Minor Leaguers won a major victory that can make the dream of playing in the big leagues more sustainable to hold onto, but their work goes on, and so does ours. While they continue to push for better conditions, they also took an unprecedented step: offering to return unused funds they received from the Ford Foundation. The players wanted to pay forward the support they received, recognizing that others need it even more. So this baseball season and beyond, let’s all take a signal from these courageous leaders and build a fairer economy that works for everyone.

Darren Walker is the president of the Ford Foundation, and Bill Fletcher Jr. is a founder of Advocates for Minor Leaguers.

Related Grantees

Advocates for Minor Leaguers, Inc.

The post Lessons from America’s pastime: Support organized labor appeared first on Ford Foundation.

Investing in change: Why we must support women and gender-diverse leaders

Richard Zuluaga — Fri, 12 Apr 2024 14:28:24 +0000

When it comes to the most urgent challenges humanity faces today—from climate change to digital safety to economic inequality—effective solutions must include women and gender-diverse leaders across all areas of society. The numbers don’t lie: There are tremendous advantages to doing so, and equally large costs to bear if we don’t.

Let’s look at Sweden, an international leader in employment gender parity. Research shows that if the rest of the world’s nations increased their female employment rates to match Sweden’s, the global GDP would rise by 12% annually, up $6 trillion. But unfortunately, we don’t yet live in that world; financial inequality runs distressingly deep around the globe. Women still earn an average 23% less than men, which translates to a global loss of $160.2 trillion in human capital wealth annually. That’s a staggering amount of money not reaching workers, not supporting individuals and families, and not being put back into the economy. When we’re still over 100 years away from closing the global gender gap, and 140 years from women having equal representation in leadership positions in the workplace, it’s an incalculable loss.

Just as we cannot uplift any society or nation without acknowledging how deep financial inequality runs, we cannot hope to solve the issues plaguing our world without considering the specific ways these problems affect women—aka half the world’s population. Any strategy that considers an issue as a monolith, without evaluating its interconnected circumstances, is doomed to fail.

Fortunately, women and gender-diverse leaders are rising around the world, joining together to uplift each other and create real change. Through their collective efforts, these movements are shaping more just economic and democratic systems, but much more is needed. Delivering gender justice, and creating an environment where it can be achieved, takes all of us. One can make every economic or practical case for gender justice, but a society must be structured and stable enough to support it—and in this tumultuous era, as women experience different forms of oppression and violence, this remains a pressing challenge.

“Delivering gender justice, and creating an environment where it can be achieved, takes all of us.”

At the Ford Foundation, we believe that gender equality is the unfinished business of the 21st century, and that everyone wins when social justice leaders emphasize the needs and experiences of women and gender-diverse people. We also believe that, as a global community, we all suffer when their needs are not met. That’s why we are focusing on gender-conscious solutions in our work and considering the ramifications of gender injustice in our grantmaking. And we are also working with mindfulness of how race, gender, disability, and geography can create systems of compounded marginalization for people.

In every sector we support, from civic engagement and government to technology justice and disability rights to a just future for workers, we are incorporating strategies to end gender inequality—instead of addressing gender inequality as an afterthought. In this cross-programmatic strategy, we take our cues from many of our exceptional grantee partners and their enduring commitment to elevating the leadership of women and people of color across sectors, centering diverse gender perspectives, and more.

This approach is especially effective when institutions support women and gender-diverse leaders from the Global South. Dejusticia—a Colombian social justice research, policy, and advocacy organization—works to establish international rubrics for what constitutes effective democracy, bringing an urgently needed perspective and avoiding the status quo of Global North-led activism for the southern hemisphere. The group has reaped many benefits from restructuring its senior leadership team to integrate broader, more diverse perspectives at their top levels. This meant assessing how their expectations of educational backgrounds and professional experience could be widened to bring in more gender-diverse candidates, as well as introducing new human resources practices to facilitate the participation of women in their workforce.

These efforts paid off quickly: With this new leadership, Dejusticia was able to bring fresh gender and racial justice perspectives to their research on the impact of drug policies and incarceration in Latin America. They also expanded their policy guides for decision makers on issues with specific effects on women, including care work and climate change.

Rukka Sombolinggi, secretary general, Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (AMAN) and co-chair of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities (GATC), speaks during the high-level event for Nature & People: From Ambition to Action.

Craig Barritt / Stringer | Getty

Another such pioneer in our network is Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara (AMAN), a coalition that advocates for land protections and sovereignty for over 2,000 Indigenous communities across Indonesia—more than 17 million people across 21 regional chapters. Recently, AMAN launched an ambitious leadership transition to elevate women leaders, and it was a complex process: It required adjustments of their bylaws and other organizational changes.

The results were profound: Rukka Sombolinggi, an Indigenous Toraja, was elected AMAN’s president, marking the first time that an Indigenous woman has led this powerful and far-reaching organization. AMAN now has new might to foreground the specific needs of women and children across all of their operations, resulting in a new educational campaign that tackles discrimination against Indigenous women and girls and a fund that works to fight human rights violations toward women and girls defending their land and territories. They have also created a new women’s division that has received its own operational funding, including from Ford.

Women Enabled International, a nonprofit that works at the intersection of disability rights and women’s rights, benefitted from diversifying their leadership, too. The Washington, D.C.-based organization works internationally to center women with disabilities inside the disability rights movement, a group of people that has been historically overlooked within the larger advocacy community. The group has also sought its leadership from the Global South, which has been pivotal in expanding reproductive justice programs for women and gender-diverse people and connecting these programs with the disability rights movement. These initiatives favor a community-centric safety approach, which requires a local understanding of those communities.

Our grantees and partners also know that the best way to achieve economic equality is to trust the women and gender-diverse leaders who know how to foreground those essential perspectives. By now, it’s clear that the global pay gap directly impacts a country’s GDP and correlates to women’s independence and bodily autonomy. Being paid less prevents women from being full contributors of society. JASS, an international organization that trains women to lead feminist movements in the Global South, emphasizes gendered analysis in all their processes. This includes the research for their policy briefs, the creation and distribution of their educational and training materials for building power, releasing white papers that study feminist perspectives in coalition-building, and more.

Jayne Jalakasi at a JASS campaign strategy session for the Our Bodies, Our Lives movement in Malawi.

JASS

Numun Fund, the first dedicated grantmaking organization for feminist tech, amplifies feminist perspectives on how the internet should be designed and governed. The fund works across the Global South to ensure that women in technology have access to the same opportunities as men, that women from the Global South are centered in global technology dialogues, and that policies that increase access to technology and/or mitigate harms of technology center the needs of women.

The Asia Floor Wage Alliance (AFWA) is a global labor and social organization led by women workers in the garment sector. The Alliance has used women-led strategies to set standards for working conditions of garment workers across global supply chains, culminating in the groundbreaking Dindigul Agreement to end gender-based violence and harassment on the shop floors producing for global fashion brands. AFWA’s historic cross-border living wage formulation for Asian garment workers is also the only women-centered formulation of its kind, and it unites gender and economic justice for decent worker wages in global supply chains.

Bangladeshi garment workers and other labor organization activists take part in a rally to mark May Day, or International Workers’ Day, in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

NurPhoto / Getty

The Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA) is a network of rural women’s movements, assemblies, grassroots organizations, unions, and federations across 10 countries in the Southern Africa region. It works to convene rural women and ensure their representation in international discussions, including the United Nations’ COP conference. RWA coordinates events and meetings alongside major global events in which these women have been historically excluded.

RWA holds annual schools in African feminist strategy for rural women, farmers, and producers, both young and old. In these, speakers present theories and organizing tactics in ways that are relevant to their audiences, while also incorporating and respecting these women’s existing expertise. In doing so, RWA educates and supports new feminist leaders, ultimately working together with them to return to traditional agricultural and farming practices that will help end ecological destruction and reduce climate change.

At Ford, we know that the fight to end all forms of inequality cannot succeed if we don’t keep the rights of women and gender-diverse people at the center of our conversations. It’s why we’ve supported so many organizations with these communities at the heart of their work, and why we knew it was essential to broaden our focus and see gender as inseparable from the many other forms of inequality. This is an evolution of our long investing in gender equality, which began in 1965 under the framework of women’s rights, and informed our support of such pioneering organizations as Planned Parenthood and the Global Fund for Women before also expanding to support LGBTQ+ rights. Simultaneously, in our grantmaking, we’ve supported organizations focused on issues like education, economic empowerment, legal justice, and more—though in these areas, we didn’t always consider how these issues can dovetail with gender inequality.

“At Ford, we know that the fight to end all forms of inequality cannot succeed if we don’t keep the rights of women and gender-diverse people at the center of our conversations. ”

Today, every program team at Ford is analyzing how power and gender dynamics affect their sectors, consulting leaders in communities who know these issues best, and making these lessons integral to their grantmaking strategies. We are establishing a set of metrics across the foundation to help us monitor our progress and the impact of our gender-focused work on the most affected communities. We’re working with partners to defend gender justice movements around the world, from protecting abortion rights to supporting gender-affirming healthcare for transgender people to ending gender-based violence.

The work to achieve gender equality is ever-changing, and requires us to be nimble; it also requires us to acknowledge when our tactics need to change. As we look to the future, we are committed to uplifting leaders around the world who are ending gender-based inequality, keeping gender at the heart of all our programs and strategies, and scrutinizing where it connects with other forms of injustice. Together, we can create a world where everyone lives in dignity and safety and realizes their fullest potential.

Related Grantees

Raising the bar: The social justice leaders making history at the Supreme Court

Richard Zuluaga — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 16:17:15 +0000

In the United States, a Supreme Court decision can have an instant, enormous impact on people across the country. It can shift the foundations of daily life and substantially change the rules of our communities.

Many times, Supreme Court decrees have supported great leaps in social justice: the unconstitutionality of separating children in public schools on the basis of race (Brown v. Board of Education, 1954), the constitutional right to abortion (Roe v. Wade, 1973), marriage equality for LGBTQ+ couples (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015). Rulings like these have narrowed inequality between people and uplifted underrepresented communities. They have helped spur progress around the world.

But sometimes, the Supreme Court makes an ideological shift backward, and pulls us all deeper into inequality along with it. This felt especially true in 2023, after the Court released a slew of decisions that challenged decades of civil rights advancements. From overruling the constitutional right to abortion one year shy of the 50th anniversary of Roe v. Wade to deciding that race cannot be considered as a factor in college admissions, the Court dismantled several long-established tenets of American society and added barriers in the paths of many people, including women and people of color.

In 2023, several of our grantee partners had front-row seats to history at the Court, as they were involved in cases that went before the justices. Here, these leaders tell us how they pursued their cases, what the outcomes were, and how the Court’s rulings have affected the work they are still doing tirelessly.

Aarti Kohli

Executive Director, Asian Law Caucus

The Asian Law Caucus is the first Asian American legal and civil rights organization in the United States.

Martin Klimek /Getty Images for Ford Foundation

Fighting for affirmative action

Even as the U.S. has become more multicultural and multiracial, the country’s educational systems have only become more racially segregated and unequal. Last summer, the Supreme Court’s majority ignored our long history and present reality of systemically denying people of color, particularly Black Americans, equal access to education.

Without race-conscious admissions and race-conscious policies, racial segregation will rise, disproportionately harming Black, Indigenous, Latine, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian, and Southeast Asian communities. Entire generations of talented students of color will be denied opportunities to grow, learn, and thrive.

With the other Asian American Advancing Justice affiliates, the Asian Law Caucus filed two amicus briefs in SFFA v. Harvard that detailed how Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities benefit from and support affirmative action and how eliminating race as a factor in college and university admissions programs would harm students of color.

Leading up to the decision, we also developed resources for other Asian American organizations across the country. We organized spokesperson trainings and helped groups find accurate, trustworthy legal analyses. A few weeks after the decision, the Asian Americans Advancing Justice affiliation organized a webinar, “Racial Solidarity and the Future of Educational Equity after SFFA,” which 85 organizations joined. It was a powerful and sobering moment as we all shared our resolve to keep fighting for educational equity and amplifying the voices of directly impacted students, families, and teachers.

Rebuking community divisions

In the early 1990s, renowned scholar Mari Matsuda gave a seminal speech at ALC called “We Will Not Be Used.” Those same prejudices and agendas Mari warned us about 30+ years ago are still active today. Eliminating race-conscious admissions at universities like Harvard and The University of North Carolina gives credence to the model minority myth, under the false premise that Asian Americans are harmed by race-conscious admissions, are not subject to racial injustice, and that all AAPI communities’ experiences are the same. Some political activists, after losing multiple cases challenging affirmative action using white plaintiffs, have explicitly sought out Asian Americans to carry out their thinly veiled agenda.

The same forces behind cases to dismantle race-conscious policies are also blocking our voting rights, enacting anti-immigrant land laws reminiscent of the 1920s, and stripping communities of color of the funding we need to pull through crises and care for our families. It’s part of an old playbook to divide communities of color in order to distract us from coming together to fight for the solutions we really need. But our communities see this for what it is.

Communities in alignment

The broad Asian and Pacific Islander community is the fastest-growing racial group in the U.S., but Asian Americans are often seen as perpetual foreigners. The resurgence of anti-immigrant laws, bans on ethnic studies, and political rhetoric scapegoating immigrants continues to impact Asian and Pacific Islander communities. As our population grows, we can expect more attacks on our civil rights and economic security.

But these challenges and setbacks are also galvanizing. They are showing people that power comes from working across communities of color, not fighting over crumbs. This moment demands what we have always done in struggles for racial justice: come together across races and with unwavering love for our common humanity.

Andy Marra

Executive Director, The Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund

The Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund works to end discrimination and achieve equality for transgender people, particularly those in vulnerable communities.

In 2024, the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund will merge with the National Center for Trans Equality to become Advocates for Trans Equality (A4TE). Marra will serve as A4TE’s chief executive officer.

Janine Namgung

Protecting transgender people

Recent anti-trans legislation has banned transgender people’s access to best-practice medical care, limited kids’ ability to do things like play sports with their friends, and more. All of them send the message to our young people that they are neither welcome nor safe to be themselves. Between 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, which ruled in favor of a wedding website designer who refused to service same-sex couples, and the Court’s affirmative action decision, the Court took sobering steps away from civil rights and equity.

The Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF) co-authored a friend-of-the-court brief in 303 Creative with four other national organizations. It urged the Supreme Court to affirm long standing precedent that preserves equal access to the commercial marketplace for all and warned that granting the unprecedented “free speech exemption” would lead to more discrimination.

Leveling the playing field

For more than 50 years, it has been a core American principle that any business that serves some must serve anyone without discrimination. The Supreme Court decided to ignore this crucial norm in a case carefully designed to create a new license to discriminate. Do not be fooled; this case was about far more than wedding websites for LGBTQ+ couples. This is the canary in the coal mine for those of us who are being targeted by hundreds of anti-trans bills this year and for other marginalized communities, too. These are efforts to chip away at our rights, little by little.

No one’s civil rights should depend on the state or zip code they live in. We need to level the playing field for everyone and guarantee that LGBTQ+ people have the same federal anti-discrimination protections that other Americans have.

A long-term lens

Progress may look different at this moment, but we are making gains. In Lange v. Houston County, a 2022 decision by a Georgia federal district court, TLDEF secured the first court ruling of its kind in the South that found employers cannot exclude or deny coverage for transgender health care from its employee health insurance plan.

The current legal and political moment requires all advocates to keep one eye on the present and the other on the future. We know that transformational change is a long-term endeavor, and we are invested in building the infrastructure to shift deeply held, longstanding narratives. We are continuing to tell the stories of trans people because those who know us love us, and we are building power that will go beyond Supreme Court terms and election cycles.

Some days, it’s almost too much to take, but I remain hopeful and determined. While the attacks are deeply personal, and the landscape is grim in various areas of the country, we are not an easy target. TLDEF is partnering with local, state, and national groups to keep bills from passing into law. We take on the toughest cases in the most challenging places, and we are winning in the courts and in the court of public opinion. That is why the attacks are becoming so ferocious—but luckily, we are fiercer, and we won’t stop fighting.

Evan Milligan

Former Executive Director, Alabama Forward

Alabama Forward is a civic engagement network that convenes nonpartisan organizations to work toward civic progress.

Simon Luethi for Ford Foundation

Challenging voter suppression

In Allen v. Milligan, the Supreme Court upheld a ruling that struck down Alabama’s redistricted 2021 congressional map, which diluted the voting power of Black Alabamians and violated the Voting Rights Act. Each of the Milligan plaintiffs were either Alabama Forward staff members or representatives of our network’s member groups.

In 2021, we paired with Alabama Values and the Alabama Election Protection Network to host a series of redistricting trainings for members of Alabama’s civic engagement community. We also co-managed biweekly virtual meetings and other actions that helped people understand the relationships between the Selma to Montgomery March, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the Shelby v. Holder decision that later gutted voter protections.

My co-plaintiffs and I challenged government officials who have used old “state’s rights” rhetoric to defend voter suppression today. We prevailed because the majority of the federal judges who heard our case were willing to recognize that the weight of federal law is on our side.

Reflective representation

This win was a reality check for our Black communities here in Alabama. So often, we allow ourselves to become convinced that we are small and can’t cultivate hope. It is very difficult to build social movements on a foundation of internalized oppression and inferiority.

Also, in our current political climate, the most extreme and uncompromising voices seem to capture the most attention. Near-erasure of federal oversight of campaign financing, redistricting, and voting systems has greatly contributed to this reality. State legislatures have been free to build majority white political districts that can only be won by white candidates. We need political representation that reflects the diversity of our communities. Only equitably drawn political districts can do this.

Winning our case reminds us to consider ourselves worthy of any opportunity or leadership office that we are willing to work hard enough to secure. Our case involved collaboration across so many lines of difference that are used to scatter and shatter our coalitions. Hopefully, others are inspired to go even bigger.

The road ahead

There is an urgent need to build our local- and state-based voting rights movement infrastructures. At the federal level, we must pass laws that cement the rights of all U.S. citizens of voting age to vote and have that vote counted. Our state legislatures, assemblies, and constitutions need their own versions of these same provisions. Securing these changes will require the constant efforts of local coalitions working creatively, independently, and democratically, modeling the very change we want to see.

Sarah Kastelic

Executive Director, The National Indian Child Welfare Association

The National Indian Child Welfare Association works to eliminate child abuse and neglect by strengthening families, tribes, and the laws that protect them.

Tom McKenzie /Getty Images for Ford Foundation

Holding firm for Native rights

Haaland v. Brackeen challenged the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), which was passed to address generations of harm to Native children caused by assimilationist policies. When it was passed in the late 1970s, research found that 25-35% of all Native children were being separated from their parents, extended families, and communities. Eighty-five percent of these children were placed outside of their families and communities, even when fit and willing relatives were available.

We are one of four national Native-led organizations that established the Protect ICWA Campaign alongside our partners at the National Congress of American Indians, the Native American Rights Fund, and the Association on American Indian Affairs. In preparing to defend the ICWA, we focused on how it is widely considered best practice by child welfare experts and is the gold standard in child welfare policy. Research shows that when kids are connected to their families, identity, and culture, it leads to positive outcomes, and ICWA ensures that Native kids can maintain those connections.

The June 15th Supreme Court decision to uphold ICWA brought overwhelming joy and relief. It represented a huge win for Native children, Native families, and the future of Native peoples.

A tenuous situation

Intentional policies and efforts to keep Native families together are a necessary response to generations of removal and separation. Taking children from their communities is a key ingredient in the recipe for colonization that happens all over the world: Colonizers take the land, control the natural resources, usurp Indigenous forms of governance, delegitimize Indigenous values and worldviews, and then finally take the children.

The challenges to ICWA are rooted in challenges to tribal sovereignty. ICWA maintains that American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal Nations are sovereign nations with an inherent right to self-government and the right to provide for their citizens’ social and economic safety and cultural needs, a truth affirmed by the Supreme Court for over 200 years. Opponents in Haaland v. Brackeen attempted to undermine decades of our defense of Native children, tribal sovereignty, and the future of Tribal Nations by dismantling established tribal rights.

Keeping families intact

Today, Native children continue to be removed from their homes at nearly 1.5 times the rate of white children and often aren’t placed with relatives or other Native families, even when these placements are available. As we continue to support tribal children and families, we need to strengthen ICWA implementation and compliance. As powerful as ICWA is, its provisions are not equally and consistently followed.

The robust coalition of partners and allies that joined the Protect ICWA Campaign gives me hope. One resounding sign of this support is the 21 amicus briefs that were filed in support of ICWA. It will take this kind of power to make the changes needed to strengthen how ICWA is implemented today.

Sirine Shebaya

Executive Director, National Immigration Project

The National Immigration Project is an organization of attorneys and advocates that works to end injustice in the criminal and immigration systems.

Simon Luethi for Ford Foundation

Equitable immigration

United States v. Texas challenged the Department of Homeland Security’s newly issued immigration enforcement priorities. The National Immigration Project filed an amicus brief on behalf of 48 community, immigrant, and civil rights groups, law school clinics, legal service providers, and labor unions. We wanted to make sure that community voices were heard in a process that can be arcane and inaccessible to the people who need it most.

Texas and Louisiana claimed they were being harmed by the increasing number of immigrants in their states. We argued that that claim was motivated by discrimination against immigrants. Both states had publicly touted their population growth, making it clear that leaders saw population growth as a boon, not an injury. This meant that their objections to having more immigrants were based purely on discrimination based on national origin, ethnicity, and race.

At the National Immigration Project, one of our key priorities is to support work happening at the state and local level, creating deep regional connections. We use litigation, advocacy, narrative strategy, training, and technical assistance to support and resource the immigration movement. We believe this approach helps us win more victories by connecting advocates to each other, amplifying wins and making them more replicable, and defending against the worst policies in a way that builds for the future.

Changing the narrative

A confluence of factors has led us to this moment: more hostile courts, the erosion of voting rights, and a lopsided electoral process. There’s been a normalization of things that just a few years ago would have seemed extreme, such as attacks on asylum-seekers or attacks on DACA recipients, with insufficient resources to counter and tell a different story

One thing we need to understand is that the fight for hearts and minds is a long-term fight. We need to be thinking about how we change the narrative, build a base, and strengthen immigration rights infrastructures to create real change. At the national level, we need to move away from criminalizing narratives and stop being so hesitant to speak positively about the border and immigration. When we leave that space open, it gets claimed by xenophobic narratives.

One emerging issue that we have begun to work on is climate migration. Over the next few decades, climate change is expected to create higher levels of migration than the world has ever seen. The lack of a legal framework for climate migrants to seek protection in the U.S. is already presenting issues for people arriving at our border.

Another area of work involves ensuring that people who do have access to legal pathways can access them. We prioritize educating people about new policies that may provide relief, including labor-based deferred action, different forms of prosecutorial discretion, and more traditional pathways like Temporary Protected Status. We are also currently housing a new project focused on enabling children who are eligible for Special Immigrant Juvenile Status but are stuck waiting thanks to bureaucratic hurdles.

Applauding progress

The fight for immigration rights is also a fight for racial justice, environmental justice, criminal justice, and more. I think it is so important to acknowledge all our victories—even those that may fall short of what we want. Every day that new attorneys, advocates, organizers, and directly impacted people join our movement, we make progress. Every time a family that was separated is reunified, or a detention center is shut down, or a new protective policy passes, that’s progress we have made together toward our shared goals.

Featured Grantees

The post Raising the bar: The social justice leaders making history at the Supreme Court appeared first on Ford Foundation.

Democracy at a crossroads: A call for courageous leadership

Richard Zuluaga — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

This speech was presented by Darren Walker on March 4, 2024, at Cooper Union’s Great Hall in New York City as part of the Benjamin Menschel Distinguished Lecture series.

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Thank you, Laura, for that kind introduction. Thank you, all, for the warm welcome. I am honored to join you—and grateful to the Menschel family for endowing this lecture in recognition of Richard’s father, Benjamin Menschel. And a special thank you to my friend David Remnick for lending his wisdom and perspicacity to tonight’s program.

For some 165 years, this great hall has served as a great American crossroads—an intersection of people and ideas; an intersection of past, and present, and future. For generations, this is where we, collectively, hold up history’s compass—to orient and reorient ourselves; to find our way forward.

I must confess, I feel overwhelmed with awe and humility as I reflect on my moment at this podium, on our moment together here: to imagine what Abraham Lincoln might have observed from this vantage; what Frederick Douglass might have discerned looking out from this dais; what Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton might have beheld. To see in your faces, the faces of our forebearers, who could not know how history would unfold. To see in our great city on edge, their great city on edge—in our great republic on the brink, their great republic on the brink.

At every consequential juncture, this great hall is where we, the people, come to deliberate and to decide. And for us, as for those who came before us, we are staring straight, unavoidably, into a crossroads of our own—into a hard set of choices.

These are choices about what kind of nation we are and will be; about what kind of leaders we will be; about what kind of citizens we will be. These are choices between hope and fear; between courage and despair; between one world view that tells us “might makes right” and another that insists, as Lincoln affirmed for the ages here, that “right makes might”—that our shared values, our democratic values, remain our greatest strength.

These days, one might reasonably wonder whether America’s many multitudes are even reading the same compass. We are pulled hither and yon, in so many different directions.

Tonight, though, I would propose that we still do share what Frederick Douglass called “true north”: A set of ideas—aspirations—enshrined in Thomas Jefferson’s declaration, to which Lincoln appealed time and again during the tumultuous, transformative years that followed his visit here:

We all are created equal. We all are endowed with inalienable rights.

Our American identity emerges not from “blood and soil,” but from fidelity to these truths we hold self-evident even still. Out of many, we are one.

We believe in equal representation, equal rights, and equal justice—in what Douglass called “absolute equality.”

We believe in freedom, with fairness—in free expression, free exercise, and a free press.

We believe in our moral responsibilities, in empathy and generosity.

We believe in liberty and justice—and in striking the balance between the two, between the rights of the individual and our responsibilities to the collective.

To be sure, some say, these are “hollow words, at best.” The facts are undeniable. America has functioned as a democracy for less than one human lifetime—and an imperfect democracy at that. When you think about it, our democracy is only as old as I am.

I was born in 1959, into a nation riven by American apartheid. When I was a child, the adults in my life could not vote in our Louisiana and Texas towns. I was six years old when President Lyndon Johnson enacted legislation to guarantee the franchise. And even these protections are imperiled now, as are so many of our fundamental rights.

And yet, for my part, I believe that our American compass is still true. I see flawed genius in our founders and their legacy—and in Lincoln’s determination to preserve that legacy at the greatest cost.

To me, the contradiction—the hypocrisy—of our founders is less remarkable than what they set in motion. They initiated a grand, complicated experiment in self-government. It led to abolition, and suffrage, and workers’ rights, and civil rights, and women’s rights—however slowly, however unevenly.

More astounding still, generation by generation, Black people and brown people, the Indigenous and the immigrant, Jews and Muslims, queer people and people with disabilities—we all claimed the American project as our birthright. We expanded the circle of inclusion and opportunity, making real the American promise, step by step, crossroads by crossroads, now 250 years on.

Jefferson and the others passed to us something unprecedented, something radical: That true compass—the tools with which to navigate our course toward a multiracial, multiethnic, pluralist democracy that extends the privilege of American identity to all.

I love my country. I am grateful to my country. We should be proud of our country.

Instead, a sense of nihilism has taken hold, all across America. We are tearing each other down, tearing ourselves apart at the seams, and tearing our nation asunder.

It is almost banal to note, America is more irreparably divided than ever before in our lifetimes. We may well be barreling down a parallel path to the one that Lincoln and his contemporaries traveled in the 1850s. The sustainability, the durability, the survival of our democratic republic is in jeopardy.

Darren Walker delivers the 2024 Benjamin Menschel Distinguished Lecture at The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.

Cooper Union/Marget Long

What’s different, today, are the trends that have converged and carried us here.

The primary current carving a great chasm across our land—across our national soul and psyche—is inequality: Inequality in access and agency, in resources and respect, in voice and value; inequalities of all kinds and categories, the consequence of a market system that is wildly out of balance.

I am a proud capitalist. I believe in the market system’s unique power to lift lives and livelihoods when abetted by public policy that ensures the market is fair and inclusive. But in a democratic-capitalist society, democracy must come first, or the whole enterprise collapses.

Today, for too many Americans of every color and creed—in red states and blue—the mobility escalator has sputtered to a stop. Millions live on the brink—their lives defined by trauma, by pain, by an inescapable and insidious hopelessness. And hope? Hope is the oxygen of democracy.

The poet asks, “What happens to a dream deferred?” Well, what happens to the American dream betrayed?

One can understand why so many people respond to a world that feels completely out of control—a world turned completely against them—with fear, with resentment, with grievance, with vitriol.

One also must acknowledge how the forces of narrow self-interest in our society exploit these disaffected, disillusioned people and communities—how they prey on them for their own gain, with impunity.

One can also see, then, how our broken, for-profit media system aggravates our inequality crisis.

If America’s founders agreed on anything, it was that democracy would depend on a free and fact-based press; that, through the free press, facts would precede opinion, not the other way around; and that through “enlightenment,” as Jefferson said, “tyranny…[would] vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”

Of course, what we see today—the media conglomerates’ current operating model—is exactly the opposite.

Audiences respond to the most prurient and pernicious content. So, the content and programming algorithms deliver hour after hour of it, monetizing the degradation of our democracy.

On cable, we see hate and hostility, misinformation and disinformation, sometimes outright falsehoods, pumped into the bloodstream of the body politic. And online, the most obnoxious, odious voices garner the most clicks, and likes, and shares—truth be damned—training the algorithms to feed us ever-increasing doses of poison.

This formula may provide a healthy return on capital, but it does so at the cost of an information cancer, now metastasizing throughout our democracy.

And then into the torrent converges another defining, destabilizing trend, too: We are mired in a culture of absolutism.

If I asked you to encapsulate the last decade of American life in a single word, you might offer up a few possibilities: Aberrant? Abhorrent?

I might suggest another: “Extreme.”

Everything right now, it seems, is black or white, all or nothing, perfect or unacceptable. Every venue has become a theater for affirming our own virtue or righteousness—or for denying someone else’s.

The purpose of the public square has become completely perverted. Only a generation ago, we used the commons as the infrastructure through which to negotiate diversity and difference—to find common ground, sometimes more effectively than others. But now, we treat the public square as merely another platform on which to perform; another platform on which to take a side and to prove our piety to it.

Nuance and complexity are nowhere to be found. In their place is a pervasive, paralyzing cynicism. And so, our extreme challenges remain extremely unsolved.

Certainly, not everyone is equally complicit. To be clear, I am not suggesting that the people and groups that denigrate our long-shared American values are somehow on equal footing with those of us defending them. This is a false moral equivalence.

Make no mistake about my own convictions: I believe that the advocacy of those women and men with their hands on that long moral arc, bending it inch by inch toward justice—they are of a different category than those whose hands are tearing it all down. The former are challenging us to be better. The latter too often are daring us to be worse.

Nevertheless, as a result, we have normalized mendacity and malice—bizarrely enough, even among those with whom we mostly agree.

And among those with whom we disagree? We shame. We cancel. We dehumanize. We demonize.

These are the facts—the painful facts. As Americans, we are increasingly intolerant of each other. Intolerant.

Lincoln’s admonition—“a house divided against itself cannot stand”—feels truer, realer, rawer than ever. And we must decide what matters most: The America we love? The America we are, at our best? The democratic values to which we aspire? Or the self-satisfaction of our self-certainty, and the self-destruction that follows?

So, what are we to do? At this hour of choosing, what are we to decide?

For starters, let’s choose to lead. And let’s choose to make things easier on the people who are courageous enough to lead, and courageous enough to tell the truth.

Effective leadership, moral leadership, demands that we listen with more humility, and curiosity, and empathy, even if we don’t agree with 100 percent of what we assume we are hearing. It requires that we build longer bridges—among communities that look, speak, work, worship, or vote differently than we do. It challenges us to recognize that within all of this rolling crisis, there is opportunity—if we are brave enough to see it, and to seize it.

We—all of us—have made it too difficult for good leaders to do the work of holding up that compass and finding the way out and through. We are discouraging courage.

Honestly, there never has been a more difficult time to lead anything, global or local, public or private, big or small.

And the new prevailing attitude says: Just keep your head down. Protect yourself—and your reputation. Speaking out will cost you more than it buys.

We must reject this way of operating. For goodness’ sake, what is the point of calling ourselves leaders if we are afraid to actually lead?

I don’t claim any special access to moral principles. I do believe, however, that we need more leaders focused on something bigger than the next earnings call—or living in fear of the next reporter to call. We need new profiles in courage—leaders who recognize that bringing light is always worth the heat.

We also need leaders with a moral compass and the courage to embrace the nuance and complexity to which we have become allergic. Indeed, the very definition of effective leadership is managing nuance, managing complexity, seeing all sides of an issue from the perspectives of every stakeholder, and then setting a course, and communicating with clarity, consistent with a core set of values.

This is true in government and business and civil society alike. And it is not easy.

We struggle with this in reconciling with and rectifying the past—which was never all sin or all salvation. We struggle with this in the present—given the pain and grief and despair of this moment; given widening deficits of trust, and empathy, and faith in our shared humanity; given the inequality that desensitizes us to the suffering of others, preventing us from joining together in common cause to solve shared challenges.

And yet, we know, the road to reconciliation—to shared healing and shared hope—runs through precisely these things: trust, and empathy, and faith in each other; grace and love for each other; collective action for a common good.

And progress down that road requires that we rediscover and recommit to our shared American identity.

From my own life’s journey, I understand how, and how much, our identities matter. I understand how the intersecting elements of our identities too often determine what doors are open to us, and what doors remain closed. And yet, from more than six decades on this earth, I believe that none of my identities matters more than my American identity.

The truth is, I have lived on both sides of American inequality.

I grew up Black in the “Lost Cause,” Jim Crow South. In college, I knew people who proudly hung Confederate flags on their dormitory walls, who attended fraternity parties in their Confederate greys. And yet, throughout my life, I have benefited, in ways visible and invisible, from Americans, Black and white, who challenged our nation to fulfill its promise.

I grew up poor—the son of a single mother, in a small shotgun house. And yet, throughout my life, I benefited from the American people’s investments in Head Start, and public schools, and Pell Grants.

I grew up gay at a time when many people saw my sexuality as a psychological disorder, or a crime. And yet, throughout my life, I have seen Americans choose equality.

This is not to deny that I sometimes feel exhausted and demoralized, too. I feel the impatience. I feel the frustration. And I worry deeply about the ubiquitous sense of unfairness that has consumed so many of us. Too many people sense that others are gaining an advantage or an edge, while they are falling behind.

No doubt, by virtue of good fortune, our system has made me a winner. It has lifted me out of poverty—and given me the opportunities to realize my dreams. Yet, too many feel that this same system is working against them—that it is rigged against them. So, I also worry deeply about the rage that tears away at our patriotism.

We cannot allow this kind of anger to fester, not any longer. We cannot surrender our patriotism, neither our love of country nor our service to country, because the only way to ensure that America works for everyone is for everyone to put in the work for America—not just giving something back, but giving something of ourselves; sacrificing to be part of something greater.

Which brings us back to that snowy evening, 164 years ago last week, when a lanky, young Illinois congressman stepped onto this very stage in his wrinkled suit. At that moment, Lincoln’s opponents were demanding that the federal government permit slavery’s spread to the west. But more than that, they were threatening to destroy the republic itself, unless, as Lincoln said here, they be allowed to “rule or ruin” as they pleased, without regard to the Constitution.

This kind of all-or-nothing government—this kind of asymmetrical autocracy—may well sound familiar. We hear the echoes almost daily.

But what Lincoln wisely knew then—what we would be well served to remember now—was that democracy is no permanent condition. He knew that the only way to protect democracy, to preserve democracy, is through the give and take—through the slow, sometimes-frustrating, consensus-building machinery that our founders engineered.

In a word, through compromise.

After all, if and when we lose our ability to disagree without destroying one another, then everything is jeopardized, everything is imperiled—because where compromise ends, where the basic value of tolerance ends, this is where violence begins.

For too long, we have accepted the zero-sum thinking that says, “If the other side wins on anything, my side loses on everything.” Enough.

Compromise is often undesirable. It is frustrating, distasteful, by definition. Worse, it can perpetuate the very harm that we most fervently yearn to heal.

But the work of justice is much bigger than any one compromise. It is the work of a lifetime, the work of generations, the work of the American project itself.

And so, together, at this time of choosing, let us recommit ourselves to the grandest project of all: the American experiment, the American idea. Let’s step away from the extremes and from the edge—away from the sanctimony and certitude.

At this profound crossroads for our democracy, let’s, once again, hold up history’s compass and take measure—of the road we have traveled, of the journey ahead. There is no map; there never was. But with leadership, with open minds and open hearts, with vigilance, with hope, we can and will find our way back to “true north,” together.

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Curating change: How BIPOC-led arts organizations are reshaping the future of art

Richard Zuluaga — Tue, 27 Feb 2024 14:33:46 +0000

The Venice Biennale is one of the most significant exhibitions in the contemporary art world: a revered showcase of international artists representing their home countries and vying for glory. Founded in 1895, it is one of art’s oldest and most celebrated stages, drawing hundreds of thousands of visitors. And this April, when the 60th annual Biennale opens, it will make history anew: The United States’ pavilion will feature the multimedia artist Jeffrey Gibson, making him the first Indigenous artist to represent the U.S. with a solo show.

Gibson has long been a star in the art world for his vibrant multimedia works, which repurpose materials such as vinyl and beads, incorporate pop music lyrics, and more. The New York resident is a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and is of Cherokee descent. (His work, and the Venice Biennale, are supported by Ford.) His exhibit will mark the first time an Indigenous artist has appeared in the Biennale’s U.S. pavilion since 1932, when it included a group exhibition on themes of the American West.

Gibson’s showcase is an exciting moment, but it also reminds us of the art industry’s historic lack of diversity and inclusion for artists who are Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). In 1992, a proposed tour of the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Jean-Michel Basquiat retrospective was canceled when no other museums showed interest. A 2019 survey revealed that nearly 85% of artists represented in U.S. museum collections are white. And today, the Mellon Foundation’s Museum Demographic Survey shows that less than 20% of art museum leadership positions are held by people of color.

The art world is slowly changing to reflect the immense talents of artists from all communities and backgrounds. The Biennale’s U.S. Pavilion is co-commissioned by Kathleen Ash Milby, a member of the Navajo Nation and a curator of Native American Art at the Portland Museum, a Ford grantee. The Whitney’s 2022 exhibition no existe un mundo poshuracán: Puerto Rican Art in the Wake of Hurricane Maria was a crucial exhibition on the state of contemporary art and of the island. This spring, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will debut The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism, an exhibit that explores the Harlem Renaissance as the first African-American-led movement in international modern art (and is supported by Ford).

Many of our grantees are also leading this cultural shift. The International African American Museum (IAAM) in Charleston, South Carolina, centers the art and narratives of Black artists, including a current exhibition from the multimedia artist Ming Smith. The Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) celebrates the art of Michigan’s 12 federally-recognized Indian nations and Indigenous communities. The BIPOC Arts Network and Fund (BANF) in Houston supports and elevates artists of color across the city, including those from Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian American, Pacific Islander, and Middle Eastern communities.

We spoke to leaders of these three groundbreaking organizations about how they are working to create a more equitable future for art.

Malika Pryor, Chief learning and engagement officer, International African American Museum (IAAM)

Tell us about your organization’s mission and one current project you’re really excited about.

The idea for the IAAM began 23 years ago to honor untold African American stories at one of the United States’ most sacred grounds. Because we are located on what was once Gadsden’s Wharf, we’re compelled to think about the transatlantic slave trade and the millions of people brought to a place they never agreed to be. I’m really excited about our North Star exhibition, which will debut this May and is our first internally produced traveling exhibition. Our hope is that it will be a moving microcosm of the museum, with everything from artifacts to technology to visual and literary arts creating a conversation. It will be a wonderful way to experience history and culture.

Paul Robeson once said, “Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice.” Do you agree with this?

Man, Paul Robeson. What a giant! For people of African descent—whether you’re Jamaican, Afro-Brazilian, Ghanaian, or Nigerian—there’s a shared Pan-African experience of the inanimate being animated through ritual and life. Beauty doesn’t just stand on its own. It is a communication of cultural memory, spiritual belief, transformation, family, legacy, love, and resistance. Art exists because human beings create, and in many instances, it is the way that we can vocalize the ideas that are difficult to say out loud.

Why is philanthropic investment in diversity in the arts critical to building equality and ensuring that history does not repeat itself?

Memory is a gift. Arts and cultural institutions are our collective archive. They determine what we remember. If we do not commit to telling diverse stories, we commit ourselves to the loss of memory. And if we cannot recall something in our collective cultural memory, we doom ourselves to relive it. We can never tell all the stories, but if there’s only one voice and one version of events, there is only one truth. People need to be able to share multiple truths. Our existence depends on it.

This National Black History Month theme celebrates African Americans in the arts. Which Black artists or creative organizations are catalyzing important change today?

We have a core, chronological exhibition that is about the people who aren’t written about in textbooks. I’m thinking about the grandmothers and aunties who baked and sold cakes so the Montgomery bus boycotters could pay for gas and form carpools. We’ll never know all their names, but I’m proud our museum is thinking about these women and others who were behind the scenes making history. I’m also a huge fan of the Schomburg Center and the California African American Museum. I’m excited about the Johnson Collection and the work the Getty is doing with its African American Art History initiative. The Charles H. Wright Museum has a really beautiful exhibit right now featuring the work of the fabulous costume designer Ruth E. Carter.

Sixto Wagan, Program director, BIPOC Arts Network and Fund (BANF)

Tell us about your organization’s mission and one current project you’re really excited about.

As a new organization, the BIPOC Arts Network and Fund works in the greater Houston area to bring together philanthropy, artists, and community leaders. We’re both a resource network and a place where people can learn from BIPOC arts communities. A lot of the work is about connecting and sharing knowledge.

Houston recently completed the process of nominating its Cultural Treasures. In 2023, applicants went through a process and we named 11 groups as anchor organizations for communities of color. Our first cohort will come together to dream, connect, and create. Underfunding has forced so many of our leaders to work in a state of constant crisis. They’re craving an opportunity to vision together.

Paul Robeson once said, “Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice.” Do you agree with this?

Truth is a radical concept, particularly in a state like Texas, where schools are being told that they cannot teach the histories of our communities of color. Artists and arts organizations hold the truth and share it. They’re also creating opportunities to experience the truth in ways that are comforting, healing, and challenging. Part of our work is to uplift all of Houston’s diversity so that all our residents can experience that truth.

Why is philanthropic investment in diversity in the arts critical to building equality and ensuring that history does not repeat itself?

Philanthropy must be an advocate for communities of color everywhere. This is especially important in places where diversity and the lived experiences of our people of color are regularly challenged. So many major arts institutions have just begun to shift from focusing exclusively on white western history to lifting up the voices of Black, Latinx, and Asian communities. Some of that positive change is because of philanthropic leadership.

This National Black History Month theme celebrates African Americans in the arts. Which Black artists or creative organizations are catalyzing important change today?

The S.H.A.P.E. Community Center is one of our Houston Cultural Treasures. They just celebrated their 55th anniversary and they’re finally being recognized for celebrating Black history and highlighting its richness.

Jova Lynne and Marie Patton, Co-directors, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD)

Tell us about your organization’s mission and one current project you’re really excited about.

MOCAD believes that art has the transformative power to inspire change and shape our collective future. We try to educate all our visitors, whether they are nine or 99, and show them that art is a tool for understanding the world. Our upcoming spring/summer program celebrates the richness and diversity of Black cultural phenomena. We’re looking forward to showing Meleko Mokgosi, who examines how systems of power play out in the Pan-African context, and Lakela Brown, who explores nourishment practices across Black communities.

Paul Robeson once said, “Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice.” Do you agree with this?

Art has always been a way for people to understand each other. In Detroit, the arts are integral to how our city envisions a more just world. Artists must be truth-tellers. Their stories document how our communities are living through a pandemic, economic crisis, radical white supremacy, and imperialism.

Why is philanthropic investment in diversity in the arts critical to building equality and ensuring that history does not repeat itself?

Systemic barriers—racism, sexism, ableism, and economic inequality—have long kept BIPOC communities from opportunities in the arts. Philanthropy can help end that. When foundations invest in us, we can create the kind of museum that truly echoes the cultural lexicons of our communities. We can become a place of real knowledge sharing and serve as a model for future generations of museums.

This National Black History Month theme celebrates African Americans in the arts. Which Black artists or creative organizations are catalyzing important change today?

We’re encouraging folks to learn more about the Black Bottom Archives. They’re a community-driven media platform that amplifies the voices, experiences, and perspectives of Black Detroiters using storytelling, journalism, art, and community organizing. Their work shows how history, storytelling, and community are crucial to our collective liberation.

Featured Grantees

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Barbara Picower’s bold vision and enduring legacy

Richard Zuluaga — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 20:43:05 +0000

Congratulations to my dear friend and partner Barbara Picower as she transitions into her new role as President Emerita at the JPB Foundation. I am grateful for her enduring legacy and inspired by her vision and willingness to “meet the moment”—qualities that model the best of what philanthropy can be.

Barbara has always been clear: “The work… is not about me. It’s about what people need.” And yet, philanthropy has needed her—her compassion, humility, and innovative spirit—to advance an ambitious agenda spanning decades and touching millions of lives.

She has been fearless in her mission to empower those living in poverty, advance racial justice, address critical environmental issues, and support pioneering medical research. She is unafraid to think bigger, act bolder, and take risks, unwavering in her trust of grantees’ expertise.

She was ahead of her time in providing long-term general support to grantees, and her philanthropy is as agile as it is abiding. In the early days of the pandemic, Barbara committed close to $100 million above and beyond her foundation’s annual funding in emergency response. JPB joined the Ford Foundation and other leading philanthropies to launch the Families and Workers Fund, distributing emergency cash relief to hundreds of thousands of workers and investing in more resilient job pathways.

Through innovative grantmaking, Barbara has developed a supportive grantee-funder ecosystem that encourages organizations to act as true partners. Her belief in the power of the collective has put her at the forefront of funder collaboratives with an enormous impact on women’s rights, racial justice, immigrant rights, and more.

I know Barbara’s successor, Deepak Bhargava, shares her belief that no problem is too entrenched or unwieldy to solve. And with Barbara close by and Deepak at the helm, my Ford Foundation colleagues and I look forward to years of continued collaboration.

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An update from Detroit

Erica Pelletreau — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 14:30:00 +0000

The University of Detroit Mercy has been a key partner in our equitable development grantmaking. Here we are at their School of Architecture with a broad section of our grantees, including community development leaders and representatives of financial institutions.

“No matter how long you’ve been gone from Detroit, Detroit should always be a part of you— and you should always find ways to support your people.” Kevin Ryan, one of Ford Foundation’s senior program officers, knows the Motor City well: He’s led Ford’s grantmaking there since 2017, focusing on housing and community development, civic engagement, and youth opportunities.

A big part of Kevin’s work is figuring out how Detroit can recover from bankruptcy in an equitable way inclusive of all its residents. This means supporting many tireless community organizers, cultural leaders, and other changemakers across the city, as well as bringing them together to collaborate in new ways.

Here, Kevin shares recent photos of some of Ford’s local grantee partners and explains the impact they’re making citywide.

This was a team lunch with Henry Ford III, our board member based in Detroit. We were having a great conversation about our recent site visits. You can really see our camaraderie.

At the Skillman Foundation’s office discussing the importance of youth organizing in Detroit with them and the Kresge Foundation.

Alia Harvey Quinn is the executive director of FORCE Detroit; they co-hosted this meeting with the Hudson-Webber Foundation to discuss the community violence intervention work we’ve been supporting in Detroit. Alia is, to me, one of the best leaders in Detroit. She’s been able to build a coalition of citizen advocates, grassroots groups, and neighborhood organizations.

Sarida Scott is a professor at University of Detroit Mercy. She used to be a grantee of ours when she ran Community Development Advocates of Detroit, a citywide development advocacy group. Here we are at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture & Community Development.

Sonya Mays is the president of Develop Detroit, a citywide development organization. They build affordable housing in neighborhoods that have experienced decades of disinvestment.

Dream of Detroit is a Muslim-centered community organization group that does a lot of different work: organizing, equitable development, advocating for property tax justice. This is Dawud Clark, Dream of Detroit’s property manager. He joined Dream of Detroit and put his blood, sweat, and tears into rehabbing the transitional house you see here—and now he’s a homeowner in the neighborhood! Today, he works with other returning citizens to help them achieve that same dream of being able to come back and have a beautiful home to live in.

Ammara Ansariis on the development team of Detroit Action, a group that works toward economic and social justice with Detroit residents. Here she is sharing a story about engaging with the community.

Here are some of the leaders of Dream of Detroit, including executive director Mark Crain.

The Church of the Messiah hosted this conversation on equitable digital access. Talking here is Katie Hearn from the Detroit Community Technology Project; they developed the Equitable Internet Initiative, which we’ve been supporting for a number of years.

This was our meeting at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History about the state of arts and culture in Detroit. Five of our grantee partners joined. Detroit’s Arts, Culture, and Entertainment department, which we support, was also represented.

In Detroit, people feel positive about what we can achieve. Even though we have all these huge structural challenges, we’re not just grinding every day. There is space for joy.

We had dinner at the Muslim Center with Dream of Detroit and their partners. They were so, so generous with us.

Here’s a photo from the Black resilience history exhibit at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History – a long time and deeply valued partner to the people of Detroit.

Featured Grantees

Allied Media Projects, Inc.

Coalition for Property Tax Justice

Detroit Action Education Fund

Detroit Community Technology Project

Dream of Detroit

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Indigenous peoples and local communities must lead the way to a just energy transition

Gael Black — Fri, 01 Dec 2023 20:34:16 +0000

When explosions coordinated by Rio Tinto, one of the world’s biggest mining companies, destroyed a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal rock shelter in Australia, Indigenous leaders took on the multinational corporation—and won. The Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples argued that Rio Tinto never should have attempted to build an iron ore mine in the hillside of Juukan Gorge, a deeply significant site for their communities inhabited since the Ice Age. Facing pressure from shareholders, parliamentary, and scrutiny from environmental and human rights activists like the London Mining Network, Rio Tinto apologized, paid restitution, ousted three senior leaders and two board members, and vowed to prioritize Aboriginal leaders as partners moving forward.

This story is both a cautionary tale and a charge for corporate leaders: Include Indigenous perspectives now, or wish you had later. The ongoing relationship between Rio Tinto and Aboriginal leaders is still far from perfect, but a new arrangement, which includes both compensation and consultation, represents a modicum of progress. It is an acknowledgment that companies can no longer disregard the respective rights and voices of local, Indigenous, and Afro-descendant tribal communities in tackling the most urgent business and environmental challenges.

Foremost among them: climate change. As leaders from government and the private sector convene for COP28 to find new frameworks for climate finance and a just energy transition, local and Indigenous voices must be front and center. And there must be a verifiable commitment to respect and protect their rights.

As an Indigenous environmental activist and the president of a foundation committed to climate justice, we call on businesses to recognize Indigenous peoples and local communities (IP and LCs) as key stakeholders—for the sake of people, the planet, and their profits.

Meaningful collaboration requires reckoning with centuries of exploitation and well-earned distrust. Governments, colonizers, and corporations have long claimed Indigenous land as effectively terra nullius, disregarding treaty rights and extracting resources with scant regard for the health of the land or the people who know it best. They drilled oil from sacred ground, razed ancient forests, and displaced entire communities, devastating generations of local and Indigenous populations and destroying ecosystems that stood as bulwarks against climate change.

The consequences of drilling for fossil fuels and depleting other resources are dire for both the planet and for Indigenous and local communities. Without partnership and consultation, even purportedly climate-conscious approaches can be devastating.

Nearly 70% of transition mineral projects, which mine components for batteries and other renewable energy technologies, are located on or near Indigenous land. If the private sector fails to fundamentally shift its approach to resource extraction and management, the climate agenda is on a collision course with Indigenous rights.

We’re already seeing what happens when sustainability-minded companies overlook Indigenous perspectives. Courts around the world are recognizing local and Indigenous communities as stewards of 80% of the planet’s remaining biodiversity.

In Oslo, Indigenous Sámi reindeer herders convinced Norway’s Supreme Court to stop wind farming because the farms encroached on traditional territory and impaired culturally significant reindeer herding. In Kenya, the pastoralist El Molo, Turkana, Samburu and Rendille communities successfully argued that their ancestral land had been unlawfully deeded for development, endangering their livelihoods and cultural heritage. And in the Philippines, Indigenous communities in Palawan won a cease-and-desist order against a mining company that failed to address their concerns that a new mine for nickel—an essential mineral for lithium-ion batteries—caused deforestation.

These cases argue for a more sustainable, more inclusive energy transition, guided by Indigenous wisdom and governed by the people who have tended to the land for centuries. A pro forma notification before breaking ground on a new project is insufficient. IPs and LCs must be central, respected partners in the transition to renewable energy—and private sector leaders must commit to their effective participation in decision-making and to negotiations aimed at securing their free, prior and informed consent.

Too often, business leaders mistakenly believe that engaging with these communities is unjustifiably risky or onerous and unnecessary. This cost-benefit analysis is backwards; the real risk is proceeding without Indigenous peoples’ permission and deep knowledge of their land and its resources. What is missing in these relationships, then, is a fundamental trust between partners.

We cannot fault Indigenous peoples for being skeptical of corporations that have harmed and displaced their communities for generations. That is why the private sector must approach potential partnerships with humility, offering these invaluable communities a real seat at the table and a meaningful stake in the financial success of joint projects.

For their part, climate financiers must ensure that their projects affirm Indigenous land rights and join government and philanthropy in supporting Indigenous proposals for sustainable development. Given the demand for companies to live up to their ESG commitments, investing in communities with generations of deep knowledge of the land pays both economic and ecological dividends.

With these high stakes and high returns in mind, we urge our partners in the private sector to approach COP28 with an openness to collaboration and consideration for Indigenous, African, and Afro-descendant perspectives, not only at lectures and panels but in every conversation—at the conference and beyond. Because to move forward with an energy transition that excludes Indigenous and other voices and perspectives is to replicate the disastrous system that produced this climate catastrophe in the first place.

What we face today is not a choice but an imperative: we must act now to empower Indigenous environmental stewardship and secure a more just and sustainable future for all.

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Endangered Eden: The fight to protect Ghana’s Atewa Forest

Richard Zuluaga — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 13:00:00 +0000

When Daryl Bosu talks about Ghana’s Atewa Forest, his hometown pride is palpable. “It is one of the most breathtaking landscapes you’ll ever find in our country. It leaves an enchanting impression for anyone who steps into it,” said the conservationist, who lives close to the forest’s border. “It is very green throughout the year. The trees at the summit sit within the clouds. The water drips down the leaves.”

The Atewa Reserve is quite a backyard to have: 25,830 hectares of pristine evergreen forest situated in a mountain range in southeast Ghana. The country’s largest reserve, it is home to more than 100 globally threatened plant, bird, and animal species, including the white-necked rockfowl and Miss Waldron’s red colobus monkey. It is also the source of three major rivers—the Densu, Birim, and Ayensu—that provide water for over 5 million people, including the capital of Accra.

Rainforests like Atewa are one of nature’s best defenses against climate change. They store carbon, stabilize the climate and act as a natural filtration system, keeping the environment healthy not only for the flora and fauna living within these forests but for humanity at large.

The Atewa Forest is now at the center of a heated dispute between the Ghanaian government—which intends to mine its abundant resources as, paradoxically, part of the country’s green energy transition—and conservation advocates like Bosu, who vow to keep them intact.

“The challenges persist, and there are many, but now a lot of people are paying attention,” said Bosu, the deputy national director of A Rocha Ghana, one of the country’s leading conservation nonprofits and a Ford grantee. “They are realizing the dire consequences of the widespread mining across the country and how we’ve taken our natural resources for granted.”

Ghana, like many countries in Africa, has an economy dominated by natural resources, both minerals and fossil fuels. It has a long, fraught history of removing these riches from its land—both by its leaders and colonizing forces—and has struggled with how to harness these resources sustainably to improve the lives of its people. Today, Ghana is the top producer of gold on the continent, with its economy also bolstered by oil and gas production and cocoa farming.

But when it comes to the Atewa Forest, the appeal is in the dirt itself, not what’s buried beneath. The reddish-brown soil that carpets the reserve is full of bauxite, a sedimentary rock that is refined into aluminum. Aluminum is crucial in the production of renewable energy devices and equipment—including solar panels and electric vehicles, two lodestar technologies in the global transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.

However, extracting bauxite from the Atewa Forest means mass deforestation, displacing both rare wildlife and the local communities that use its land for agriculture and food. It means jeopardizing the watershed system that supplies clean water to so many Ghanaians and harming the exact type of ecosystem that serves as a bulwark against climate change, as forests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and prevent drought. But it also means creating more solar products, which could aid in Ghana’s transition to green energy in time to meet the United Nations’ 2030 sustainable development goals, which Ghana and all member states have pledged to meet. So is this what the expression “between a rock and a hard place” was created for?

Not necessarily, said Bosu. A Rocha Ghana has launched an ambitious, multifaceted campaign to protect the Atewa Forest—a movement it has taken from the region’s local communities to one of Ghana’s highest courts. And Bosu and his team are not alone: Conservation advocates and scholars across the country are urging the government to preserve the forest, arguing that it’s worth more to Ghanaians intact than excavated. But the fight ahead looks long—and there are ominous debts, to the tune of $5 billion, rumbling overhead.

Ghana, like many African nations, is home to a tremendous wealth of natural resources. When managed responsibly, these resources can transform a country’s economy and create prosperous, sustainable societies that benefit all.

One of Africa’s most resource-rich nations, Ghana is no stranger to extraction. It has been a major presence in the country for close to 100 years. Before Ghana became independent in 1957, it was named the Gold Coast, an indication of the riches in its soil. For decades, the country subsisted on its production and exporting of gold, timber, and cocoa.

Then, in 2007, Ghana’s landscape changed overnight when oil was discovered off the coast. Drilling operations sprang up and a golden era, of a different kind, ensued: Ghana halved its poverty rates by 2015 and doubled its economic growth. By 2019, the country was the world’s fastest-growing economy, demonstrating the sort of economic expansion that could be triggered by large-scale natural resource development—even as this came with international calls for the government to protect and sustainably manage its resources more carefully.

But during this time, the benefits of Ghana’s economic boom didn’t always reach its citizens. Despite hopes that the oil windfall would alleviate poverty across the country, deep economic inequality persisted geographically: The south grew more developed and wealthy, while the north, which has lagged behind since the colonial era, remained rural and destitute. According to the UNDP, roughly 65% of the north is multidimensionally poor versus only 27% in the south. The great frustration of Ghana remains unresolved: that a land with such natural wealth could also have such endemic poverty, especially in the communities where its most precious resources were located.

“After Ghana discovered oil, there were explicit promises in terms of how oil revenues would be utilized to address historical inequalities in society. These were not met,” said Abdul-Gafaru Abdulai, associate professor of development politics at the University of Ghana, a Ford grantee. “There are still huge developmental gaps between the northern parts of Ghana and the rest of the country.”

Today, Ghana’s once-robust economy is battling a financial crisis of high inflation, plummeting export revenues, and depreciation of its currency, the cedi. COVID-19 continues to weaken its tourism industry. In 2022, the poverty rate in Ghana rose to an estimated 27%, an increase of 2.2% from the previous year. And since May, there’s been yet another financial shadow over the economy: The country was approved for a $3 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it will need to repay.

So it’s no wonder that developing bauxite mining in Ghana feels enticing to many, a chance to right the country’s finances after a dispiriting slump. International demand for clean energy technology is rising, with countries around the world investing millions into solar manufacturing. Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo, who co-chairs the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Advocates committee, has pledged repeatedly to lead the country into a clean, equitable energy transition.

Yet it is hard to reconcile these promises with what’s happening on the ground, especially in the Atewa Forest. Bauxite has been mined for nearly 100 years across the country—as well as in Guinea and Mali—but it’s now happening in areas that were off-limits until recently. Before 2022, the government permitted just 2% of the country’s forests to be mined, with that amount granted only after a lengthy regulatory evaluation. But that year, President Akufo-Addo’s administration passed a regulation stating that he could, in the national interest, allow unlimited mining in all biodiversity-sensitive areas.

“After our 2016 presidential elections, the winning government came in with a mindset to transform Ghana’s economy with a lot of dependence on our bauxite resources,” Bosu said. “They decided to target not only the Atewa Forest, but all other places in the country that have bauxite reserves.”

Mining—whether authorized by the government or done illegally—can have devastating effects on the environment and communities that sustain off the land. From pollution to disease to violent unrest, these impacts can be prevented when extraction takes into account the needs of the people and the planet and prioritizes equal distribution.

In this new, no-holds-barred atmosphere, mining ballooned across Ghana—both large camps authorized by the government and small-scale and illegally run operations called galamsey. Land once devoted to cocoa production swiftly became mining grounds, leaving many farmers without their only source of livelihood. Forest reserves like the Atewa have not been spared. “We have seen an increase of illegal farming activities, logging, and widespread galamsey all over the forest,” Bosu said. “Many communities are of the view that, ‘Well, if the government is going to destroy the forest, why don’t I also take my pound of flesh?’”

Professor Abdulai of the University of Ghana pointed out that restricting mining operations—especially galamsey—can be particularly challenging because of whose pockets they line. “This is a historical problem that governments upon governments have struggled with,” he said. “One reason it’s been so hard to reduce it is because it serves the interest of various power holders in society, including the political class, traditional elites, and some bureaucrats.”

“Galamsey has devastated river bodies and led to the destruction of farmlands,” Bosu added. “We are seeing health-related incidents like kidney failure in local communities who are working at these highly polluted sites and being exposed to polluted rivers and streams.”

The pollution of the Atewa Forest’s intricate watershed system is a top concern for conservationists. The three rivers that originate in the forest carve a spoke-like shape into the rest of the country: The Birim River serves all of eastern Ghana, eventually connecting to another big river called the Pra Basin, which serves the west. The Ayensu River flows from the east and ends up in the central area of the country. And the Densu River feeds the Densu Basin and the Weija Reservoir, which supplies most of Accra with drinkable water.

“The Atewa Forest is a significant hydrological gem,” Bosu said. “It provides water for so many people downstream—and the bauxite substrate in the soil actually contributes to the water recharge process of that entire rock system. Without this forest, more than 5 million people are going to be deprived of water security. That is an issue you don’t want to gloss over.”

Beyond this serious threat to Ghanaians’ water supply, mining the Atewa Forest risks other ecological repercussions. First, deforestation would harm its remarkable biodiversity, which the noted biologist E.O. Wilson called “of exceptional biological importance” in a 2018 letter to President Akufo-Addo urging its protection. It would also mean destabilizing the 40-plus local communities that surround the forest, most of which are farming communities that grow cocoa, oil palm, plantains, and more. Many of them also subsist on forest products, including snails, mushrooms, and medicinal plants. These forest communities have lived in harmony with nature for many years, and their wisdom is urgently needed in the current climate conversation.

More than 40 local communities depend on the Atewa Forest for food, water and their livelihoods. Mining can uproot these communities, pushing them into poverty and exacerbating social and economic inequities.

With interest in mining the forest showing no sign of slowing, A Rocha Ghana has ramped up its efforts to protect the land. In 2020, the group submitted a motion to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature to pass a resolution calling for the Ghanaian government to make the forest a national park.

That same year, A Rocha Ghana led a collective of six nonprofits and four individuals in filing a case in Ghana’s High Court to establish the Atewa Reserve as a nationally protected region and overturn plans for bauxite mining. The trial began in February 2023 and is ongoing, which has meant that legal mining cannot proceed until it is resolved.

Their case lays bare an argument rooted in social justice. “Our case hinges on the fact that our constitution guarantees the right to a healthy environment to every Ghanaian, and we believe that destroying this forest will expose Ghanaians to significant environmental hardship,” Bosu adds. “We ask the court to uphold that constitutional right and request the government rehabilitate the degraded areas that have resulted from the illegal exploration done so far.”

A Rocha Ghana has also taken to social media with its conservation campaign, appealing to international audiences with the release of “Atewa Till Eternity,” a catchy rap song with pro-conservation lyrics and lush footage of the forest.

Concurrently, the group partnered with the local communities surrounding the forest to design strategies to help them adapt to the changing circumstances. This includes establishing community monitoring units, which helps residents report illegal activities to A Rocha Ghana, who in turn alert the police and urge officials to take action.

A Rocha Ghana also researched a path toward green development for the Atewa Forest, which proposes opportunities for sustainable energy and ecotourism over extractivism. “This is to help the government appreciate the green development opportunities that they could benefit from if they followed a sustainability pathway,” said Bosu. “There are better routes available for everyone. And there is definitely hope.”

A Rocha Ghana partners with Atewa’s local communities to advocate for their needs, amplify their voices, and ensure they are part of the solution to protect the forest now and for generations to come.

Despite the many risks of mining the Atewa Forest, the Ghanaian government continues to encourage extraction efforts. Some of this nods back to campaign promises made by President Akufo-Addo, whose hometown is near the forest: He pledged to open a bauxite mine there and create new jobs. But there is also intense pressure coming from international partners—not just the IMF and its $3 billion tab, but from the Chinese government, who, in 2018, provided Ghana with $2 billion for infrastructure development in exchange for access to 5% of the country’s bauxite reserves. China currently dominates global solar supply chains, and it operates mines in other parts of Ghana, but this new deal puts extra onus on bauxite because the Ghanaian government has said it plans to pay back the loan with the sale of it.

However, this plan is inherently flawed, according to Benjamin Boakye, executive director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy, an Accra-based research and advocacy nonprofit and Ford grantee. Before the agreement was signed, the center analyzed the $2 billion Chinese deal and discouraged the government from moving forward because it found Ghana’s bauxite wasn’t as lucrative as projected.

“In our analysis, we showed the government that they were not going to make enough money from the bauxite extracted to pay back a $2 billion debt,” Boakye said. “They were going to have to find that money somewhere else in the budget, which could hurt Ghanaians. The other benefits Ghana was getting from the Atewa Forest were much higher than what the government was seeking to gain by exploiting bauxite.”

Bosu agrees. “The Atewa Forest has less than 20% of Ghana’s bauxite reserves, and our research shows that the bauxite deposit there is low grade. It’s not really of commercial value,” he said. “Our position has always been that, yes, we have bauxite, so let’s take advantage of it—but let’s do it properly, making sure environmental and social protections are in place, and recognizing that certain places in this country are no-go areas.”

Despite their opposition and obstacles, the advocates for the Atewa Forest’s preservation remain undeterred. Bosu, for one, is resolute—and he does not lose sight of why.

“The Atewa Forest was set up in honor of one of our traditional leaders, Nana Sir Ofori Atta I, who was a very strong advocate for land rights and protection,” Bosu said. “He said that we do not own the land, we borrow it from our children and our grandchildren. We need to make sure we leave it as it is for them.”

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Holding fast to our shared humanity

Bedirhan Cinar — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 01:12:47 +0000

With each passing day, my heart breaks anew.

I grieve for the victims of Hamas’ terrorism and all of the suffering and trauma it has unleashed—for the more than 1,400 Jews and 5,000 Palestinians killed; for the more than 200 anguished families, anxiously awaiting word about their loved ones held hostage.

I grieve for the communities this crisis has displaced and upended, in Israel and around the world—for all those across the Jewish diaspora reckoning with the vile resurgence of antisemitism and the many victims of Islamophobia.

I grieve for the millions of innocent people—civilians, human beings—who yearn only for peace, but remain trapped in an escalating cycle of violence.

For me, one pressing question is: How can philanthropy make a difference?

I believe, especially in moments like these, that philanthropy must turn toward the pain and peril, not away from it. We must act with urgency and agility, in a way that catalyzes the good works of others.  And at the Ford Foundation, we are proud to provide grants to both Jewish- and Palestinian-led efforts—because the long road to relief, to rebuilding, to reconciliation of any kind begins with both peoples.

As ever, we are listening and learning with empathy and compassion. We are supporting those closest, most proximate, to the people and communities in greatest need. We are giving in collaboration—in true partnership—with the public and private sectors, other foundations, and many indispensable civil-society organizations, entrusting grantees with general support and empowering them to deploy resources most effectively.

Of course, some have cautioned that I—and the institution I lead—would be well advised to stay silent and stand pat.  As I’ve noted before, Henry Ford, our founder, was among the twentieth century’s most virulent American antisemites. And yet, to me, our past confers a special obligation to engage, not to retreat—no matter the complications or the consequences.

Ultimately, we all must hold fast to the promise of a future in which everyone can live in equality—with human dignity and human rights, with the freedoms and responsibilities of pluralist democracy. History teaches this will not come easy, nor on its own. But together we can and must help to build a just and lasting peace, worthy of our shared humanity.

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