Shared Power: How One Rapid Response Fund Defies Philanthropy’s Hierarchical Streak
From grassroots organizing to coding camps, these Bay Area leaders pave a path to social change.
SF WEEKLY / By: Ida Mojadad
From grassroots organizing to coding camps, these Bay Area leaders pave a path to social change. Lateefah Simon among local leaders of color, whose work we may also point to decades from now.
See Complete list here
Most Promising New Foundation President: Lateefah Simon
We’ve been blown away by Simon, who, right before Trump’s election, took the top job at the Akonadi Foundation—a Bay Area racial equity funder—and has quickly become an important voice.
Philanthropy News Digest: Profiles Lateefah Simon
At 40, Lateefah Simon has spent more than half her life as a civil rights advocate and racial justice leader. She was a 17-year-old mother when she went to work for theCenter for Young Women’s Development and was just 19 when she became the organization’s executive director. In the years that followed, she helped position the center as a national leader in the movement to empower young women of color — an achievement for which she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2003. She later led the creation of San Francisco’s first reentry services division, headed the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, and served as a program director at the Rosenberg Foundation, where she helped launch the Leading Edge Fund in support of the next generation of progressive movement leaders in California. Read More
Inside Philanthropy / By: Tate Williams
While she’s optimistic about where the sector is headed, Simon agreed with others we spoke with in philanthropy who are engaged with social justice organizing and activism—if more funders are going to be truly supportive of social movements in this moment and beyond, they need to up their game in some important ways. Read More.
East Bay Times / By ALI TADAYON
OAKLAND — Oakland’s Akonadi Foundation is giving about $1.4 million to 15 organizations fighting for racial justice on a local level.
The grants — which range from $50,000 to $150,000 — come from Akonadi’s Arc Toward Justice fund, which is designated for organizations that promote long-term racial equity, said the foundation’s Vice President of Programs Gina Acebo. The funds are unrestricted.
“I was born and raised here in Oakland, and it makes me so proud to be witness to the type of work these groups are doing in the streets of Oakland,” Acebo said in an interview. Read More
A Racial Justice Funder’s Different Take on Rapid Response
By: Tate Williams
The rapid-response fund is one form of grantmaking that has become popular since the 2016 election, and the many threats that have followed.
These funds are usually smaller pools of money set up with more flexibility, independent of grantmaking cycles, and with simpler application processes than a typical proposal. While certainly not new, a number of funders have embraced them post-election as a way to move dollars toward immediate threats in more vulnerable communities. READ MORE ABOUT AKONADI’S SO LOVE CAN WIN FUND
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP)board of directors today elected new officers and welcomed five new esteemed members during its board meeting. Read more