Thank you to the hundreds of people who joined us online to kickoff our 2020 National Convening Series between June 29 and July 2. Our early July convening programming included the Accountability & Philanthropy's Role plenary session (watch the recording!), Multiracial Rural Equity Summit hosted by NFG's Integrated Rural Strategies Program, and Homecoming: Housing Justice is Racial and Economic Justice, a strategy session organized by NFG's Democratizing Development Program.
As communities continue to adapt to the altered landscape created by COVID-19 and rise up to defend Black lives, NFG is a place for funders to find co-conspirators, explore ideas, and shift power and money towards transformational justice. Highlights from this month’s NFG programming include:
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We are imagining what is possible if philanthropy funded the holistic sustainability and wellness of communities and grantee partners so that they had the capacity to resist, shift, and innovate. For four Wednesdays in July, NFG's Funders for Justice facilitated a Healing Justice Institute to build relationships and coordinate strategy to resource healing justice. Members of FFJ's Healing Justice Strategy Group also published "Healing Justice Guidance to Philanthropy During COVID-19, the Uprisings, and Beyond."
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NFG's Funders for a Just Economy published the latest Strike Watch, focused on the July 20 Strike for Black Lives where thousands of essential workers walked out of hospitals, fast food restaurants, corporate buildings, warehouses and more to demand justice for Black communities.
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Our Funders for a Just Economy team also hosted a Safe and Just Return to Work webinar where funders heard about the actions essential workers are taking nationwide to fight for basic security and health and explored how to best fund organizing safe and just working conditions for all workers.
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Grantees of NFG's Amplify Fund engaged in conversation about how groups are combining online with offline action to build power and win change, and shared technical information about digital campaign tools and tactics that organizations can use to engage members, expand their reach, and be heard by decision-makers. (Contact us for a list of Amplify's recent grantees!)
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NFG's Integrated Rural Strategies Group hosted the first webinar in the three-part Meeting the Moment series. Leaders discussed how they are adapting to this current moment and shared innovative strategies to engage voters and meet rural and small city Americans where they are at.
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And — happening at 9am PT / 12pm ET today! — NFG's Funders for Justice will offer a webinar on From Bail Reform to Closing the Jail: Organizing Wins for Divestment. Join us to learn from leaders of two powerful campaigns that have recently won their fight to close local jails: Close the Workhouse, in St. Louis, MO, and Communities Over Cages, in Atlanta, GA.
Across all of NFG’s programming, we are organizing philanthropy to accelerate racial, economic, gender, and climate justice. And we're staying rooted in community and connection. Join us on August 20 for our next Member Connection Call, where we’ll have a chance to continue conversations we showcased during NFG’s National Convening plenaries on philanthropic accountability and community power building. Whether you’re new to the NFG community or have been organizing with us for many years, this virtual connection space is for you.
Finally, we want to give a warm shout out to Amoretta Morris, Director of National Community Strategies at The Annie E. Casey Foundation, who is expanding her role as an NFG board member to serve as Co-Chair alongside fellow Co-Chair Alison Corwin, Senior Program Officer for Sustainable Environments at Surdna Foundation. We also bid a fond farewell to NFG board member Sandra Witt, Director of Healthy Communities – North Region at The California Endowment, who has concluded her board service at NFG. We will miss Sandra as an official member of the board, and have so much gratitude for her contributions as a longtime champion of NFG's mission.
Keep reading for resources and opportunities to build with NFG. And together, let's move more & more resources so that Black, Indigenous, and people of color communities and low-income communities thrive.
Onwards,
The NFG Team