NCRP, Grantmakers for Southern Progress, Solutions Project and Northern California Grantmakers
South Meets West: Philanthropy and the Heart of the Resistance
February 20, San Francisco, CA
February 21, Los Angeles, CA

Partnering with the American South is a slam dunk for the West Coast. Yet philanthropy only invests 53 cents per capita in the South for every dollar invested in California. As a country, this can and must change. To this end, Solutions Project, Grantmakers for Southern Progress (GSP) and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) are cohosting critical discussions to gain powerful insights and practical tools from As the South Grows, an initiative derived from over 100 interviews and focus groups with community leaders and funders working across the region. The goal of the conversations between West Coast funders and nonprofits on the ground in the South are to build relationships of solidarity whose impact will ripple across the country – and the globe.

Many of the most regressive policies now taking shape on the national stage began in the American South. Yet the South is also the cradle of American culture and the birthplace of resistance, from movements to expand the franchise and end segregation to the modern environmental justice movement. Southerners – Southern women and women of color in particular – have spearheaded the creation of a vast network of change agents who, after decades of radical, under-the-radar work in oppressive, under-invested conditions, know exactly how to resist creatively and build power in today’s national context. They also know how to organize around our changing climate, because the impacts of climate change have hit there first.

View the San Francisco slides here and the attendee list here.

View the Los Angeles slides here and the attendee list here.