FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: November 5, 2019
CONTACT: Kawana Lloyd, kawana@megaphonestrategies.com, 240-472-2860; Jacqueline Lara, jacqueline@megaphonestrategies.com, 240-305-2133
Unbound Philanthropy Honored with 2019 NCRP “Mover and Shaker” Award for Transforming Narratives & Advancing Immigrant Justice through Pop Culture
New York – This week, Unbound Philanthropy was announced as the winner of the “Mover and Shaker” 2019 Impact Award from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP). The award celebrates its forward-looking efforts to organize support for replacing harmful and misleading cultural narratives with ones that reflect justice and equity. Unbound is one of four recipients that will be celebrated at the CHANGE Unity Summit Impact Awards in Seattle on November 20.
Formed in 2003, Unbound invests in leaders and organizations in the United States and United Kingdom working to build a vibrant, welcoming society and just immigration system. Unbound is being honored for organizing philanthropic dollars focused on public support for communities under extraordinary threat including immigrants, refugees, Muslim Americans, Native people, and people of color – especially those who are women, queer, and transgender – through transformative pop culture and narrative strategies. Leading grantees are forming ground-breaking collaborations with TV, film and other forms of entertainment media.
Barely one percent of all U.S. philanthropic funding supports immigrant communities, making the need for more funder investment and collaboration particularly acute.
“We believe that transforming today’s harmful narratives about many communities to affirming, pluralistic ones is an essential strategy that complements well-practiced, power-building strategies such as organizing, civic engagement, and policy advocacy,” said Taryn Higashi, Executive Director of Unbound Philanthropy. “Engaging in cultural and narrative work requires more collective energy, creativity, and rigor than we have typically allocated, and it must be done in collaboration with artists, writers and others with lived experiences.”
Unbound supports organizations with a focus on three areas: Ensuring legal protections in the immigration system, strengthening integration among newcomers and long-settled communities, and deepening public support and engagement for a just immigration system and welcoming society. U.S. grantees include the Pop Culture Collaborative, United We Dream Network, Define American, and CultureStrike and in the U.K., We Belong – Young Migrants Standing Up, British Future, Counterpoint Arts and IMIX.
Key Milestones include:
- In 2018, Unbound awarded 51 grants in the United States, totaling $6,044,099, and 24 grants in the U.K., totaling £3,025,000.
- Unbound grantee the National Domestic Workers Alliance has been a pathbreaker in partnering with the entertainment industry on films such as Oscar award winning “Roma,” where they created a campaign to increase the visibility and value of domestic work, turning viewers’ attention to the reality of domestic workers, and accelerating the adoption of solutions for domestic workers.
- Unbound co-founded the Pop Culture Collaborative, a multi-million dollar philanthropic resource and funder learning community that seeks to help mass audiences understand the past, make sense of the present, and imagine the future of American society.
“We are living in an age when false and misleading narratives about people who are immigrants and refugees, Muslims, people of color and Native people – especially those who are women, queer, transgender and/or disabled – cause scapegoating, violence and polarization,” said Nayantara Sen, Manager of Cultural Strategies with Race Forward who will attend the IMPACT Awards with Higashi. “False cultural narratives turn into actions that can destroy the lives of individuals and communities. I’m happy to be part of Unbound’s efforts to build cultures and narratives that create healing, justice and power for communities of color.”
“Philanthropy has a critical role to play in supporting the growth of the pop culture for social change field,” said Bridgit Antoinette Evans, Executive Director of the Pop Culture Collaborative. “Unbound so often sees the light breaking through—from within grassroots movements and local cultural spaces, as well as in the entertainment industry and other pop culture arenas. We are honored to collaborate with Unbound Philanthropy.”
To coordinate an advance interview with Taryn Higashi, Nayantara Sen, Bridgit Antoinette Evans, or one of Unbound’s other grantees, please contact kawana@megaphonestrategies.com.
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About Unbound
Unbound Philanthropy is an independent private grantmaking foundation that invests in leaders and organizations in the US and UK working to build a vibrant, welcoming society and just immigration system. They are also a founding managing partner of the Pop Culture Collaborative, a multi-million dollar philanthropic resource and funder learning community that seeks to help mass audiences understand the past, make sense of the present, and imagine the future of American society. Unbound focuses its grantmaking on the pro-immigrant movement and actively works to attract more philanthropic support for it. Unbound believes that enduring solutions for immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers require just and pluralist societies in which everyone is perceived to belong.
Examples of Unbound’s work in the UK include:
- Unbound was among the first supporters of undocumented youth leaders in the U.K., connecting them to undocumented youth leaders in the U.S., which led to the launch of We Belong – Young Migrants Standing Up, the first U.K.-wide charity run entirely by and for young migrants.
- Unbound funded a series of new organizations focused on strategic communications and narrative change, including the donor collaborative Migration Exchange, British Future – an independent, nonpartisan organization using communications expertise to engage people’s hopes and fears about integration and migration; and Counterpoints Arts, the leading U.K.-based organization using the arts, including pop culture, to inspire social change for refugees and immigrants.
About NCRP
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy amplifies the voice of nonprofits and the communities they serve in the philanthropic sector. Through research and advocacy, it works to ensure that grantmakers and donors contribute to the creation of a fair, just and equitable world. Since 2013, NCRP has awarded 19 Impact Awards to grantmakers in recognition of support, leadership and partnership with grassroots organizations and community leaders around LGBTQ rights, minimum wage, environmental justice, health equity and other critical issues. A full list of past NCRP Impact Awardees is available on www.ncrp.org.
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