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Editor’s note: This post is part of an ongoing series of posts featuring NCRP nonprofit members.

Seeing is believing­ – a nice proverb, but also an often unsaid maxim for philanthropic giving. After all, if a would-be funder can’t see a problem or isn’t aware of its impact, how can she be expected to buy into potential solutions?

So what’s a willing advocate to do when a community faces systemic adversity that could benefit from philanthropic investment, but is too new and too dispersed to speak at a volume funders can hear?

This is the predicament Asian Pacific Community in Action (APCA) finds itself in. Founded in 2002, APCA seeks to foster greater health and empowerment for the two fastest growing populations in Arizona: Asian-Americans and Native Hawaiians/Pacific Islanders (AANHPI). It does so through a combination of services, advocacy and education.

APCA has enrolled community members in health insurance plans and educated them about preventative care. It has championed language access in the health insurance marketplace, resulting in some translations of various insurance notices. APCA staff and volunteers occupy key leadership positions in the governing councils of county health clinics and hospitals, city commissions and chambers of commerce.

Yet there is still a long way to go.

Nearly every one in 20 persons in Arizona is a member of an AANHPI community. But, because most of them arrived only in the 1990s or 2000s and settled into areas sequestered from the rest of the population, they remain invisible to the public eye.

There is no Chinatown or Little Korea to help center these disparate locations. Other standard community infrastructure, like legal and housing services, are not yet developed. The Arizona Department of Health doesn’t even collect Asian-American data, instead cramming it into an ill-defined “other” category.

The needs of a Chinese-American whose family has been here for four generations are plainly different than those of a recently arrived Myanmar refugee, but if the health department doesn’t disentangle the responses of the former from the latter, how are health care providers to know who needs what?

Problems like this pushed APCA to progress from a strictly outreach and health access portfolio to a broader emphasis on community organizing. APCA now registers people to vote and educates community members on how issues affect them, how a bill becomes law and how to connect with lawmakers to ensure they are meeting the AANHPI community’s needs.

In 2016, APCA launched the first Asian-American Pacific Islander Advocacy Day. At the state capitol in Phoenix, about 20 community members were directly connected with their elected officials. The following year, the organization helped introduce a data disaggregation bill that would have collected and separated out Asian-American data. It wasn’t passed, but APCA did get a resolution read on the Senate floor, introducing the issue to many legislators for the first time.

APCA has committed to building out space for a coalition of community health workers, faith leaders and health professionals to work together around shared issues in the AANHPI community.

Take oral health, for instance. APCA has designed a community organizing and advocacy training program that brings in oral health providers serving communities of color to talk about social determinants in health and what’s happening in the state legislature around the issue.

APCA is not an organization that wants to exist in perpetuity. As more and more members of the AANHPI communities see the value in civic engagement and seize the collective power available to them, APCA would victoriously grow obsolete.

In the meantime, APCA could use some help. General operating support would jumpstart its efforts to connect with the growing number of AANHPI individuals in the state and help as it recruits leaders from each set of the 60-plus different languages and cultures therein to guide its approach until the communities united are ready to stand on their own.

Beyond funding general operation, there are specific programmatic areas awaiting support too. APCA would like to resurrect a dormant interpreter service to help its constituents navigate a language and culture in which they’re not yet proficient. Alternatively, the organization has collected a trove of data and stories from the Arizonan AANHPI communities; it could use additional funding to hire a staffer to sift through all of this information.

The Asian-American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities in Arizona are no longer hidden. Their individual experiences may vary, but their expertise in their communities does not. Funding in the long-run should capitalize on this insider knowledge and let it guide future research and community action. In the end, seeing isn’t just believing; it’s doing.

Troy Price is NCRP’s membership and fundraising intern. Follow @NCRP on Twitter.

Image by Rob Young. Used under Creative Commons license.

Aaron Dorfman — president and CEO of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a left-leaning watchdog group — sees Michael Bloomberg as the Arnolds’ closest cousin. They both worship data. They both tend to weave together political and philanthropic spending. And, Dorfman said, “both of them sometimes annoy people on both the left and the right.”

Read the entire article in STAT.

Adelina Nicholls, co-founder and executive director of Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) described the challenges of her work in the As the South Grows: Bearing Fruit NCRP report with a simple yet illustrative quote:

 “I am the one keeping the books, moving around money and paying the bills. I am the only one writing the grants, and I am the one leading our community organizing.”

In spite of the financial limitations with which her organization has had to operate in the past almost two decades, the accomplishments of GLAHR speak of an effective organization staffed mostly by volunteers and cemented in the community.

Adelina’s case is not unique; in fact, it is the reality for a myriad of small Latino serving nonprofit organizations working in partnership with thousands of Latinx families, students and entrepreneurs across Georgia.

These organizations, Latino-led and largely underfunded and unknown to funders and decision-makers, are, in our opinion, the key to building a more equitable future for Georgia. This is why:

According to the University of Georgia’s Carl Vinson Institute of Government, one in five Georgians will be Latino in 2030. With significant geographic dispersion and significant limitations in transportation, immigration and language, it is only through a network of agencies that already have built trust and respect in our families, that we are able to have the wide and deep reach needed to bridge the gap between opportunity and talent for our hard-working, entrepreneurial and resilient community.

Since the early ‘90s, when Georgia experienced for the first time (since the African slave trade closed down) a large-scale influx of “non-traditional” population – in this case Latinos, coming to build the city for the Olympics – the Hispanic community has evolved significantly, yet funding models have not.

What made sense 30 years ago, which was to fund a few national or well-known organizations and expect them to deliver basic services to Spanish-speaking, mostly young males working in construction, following a pyramidal model that funds organizations at the top (more visible and larger) expecting benefits and funding to reach the middle and base of the pyramid (the communities) does not work today.

Today, the community has evolved and diversified. We are 10 percent of the state population, and mostly young families. While most Latinx adults are still first generation immigrants, 87 percent of all Latinos under 18 are American citizens. Latinas in Georgia are one of the fastest segments opening businesses in the country and very civically engaged, dominating voter participation rates with 73 percent of us casting ballots in 2016 (according to the report issued by Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, 2016: The Latino Electorate in Georgia Continues to Grow and Vote).

Many challenges remain. Unlike other states with a more mature Latino community, we do not have “barrios” where generations of Latinos have traditionally lived, grown and develop influence and iconic institutions and leaders. Our realities as recent immigrants and new Americans are translated into barriers for self-sufficiency and efficiencies, even more clear when we, Latinos, lead our own institutions.

A new funding model needs to take place to meet the needs of this new community. 

This new funding model, an inverted pyramid, funding a network of organizations, versus one or two, needs to use a deliberate equity lens and criteria to assessing capacity that is sensitive to the realities of our community.

While perfect English, minimum budgets and complex strategic plans are often appropriate standards and blanket criteria for mainstream organizations, they do not serve a community that has been historically underfunded, many times ignored and at best tokenized.

These standards limit well-meaning organizations by overlooking the very attributes and capacities that make Latino-led and majority Latino-serving grassroots organizations uniquely qualified to serve our own community:

  • Our immigrant competencies
  • Our shared experiences
  • Our language and cultural sensitivities and capabilities
  • The trust, respect and love we have with the families we serve

The only way to build a sustainable ecosystem of competent Latino-serving organizations is to invest in local and community-centered leadership.

With 41 percent of Latino children living in poverty in the state (Pew Hispanic Center) and only 0.3 percent of grantmaking in Metro Atlanta allocated to immigrant-serving organizations (according to NCRP), we must do better.

Yes, investments in large and national organizations with local chapters are still important, but it is equally important to support the existing infrastructure of organizations already influencing and doing the heavy lifting through deep community connections across counties and regions in the state.

This inverse pyramidal funding model is a model that we see replicated in politics, where mayors are leading change in their cities (versus Washington leading from the top down) and also in efforts to bridge the digital divide (from internet cafes and hubs, to mass access via subsidized digital products and technology). The model is key to ensuring economic opportunity, building capacity and supporting effective action and power building in our community.

Our network, 22 members strong, is a testament of the willingness of our Latino-led and majority Latino-serving organizations in Georgia to work together towards a better future for all. Because yes, we are stronger together and we, Latinx, help Georgia grow.

Gilda (Gigi) Pedraza is the executive director of Latino Community Fund (LCF Georgia). Follow @GigiPedrazaM and @LatinoConnectGA on Twitter.

California and the American South have much in common. They’re both economic powerhouses. They’re both engines of culture, literature and film. And they’re both dynamos of resistance, from the mayor of Oakland’s recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid warning, to today’s Southern youth pioneering movements like their forebears did half a century ago.

Yet philanthropy has built few bridges between these two regions. This gulf constrains our country’s progress. That’s why, as part of our As the South Grows initiative, NCRP, Grantmakers for Southern Progress (GSP) and Solutions Project hosted two “South Meets West” funder briefings last month in California.

The first event took place with Northern California Grantmakers in San Francisco at the James Irvine Foundation.

Attendees at the “South Meets West” funder event in San Francisco.

The second took place in downtown Los Angeles.

Southern leaders Stephanie Guilloud, Dr. Jenny Stephens and Peter Hille present at the "South Meets West" even in Los Angeles.

California-based community foundations, private foundations, rapid response funds and individual donors met with Southern foundations, nonprofit leaders and community organizers from across the South.  

Attendees at the San Francisco "South Meets West" event.

Tyler Nickerson kicked things off by sharing why, as a progressive funder, Solutions Project believes in funding the grassroots in both regions.

Tyler Nickerson of Solutions Project at the San Francisco "South Meets West" event.

NCRP Vice President and Chief Engagement Officer Jeanné Isler and GSP Co-Chair and Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation Program Director Lavastian Glenn shared highlights from NCRP and GSP’s As the South Grows series.

Organizing, advocacy and civic engagement (per capita grantmaking, 2010-2014).

 

Southern leaders shared how the road to national progress runs through the South. They included Stephanie Guilloud from Project South in Atlanta, Dr. Jennie Stephens from the Center for Heirs’ Property Preservation in South Carolina and Peter Hille from the Mountain Association for Community Economic Development in Kentucky (all NCRP nonprofit members).

Peter Hille, Stephanie Guilloud and Dr. Jennie Stephens at the San Francisco "South Meets West" event.

We strategized together and told stories together.

Attendees at the "South Meets West" event in San Francisco.

We even went to happy hour together. 

People left with commitments to move money, make phone calls and visit the South in person.

Attendees at the "South Meets West" event in San Francisco.

And we left inspired with what can happen when the South and California partner together. 

Attendees at the "South Meets West" even in Los Angeles.

These events were a first step. True change in the philanthropic relationship between the South and California will take long-term relationships, as well as a willingness to risk our comfort with the status quo. Here at NCRP, we’re excited to roll up our sleeves.

To learn how you can get involved with NCRP, GSP and As the South Grows, contact Ben Barge at bbarge@ncrp.org and Tamieka Mosley at tmosley@southerneducation.org.

Ben Barge is senior associate for learning and engagement at NCRP. Follow @NCRP on Twitter.

As the South Grows, a collaborative project from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) and Grantmakers for Southern Progress (GSP), highlights successful methods and warns of the failures of philanthropic activities in the South. The project involved interviewing more than 90 community nonprofit leaders to find the challenges, opportunities, and assets in the South. The project finds that while the region is rich in culture and leadership, it remains overlooked by funders, despite opportunities to help in several ways.

Read the entire article in Nonprofit Quarterly.

“It seems that all roads in the South lead to Atlanta,” begins a new report by Ryan Schlegel and Stephanie Peng of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy(NCRP). Titled “Bearing Fruit,” the report notes that while Atlanta within the South has often painted itself with a progressive veneer, “Atlanta’s growth and its forward-looking political climate have left many communities, especially low-income communities and communities of color, behind.” Schlegel and Peng profiles the efforts of three community organizations, a local funding intermediary, and two national funders that are aiming to change that.

The report forms the fourth in NCRP’s As the South Grows series, which is being co-produced by NCRP and Grantmakers for Southern Progress. The series is ultimately expected to consist of five reports. NPQ covered the series’ first report, as well as its most recent report (which focused on environmental justice), and cosponsored a webinar with NCRP last month. The first three reports in the series mainly focused on rural communities. But this one focuses instead on Atlanta, the nation’s ninth-largest metropolitan region and the Deep South’s largest urban center.

Read the entire article in Nonprofit Quarterly.

In a report published last April, Calhoun told the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy that, “We took pictures [of] the waters coming off the landfill. We had a scientist test the waters that had arsenic in it. We had the EPA come from Georgia to view how close this huge mountain [of landfill] is. Alabama Department of Environmental Management allows sewage water to flow into the creek. The creek flows down, and it goes from community to community. There is sewage that’s contaminating the water, and children are drinking this water.”

Read the entire article in Nonprofit Quarterly.

Not enough philanthropic support is going to communities left behind by Atlanta’s economy, fueled in part by the city’s reputation as progressive and welcoming. That’s the crux of a report recently released by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) and Grantmakers for Southern Progress,  “As the South Grows: Bearing Fruit.”

The report is part of a series released by the two organizations examining giving throughout the South. Past reports have looked at the lack of investment from national funders and reticence to support communities vulnerable to climate change.

Read the entire article in Inside Philanthropy.