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A Ripple, Not a Wave: Comparing the Last Decade of Foundation Funding for Migrant Communities and Movements

October 27, 2022

Since NCRP's first report describing the state of foundation funding for immigrant and refugee groups, the world has grown more dangerous for people on the move.Although COVID-19 slowed migration for a short time, climate disasters and deteriorating social, political, and economic conditions around the world have led more people to seek homes in new places. In the United States, right-wing politicians have continued their decades-long tactic of treating immigrants and refugees as political pawns. Former President Donald Trump used migrants as an easy scapegoat for division, effectively zeroing the country's refugee resettlement goals throughout his presidential term. In 2021, Customs and Border Protection officers on horseback were caught on camera using whips to drive Haitian asylum seekers away. Several Republican governors sent buses or planes misleading migrants north in a craven political stunt. And after 10 years of instability, the Supreme Court looks poised to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for good, meaning more than 600,000 people who have built their lives in the United States will become vulnerable to deportation. These attacks are unfair and harmful not only to people moving across borders, but to all of us.NCRP's new data shows that more funders participate in pro-immigrant and pro-refugee philanthropic spaces today than they did in the past. This is progress, but it's far from enough. NCRP also found that the pro-immigrant, pro-refugee movement's share of all foundation grants has shrunk 11% since DACA was first introduced, even as foundations themselves have grown richer. Too many foundations and major donors have ignored groups that are adept at advocating for their communities and holding political leaders accountable. Because of this, the migrant community – and our country – face more precarity today.In the last few years alone, pro-immigrant and pro-refugee groups have resettled refugees from Afghanistan and Ukraine, advocated for the specific needs of queer migrants, organized Black-led groups in a model of mutual aid, strengthened safeguards for our democracy and focused attention on urgent climate emergencies, all while sounding a constant message of welcome. Migrant organizations, especially movement advocacy groups, have done this in the face of an increasingly hostile political environment with extremely limited resources because funders have fallen short.Now more than ever, foundations must move with intention and urgency to center, support and follow the lead of the pro-immigrant and pro-refugee movement.This isn't just the right thing to do. It's also necessary if funders hope to meet their racial justice commitments, support dignity for all and reach groups with underappreciated solutions for each of their "issue" portfolios.NCRP hopes this tool, informed by the deep wisdom of so many community and philanthropic leaders, will help move the philanthropic sector toward justice.

The Threat Of Crisis Pregnancy Centers To The Future Of Abortion Access

July 22, 2022

Even before the official ruling in Dobbs V. Women's Health Organization overturned Roe v Wade, a world where pregnant people have no national legal right to abortion seemed inevitable due to anti-abortion majority on the Supreme Court. Of course, many advocates on the ground have noted that abortion access has never been a reality for those who need it most and NCRP research has shown how a world without Roe has been the de facto norm for many, especially during the pandemic.   Yet the question remains – how did this happen?The unpopular restrictions imposed on reproductive rights and access over the last several decades are a result of a coordinated rightwing effort to challenge the right to choose in the courts, in state legislatures, and on the front steps of local abortion clinics. But there is another highly effective core strategy of the anti-abortion movement that has gotten much less mainstream attention until now: the widespread influence of Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs).

How Abortion Funds Fill the Gaps and Overcome the Barriers for Access & Care

June 15, 2022

The work to secure access to abortion services is never-ending and happening in multiple capacities across the reproductive rights and justice movement. And while there are several key leaders throughout the movement, a champion on the frontlines of these organizing efforts are the abortion funds assisting pregnant people in accessing the care and support that they need.As the defenders of bodily autonomy fight to provide abortion access across the nation, the work of abortion funds in supporting both services and organizing comes into greater focus. Regardless of the final fate of Roe. v. Wade, it's abundantly clear that philanthropy must do more to provide greater resources to overcome the various obstacles that they face in supporting the health decisions of pregnant people.

Funding Abortion Beyond The Binary

January 14, 2022

For trans and gender expansive communities, the dollars dedicated by philanthropy comes woefully short. According to Funders for LGBTQ Issues, for every $1 million awarded by the sector, just $400 are allocated for transgender/nonbinary people, with $88 set aside for transgender/nonbinary health and well-being, and just under $11.44 was for sexual and reproductive health for trans and nonbinary people. Meanwhile, each year about $448 of every $1 million given by US foundations goes just to Harvard alone.The lack of support goes beyond money. Philanthropy has long been a catalyst for cis-gender leaders of the sector to create narratives from the margins we do not sit at, and it is time to disrupt that through wielding and yielding both our power and our platforms.So, this section of the road map will follow the abortion of We Testify storyteller Nick, as they share the moments leading up to their abortion and experience behind clinic doors as a transgender person.

Funding the Frontlines: A Roadmap To Supporting Health Equity Through Abortion Access

July 29, 2021

Structural barriers have created a deeply unequal healthcare system that blocks access to abortion care, especially for BIPoC, poor and transgender people.Over 60% of people seeking abortions identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian or Pacific Islander and 75% are low-income. In the United States, 89% of counties have no abortion providers at all, but even geographic proximity doesn't guarantee access when people must choose between healthcare, rent or food. Almost none have services specifically for transgender patients.It does not have to be this way.Reproductive justice envisions a world where everyone can access the safety, resources and services they need. A healthier, safer, and more equitable world means all pregnant people have both the right and the resources to choose what is best for them. Transgender people can access the full range of healthcare services without stigma. The medical precept of "Do No Harm" is taken seriously and crisis pregnancy centers are not allowed to compromise patient health and safety in the name of ideology.If philanthropy is serious about creating this world, then it must play an active, public role in achieving health equity. That includes abortion access for all.Through storytelling, resource links and data collected by NCRP staff and others, this roadmap educates grantmakers on major barriers to abortion access, brings the voices of practitioners, patients and others on the frontlines into the conversation and provides concrete action steps funders can take to support health equity through abortion access.

Shifting Grantmaking To The Abortion Providers And Local Independent Clinics

July 29, 2021

Over the past several decades, medical professionals and policymakers have come to recognize that the best healthcare solutions are those that are funded at every intersection. It's time that abortion be invited into those portfolios. There is an urgent and necessary opportunity for independent clinics and providers to exist in grants that center health equity, economic justice, entrepreneurship, or maternal mortality.It is time for healthcare and women's foundations to actively join those behind the doors of independent clinics that tend to waiting areas, front desk, exam rooms and labs in the local fight for patient access and safety. It is time to visibly include providers in clinic settings, not just policy wonks, in philanthropy's definition of abortion access and advocacy. Organizers along the frontline must be seen and funded for movements to thrive and for reproductive liberation to be achieved.

The Cost of Covid: How the Pandemic Shifted Abortion and the Funds that Guard Patient Access, Rights and Justice

January 28, 2021

In early 2020, NCRP began exploring philanthropy's investment in reproductive justice. Abortion is not the foundation of this broader movement, but there was a clear gap in reproductive justice funding. Since Summer 2020, NCRP has been in conversation with abortion funds around the country about their work and the ways philanthropy has and has not supported them. We hoped to better understand how abortion funds were providing the practical support callers needed and how a shift in funding would benefit their sustainability and capacity.For this fact sheet, we talked to 5 funds located in the Southeast, Northeast, Southwest, Midwest and Northwest. The funds' work includes a range of geographic scope (i.e. serving one state or serving multiple states) and in budgets, from $350,000 to $3 million.

Black Funding Denied: Community Foundation Support for Black Communities

August 1, 2020

In light of the national uprising sparked by the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor (and building on other recent tragic movement moments going back to the 2014 murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri), NCRP is analyzing grantmaking by community foundations across the country to find out exactly how much they are – or are not – investing in Black communities.We started by looking at the latest available grantmaking data (2016-2018) of 25 community foundations (CFs) – from Los Angeles to New Orleans to New York City to St. Paul. These foundations represent a cross section of some of the country's largest community foundations as well as foundations in communities where NCRP has Black-led nonprofit allies.

How National Foundations Can Support State-Level Policy and Civic Engagement: A Q&A With Geri Mannion

May 1, 2016

In this interview, Geri Mannion of Carnegie Corporation of New York shares her thoughts about the biggest challenge facing the country this election year and the role of capacity building in supporting civic engagement. She also offers practical tips for funding state-level efforts to change policy and engage communities.

Families Funding Change: How Social Justice Giving Honors Our Roots and Strengthens Communities

October 5, 2015

In this paper, we offer a snapshot of family philanthropy as it often is practiced to day, including what makes traditional family philanthropy different from other forms. It is our hope that our suggestions will be considered when developing strategy, both by family funders for whom our research rings true, and for those whose experiences differ. A significant reason that social justice grantmaking is a powerful means to bolster impact is that it can be integrated into ongoing work regardless of the point of the path that a specific foundation is on.

Cultivating Nonprofit Leadership: A (Missed?) Philanthropic Opportunity

March 1, 2015

From 2003-2012, the country's top foundations dedicated only 0.8 percent of total grants to nonprofit leadership development. And yet, as shown by recent historic progress around immigration, criminal justice and other social justice movements, we need leaders who are strong, skilled and connected to successfully realize positive, social change.What kind of leadership development do social change-makers need to be successful? How can foundations measure the impact of leadership development? What are the most common barriers to funding such programs and how can we overcome these challenges? What can we learn from foundations that are already supporting transformational leadership development, and from the recipients of such support? This report answers these questions and offers the following recommendations to foundations that wish to invest in the current and future leaders of social justice movements:Begin or increase funding for leadership development.Integrate leadership development with program strategy.Engage with grantees as true partners.Use a culturally inclusive lens.Build capacity that supports leadership development.

Implicit Bias and Native Americans: Philanthropy’s Hidden Minority

January 1, 2015

This factsheet discusses the role of implicit bias in philanthorpy and its impacts on Native Americans.