The Partnership for Equity: Supporting Social Justice

$200K in New Grants Support Leaders and Organizations

There’s no doubt about it: the nation’s capital is brimming with nonprofits with a national focus – institutions such as the American Red Cross and AARP come to mind. But our region is also home to a vibrant, community-based nonprofit sector with a handful of organizations focused on ensuring equity, access, and opportunity for all residents of our region, including communities whose voices traditionally have been left out of the conversation.  These groups – often working at the “grass-roots” level – represent an ideal opportunity for donors who care about such social justice issues to invest in these change-makers.

The Community Foundation’s Partnership for Equity is helping to pave the way. Recently, we awarded $200,000 in grants to nine nonprofits, both established and emerging. Because nonprofits such as these often need both operating support as well as organizational-strengthening support, each grant has a two-pronged approach: part of the grant supports the professional development of an organization’s leader, with the balance funding general operations –always a “hard sell” for nonprofits when seeking grant support.

Take a look at this year’s grantees and consider following our lead. Here’s your chance to help sustain -- and grow – some of the effective nonprofits working for positive social change in our region.

Nonprofit Profile: Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center

 The tenants didn’t see how they could have any value or voice in our community. What a difference a year makes.

The Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center (APALRC) serves a regional population of some 500,000 people representing 60 ethnic groups who speak 50 different languages and dialects. Or, in the words of Executive Director Myron Quon: “We work with Thai immigrants in Silver Spring and Japanese immigrants in Gaithersburg, with low-income Chinese seniors in Chinatown and Vietnamese families in Falls Church, with Koreans in Annandale and the Indian community in Fairfax County.”

Quon, who refers to himself as an “activist lawyer,” has devoted his career to working with underserved populations. His resume also includes The Chicago Community Trust, The Community Foundation’s counterpart in the Windy City, where he focused on grant-making to organizations that work with immigrants or provide legal services.

Quon joined APALRC 18 months ago, replacing Jayne Park who last fall was named Deputy Director of The Community Foundation for Montgomery County. APALRC’s primary focus traditionally has been on providing legal services in such critical areas as domestic violence, housing and immigration status, and advocating for full and equal access to DC government programs and services for the city’s estimated 39,000 non-English speakers. APALRC’s leadership on this issue led to the successful passage of the 2004 DC Language Access Act—considered the most comprehensive language-access law in the country—which requires that government services be accessible to those with limited English skills.

More recently, the organization has taken on a third focus—community organizing. Consider, for instance, the low-income Chinese seniors who live in Wah Luck House in the heart of DC’s Chinatown. Many Washingtonians on their way to dinner or to the Verizon Center may have walked past the distinct building, which provides 150 units of affordable housing to low-income Asian immigrants. While few of us know the tenants or their personal stories, Quon does.

In the spring of 2008, the residents got wind of a rumor that a developer planned to buy and demolish their home. Over the years, the tenants had watched the neighborhood change and Chinatown shrink to only a couple of blocks.

“The tenants didn’t see how they could have any value or voice in our community,” said Quon. “What a difference a year makes.”

Today, with the help of APALRC staff, residents are not only aware of their rights, but have formed a tenants’ association, testified before the DC City Council and written letters to the D.C Office on Planning about Chinatown redevelopment efforts. While they still face an uphill battle (at a recent meeting with government officials they were unable to tell their story because no one had arranged for translators), “Although the tenants now feel comfortable speaking up, the failure to provide adequate translation effectively silenced them and kept them segregated from crucial dialogue.”

APALRC recently received a grant from the The Community Foundation’s Partnership for Equity (see lead story in this issue), a collaboration between philanthropic organizations and representatives of key local jurisdictions who share a vision for equity, access, and opportunity for immigrant communities and other communities of color seeking social justice.

“As a first-time Executive Director following the founding director’s footsteps, for me, the Partnership for Equity support has been critical to ensuring my success and the APALRC’s steadiness during this transition,” said Quon. “The Partnership for Equity supported my leadership through the engagement of an executive coach and participation in an Asian American executive directors leadership program.”

Community Foundation Donors Give $180K+ to Haiti

While the snow and blizzard may have overtaken the local headlines temporarily, the crisis in Haiti continues, with some 1.2 million people left homeless.

In response, to date Community Foundation donors have made grants totaling more than $180,000 through their Community Foundation funds to nonprofit relief agencies delivering food, water, medical care and other services to the survivors of this disaster – proof once again that, indeed, we are a “community of givers.”

To make your own difference, consider making a charitable gift to one of the suggested nonprofits below.

American Red Cross
One of the crisis’ first on-the-ground responders, providing food, water, medical care, shelter and more. Visit www.redcross.org.

American Jewish World Service (AJWS)
AMJS has quickly responded to assist victims of the massive earthquake that occurred in Haiti on January 12. A relief fund has been created in an effort to help AJWS’s representatives and grantee organizations working on the ground in Haiti to meet the urgent needs of the Haitian people at this desperate time. Donations to AJWS's "Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund" can be made at www.ajws.org.

CARE
CARE is currently sending additional emergency team members to the city of Port-au-Prince in Haiti which has been shocked and devastated by the earthquake. To donate to and support CARE’s efforts to aid victims of the earthquake in Haiti please visit: www.care.org.

Catholic Relief Services (CRS)
Overnight, Catholic Relief Services has allocated $5 million to the relief effort in Haiti in response to the earthquake. CRS is also organizing to release their supply of food, water storage containers, bedding, and other supplies which is housed in warehouses in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Miami. If you would like to donate to help CRS in their response to this catastrophic earthquake, please visit: www.crs.org

Church World Service (CWS)
Church World Service is prepared to provide disaster relief to victims in Haiti of the January 12th earthquake. As a member of Action by Churches Together International, an emergency response consortium of churches and church-related agencies coordinated by Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of Churches, CWS responds to disasters in regions affected deeply by poverty, like Haiti, by providing financial support, staff support, material resources, and technical assistance to CWS partners working in affected regions in an effort to aid vulnerable groups, like children, women and the disabled. If you would like to donate to CWS relief effort in Haiti please visit: www.churchworldservice.org.

Doctors Without Borders
Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams already stationed in Haiti are currently treating hundreds of people injured by the earthquake and have set up clinics in tents to replace medical facilities that have been damaged by the quake themselves. Eight hundred staff are on the ground and 70 more staff members are in route to aid with the response. Please visit www.doctorswithoutborders.org to donate to MSF’s efforts to bring health care to those who have been devastated by this disaster.

Mercy Corps
MercyCorps has extensive experience responding to earthquakes around the globe and is currently sending an emergency response team to the nation of Haiti and working with partners to get the necessary resources to respond quickly to the people in need. A gift to MercyCorps’s Haiti Earthquake Fund will aid with this response. In order to give to this Fund please visit: www.mercycorps.org.

Partners in Health (PIH)
Partners in Health’s clinical director in Haiti has made a desperate plea for basic medical supplies. PIH is currently focused on how best to help the relief effort in Haiti through their current projects in the region. If you would like to donate to PIH’s Haitian relief effort, please visit: www.pih.org.

United Nations Foundation
The United Nations Foundation has released $10 million from their Central Emergency Relief Fund (CERF) to support immediate assistance and rescue missions in Haiti. Around the globe the United Nations has experts in disaster recovery missions that are ready to provide assistance and their expertise. UN Emergency Coordinators are on the ground in Haiti, assessing needs and where resources should be allocated. By donating to CERF you can support the United Nations Foundation in their effort to get resources to the right place at the right time in order to save lives. To donate to the Fund, please visit the United Nations Foundation website at www.globalproblems-globalsolutions.org.

World Vision
World Vision’s concern for the well-being of children and families in Haiti is at an all time high. At this time, World Vision asks for support in two ways. By donating to World Vision's Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund, World Vision staff members will be able to quickly send emergency assistance, like food, clean water, blankets, tents, medicines, etc. to those that have the highest needs. In addition, World Vision is asking for individuals to support a child in Haiti. Your dollars will help provide basic essentials to a child in need. Please visit World Vision’s website at http://www.worldvision.org

Texting, Tweeting, and More: Giving and Social Media

Do you text and tweet? Or perhaps you blog and ”friend”? Whether or not, let’s face it -- social media is a fact of life. And, as the saying goes, it’s not just for breakfast anymore.

Indeed, major world events are being transmitted – and responded to – through social media. Case in point: while Western media was blocked, the anti-election riots in Iran late last year were broadcast to the rest of the world via Twitter postings, images taken by cell phone, and blog entries published by witnesses to the event. Suddenly, the age of the “citizen journalist” was born.

The same is true of “citizen philanthropists.” As we all witnessed in the wake of the Haiti earthquake, tens of millions of dollars were donated to nonprofit relief agencies via text message, with countless gifts of $5 and $10 each. And Facebook is home to scores of causes that virtually any user can promote, and contribute to, on a global scale.

While social media is here to stay, it’s also incredibly fluid – various websites go in and out of fashion and technologies are changing so quickly, with smart phones and their countless “apps,” that donors may find the prospect of giving via social media puzzling and even discomfiting.

Watch this recent FOX Business Channel interview with Charity Navigator CEO Ken Berger as he discusses this new type of giving and offers tips for donors. 

http://www.foxbusiness.com/search-results/m/28037531/charitable-giving-on-social-networking-sites.htm

Donor Profile: Charlie Cerf and Cindy Dunbar

Cindy Dunbar and Charlie Cerf originally considered starting a family foundation along with Dunbar's mother when she received a one-time capital gain; the object was to qualify for a large tax deduction that year, but to continue charitable giving for several years thereafter. But after talking to their friend Richard Snowdon—one of The Community Foundation’s earliest supporters— the Washington couple decided to go in a different direction and set up a donor-advised fund.

  We had heard of Fidelity, but The Community Foundation seemed more practical said Cerf.

Adds Dunbar: “It seemed logical to share administrative costs with other donors, rather than bear them ourselves. We also liked the fact that Community Foundation professionals research local nonprofits that we might never have heard of and they perform due diligence to make sure the money is being spent wisely. That made it a very attractive option.” In addition, Dunbar appreciated that Foundation staff live and work here, that they know the community and their donors, and that donors have many opportunities to interact with them.

Cerf is taking advantage of one of those opportunities this month when he attends The Foundation’s February 18 donor briefing on Haiti. Topics include the earthquake’s immediate and long-term impact, the effects on the Washington region’s Haiti community and advice on charitable giving to aid the Haitian people. “This is a complicated issue,” said Cerf.

  What is most needed, and when? Everyone wants to give to organizations that provide food, medicine or doctors. But what if the best investment is in peacekeeping forces to surround the people distributing the food? The briefing will help me think about these complicated decisions.

Cerf enjoys both the social and educational aspect of donor briefings. There is always something new to learn, he says, either about The Community Foundation’s initiatives in particular or philanthropy in general.

For instance, at one gathering the topic turned to inspiring the next generation of philanthropists. “I hadn’t really thought about that,” says the father of two daughters, 15 and 17.

Adds Dunbar: “From the time they were little, our girls always put aside a portion of their allowance for savings and charity.” As youngsters their charity of choice was a pelican rescue center in Florida, simply based on having once visited it. “As they’ve gotten older, they are able to look through The Community Foundation annual report and make connections to organizations in the local community.” For instance, through their school they have volunteered at SOME; it means something to them personally when they see it listed as a Community Foundation grantee.

In addition to their current interest in the situation in Haiti, Cerf and Dunbar have many favorite causes they support throughout the year, such as the Choral Arts Society, the ACLU, the Salvation Army and Environmental Defense.

In the eight years since they set up their donor-advised fund, giving has become “easier and easier,” Cerf points out. With online giving, “all I have to do is remember my password to recommend a grant.”

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About The Community Foundation

Founded in 1973, The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region promotes charitable giving and plays a leading role in finding innovative solutions to the Greater Washington region's most challenging problems. The Foundation is a community of givers – individuals, families and corporations have joined with the Foundation; as a result, the Foundation provides sound management of some 700 funds and $320 million in assets. In FY2008, The Community Foundation and its donors awarded more than $91 million in grants to nonprofit organizations in the Washington, DC region and beyond. The Foundation has two affiliates – The Community Foundation for Montgomery County, and The Community Foundation for The Prince George’s County. For more information, visit www.thecommunityfoundation.org.

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Regional Affiliate – The Community Foundation for Montgomery County
8720 Georgia Avenue, Suite 202 | Silver Spring, MD 20910 | Phone: (301) 588-2544

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Regional Affiliate – The Community Foundation for Prince George's County
8181 Professional Place | Landover, MD 20785 | Phone: (301) 464-6706