Local Archives - Page 9 of 10

The Relational Era: What We Need to Build a Culture of Connection, Bridging and Belonging

Posted on September 10, 2020September 8, 2022 by NationSwell Team

For #BuildItBackBetter, NationSwell asked some of our nation’s most celebrated purpose-driven leaders how they’d build a society that is more equitable and resilient than the one we had before COVID-19. We have compiled and lightly edited their answers.

No matter who we are, how we live, or what we believe, we all share a deep, instinctual need and capacity for human connection and belonging. It’s at the core of our shared humanity — and baked into our DNA.

As human beings, we yearn to be in relationship: to feel seen, valued and understood; to inhabit places where we live together, work together and look out for each other; to be part of a community of shared values and aspirations that is bigger than ourselves.

And yet, we are living in a culture that all too often reinforces just the opposite. A culture that stokes distrust and amplifies divisions. That fuels hyper-individualism and alienates us from ourselves and each other. A culture that creates a distorted sense of belonging for some of us by telling others they don’t belong.

As we navigate the “twin pandemics” of COVID-19 and racial injustice, we face a fundamental challenge that lies at the heart of all others: a crisis of human connection.

All around us, we see more and more Americans living in isolation, loneliness, anxiety, and fear. And all too often, our culture reinforces a zero-sum game that seeks to benefit by pulling us further apart — with an “us vs them” mentality that’s eroding our faith in each other, our institutions and the future we seek for our children.

The sheer speed and scale of these challenges can seem overwhelming, but beneath them lies a simple and inescapable truth: we cannot solve our nation’s most complex and urgent challenges unless we see, hear and understand each other first.

If we want to build it back better, we must draw upon one of the greatest and oldest technologies we have as a species: human connection. Our ability to connect, empathize, build relationships, and collaborate may be our greatest gift. When we start to see ourselves in others and recognize that our own humanity is a reflection of our shared humanity, we begin to shift from a culture of turning on one another to turning toward one another.

Einhorn Collaborative works with community leaders, researchers, and cultural influencers to help each and every one of us build stronger relationships, embrace our differences, and rediscover our shared values and humanity —with the belief that by doing so, we can find common ground and solve our most urgent challenges together.

Through this Build It Back Better series, The Relational Era: A Culture of Connection, Bridging, and Belonging, we’ll lift up the voices of individuals and communities who are writing a new story of America. We’ll hear bold and practical ideas for what’s needed to build a more inclusive and connected culture from a wide range of vantage points and disciplines, and a through a mix of large public events, intimate working groups, and action-oriented articles.

We’ll share powerful stories, compelling science and cross-disciplinary research that shows us new ways of living, working and thriving together – by embracing radical bridge-building in our politics, by inspiring interfaith cooperation in our communities, by using ritual in the service of social healing, by fostering intergenerational relationships and igniting a new generation of bridgers, by nurturing emotional intelligence and cultivating moral leadership, by promoting civic love and elevating bright spots of civic renewal. And so much more…

We believe that addressing America’s crisis of connection and building a true culture of connection, bridging, and belonging is not only critically urgent, but possible — and already underway in communities across our country.

We believe the prevailing narratives of distrust and division are not only flawed, but reversible.

And we believe that when we sit down to listen, learn, and share different perspectives, we unlock entirely new ways of seeing ourselves, each other, and the needs and values we share.

Through this series, we invite you to join us on a journey of envisioning what it will take to build a culture of connection, bridging, and belonging – and to commit to doing this vital work alongside us.

Jenn Hoos Rothberg is Executive Director of Einhorn Collaborative.

Build It Back Better: Towards a Human-Centered Capitalism

Posted on August 7, 2020October 27, 2022 by NationSwell Team

For a recent #BuildItBackBetter event, NationSwell Council member Andrew Yang, entrepreneur and former Democratic candidate for United States President, and Wes Moore, CEO of Robin Hood, gathered around our digital table to identify some of the most compelling and precise solutions for creating a more human-centered and dynamic national economy. The event was moderated by Marie Groark, Director of Programs at Schultz Family Foundation

Here is the NationSwell Takeaway from the event.

Three Numbers

90%
The percentage of American voters concerned about the economy in 2022.

8.2%
The current rate of inflation, up ~250% from the long term average

50
The approximate number of years wages have stagnated in America

Three Trends

Attitudes towards capitalism are shifting — largely along generational lines. A 66% majority of young adults view capitalism negatively, and about 50% of young adults are likely to hold a favorable definition of socialism compared to 30-34% from older generations.

Millennials are the first-ever recorded generation in American history to hold the opinion that they will be less wealthy than their parents.

Philanthropy is increasingly being seen as the risk capital — and the increased popularity in trust-based approaches that center community and remove red tape from grantees are pushing it to be even riskier.

The Challenges

The structure of the current economy has been broken for some time. COVID didn’t break anything, it simply exacerbated already existing realities of inequality.

You can’t solve trillion-dollar problems with a million dollars. Half of all philanthropy each year goes to alma maters, and half of the remaining half goes to hospitals and houses of worship. How can we allocate the majority of resources to where there is the majority of need?

What’s Working

We all need to think of ways we can better give people power and autonomy over their own financial circumstances. An important tool in this regard can be direct cash assistance. Millions of people recently received cash assistance in April 2020 and this didn’t make them lazy, it simply allowed them to address immediate needs and take care of themselves and others. On top of this direct cash assistance, give every American 100 dollars they can use to give to a non-profit every year.

Embrace philanthropy as risk-capital. Philanthropy should be able to nurture ideas that are scalable, prove they can work, then pass them on to our government partners. We should not be thinking about ourselves as a line item. Ask yourself: what’s the problem you’re trying to solve? And how are you trying to solve it?

Create a dashboard for human flourishing. People in power need to change the very measurements of our economic progress from GDP, stock market values and unemployment rate to life expectancy, mental health, freedom from substance abuse and childhood success rates.

If you missed the conversation, watch it here on our Facebook page.

#BuilditBackBetter is an ongoing initiative that will invite the NationSwell community to come together to surface the solutions and ideas that can help us to emerge from this period of crisis with a more equitable, inclusive, resilient society and planet. Learn more about it here. If you missed the conversation, watch it here on our Facebook page.

The Intersection of Coronavirus and Racial Inequality in the Workplace

Posted on July 24, 2020September 8, 2022 by NationSwell Team

Why Black and Latino Americans experience disproportionate levels of unemployment and underemployment — and why COVID-19 is making this worse.

With the US experiencing significant increases in infection rates and deaths from COVID-19, Black and Latino communities continue to feel the double whammy of the pandemic in both their wallets and their health. On the economic side, of the millions of Americans out of work, job losses have hit Latino and Black communities disproportionality, with lower-wage workers ages 50-plus being the most vulnerable. The rate of job loss for Black workers has continued to rise while the rate of job losses for other workers has begun to plateau since May.

On the health side, Black and Latino adults are far more likely to experience serious illness and death from COVID-19. Many older workers in Black and Latino communities live in additional fear for the health of their loved ones as the number of cases increases in every corner of the country. This fear and concern are so deep and widespread, many would go so far as to sacrifice their paycheck to preserve their health as well as that of those close to them.

The Disproportionate Economic Impact

The pandemic has magnified disparities caused by institutional racism. As AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins recently said, “These disparities are not random, but instead are the result of inequality due to a lack of social, economic and political opportunities.” Institutional racism, has long limited housing, education and job opportunities for those living in Black and Latino communities—many of whom earn paychecks in essential roles that bring them closer to COVID-19. Higher rates of poverty and barriers to physical activity and healthy and affordable foods have further contributed to higher rates of identified risk factors like diabetes for severe COVID-related illness.

As some states report increasing rates of COVID-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths, the stakes are higher than ever now. It is imperative that proper precautions are in place to mitigate the resurgence in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths, particularly for Black and Latino workers.

A Multi-sector Approach

Addressing these longstanding systemic drivers of inequities requires a multi-sector approach that draws upon the public, private and non-profit sectors to surface innovative and collective solutions. As JPMorgan Chase Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon noted in his open letter to shareholders, “this crisis must serve as a wake-up call and a call to action for business and government to think, act and invest for the common good and confront the structural obstacles that have inhibited inclusive economic growth for years.”

Many states created COVID-19 task forces to examine and address the inequities that have been exacerbated by the novel coronavirus. Private sector leaders can and should play a role in these task forces as well as in their capacity as employers.

Here are a few ideas for things private sector leaders can do now to address racial equity and support all employees as we navigate this pandemic:

Select a diverse team of leaders to design the reopening plan with a focus on and attention to addressing racial equity across a life course. The team selected to create the plan matters and should represent a range of demographic factors, experiences, expertise and workers—from the frontlines to administrative and executive levels. Now is also an important time to update diversity, equity and inclusion policies with an eye to the future.
Be aware of unconscious biases and disrupt stereotypes. By law, it is illegal to discriminate based on race, ethnicity, age, life stage or any other demographic factor. Yet the views employers have about workers can subtly find their way into decision-making. Work with the leadership team to assess current practices using a racial equity lens as well as a nod to age and life stage to ensure policies resonate along the spectrum of employees. Leverage the learnings of the pandemic to inform future plans for business resilience that provides workers the flexibility and support needed to contribute, despite extenuating circumstances.
Implement a racial equity lens in all aspects of corporate policies and practices, starting with the reopening protocols. Executives leading reopening efforts should use racial equity tools to assess recommendations for responsiveness and relevance with employees and customers of color. The Society for Human Resources Management or SHRM offers many tools on “Global & Cultural Effectiveness” and corporate culture that provide a place to start. Additionally, global scholar and organizational consultant Dr. Laura Morgan Roberts and her collaborators outline tangible steps in the Harvard Business Review piece titled, “How U.S. Companies Can Support Employees of Color Through the Pandemic.”
Provide additional assistance such as paid leave, dependent care, transportation, hazard pay and other resources to help all workers, especially low-wage workers and their families. Many low-wage workers will need extra support during the reopening because childcare or elder care is not available or because of other family responsibilities. Employers have a role to play in ensuring access to these critical employment supports.
Take the long view. We will eventually get past this pandemic and business will be back on track. When that day comes, businesses will benefit from a healthy and financially secure diverse workforce that is representative of the consumer-at-large and that understands their needs, desires and pain points. Rebuild with an eye to the future.

We have the opportunity to design not a recovery, but a reset that addresses the causes of increased death among Black and Latino workers and allows all to access safe opportunities to engage and earn a paycheck again, regardless of background, age, education or health condition.

An Expanded Bottom Line

As our country reopens, our goal cannot be to return to the past inequities that have resulted in these disparities in job losses and deaths from COVID-19. Reopening the economy in a safe way for all is not just a moral and ethical imperative, but a business imperative. Employees of all backgrounds and ages bring strengths that organizations can leverage as they navigate the crisis—both now and in the long term. Approaching the recovery as a reset with a focus on ensuring equitable access to work for all who want and need to work will put us on a path to build a stronger, more resilient economy. Equity will enable not only greater prosperity, but the means to better withstand any future crises.

#BuildItBackBetter: Antiracism and the Possibility of This Moment

Posted on July 24, 2020September 8, 2022 by NationSwell Team

On July 22, NationSwell held a virtual conversation on antiracism with two leaders guiding our country towards a more just future — Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, Founding Director of Boston University’s Center for Antiracist Research, and Carmen Rojas, PhD, President and CEO of the Marguerite Casey Foundation. Megan Ming Francis, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington, moderated the discussion. In this conversation, our expert speakers discussed this critical inflection point in American society through the lenses of the individual and institutional change needed to build resilient, anti-racist systems in a post-COVID-19 world.

Here are some insights, practices and resources from their conversation.

Insights:

Antiracist work is an enduring project. We need to look at antiracist work as the continual work of individuals and institutions, and we need to look at the way these institutions have been able to normalize violence against BIPOC.
Antiracism means we are eliminating “not racist” from the American vocabulary — instead, institutions and people are either racist or anti-racist.
There needs to be less of a focus on how organizations are self-declaring that they are “antiracist” and instead focus on how you are embodying anti-racist practices, policies, behaviors and ideas.
Racist research asks, “what is wrong with people?” when instead we should look at everything that is wrong with the policies and power that is in place.
Philanthropy is intended to be audacious and help society re-envision a new way of operating, not be pragmatic. However, philanthropy has lacked courage and focused on incremental reform. Abolition is an innovation from the ground, but it’s not being funded despite the number of funders supporting criminal justice reform.

Practices:

There are policies already on the table that can eliminate police violence, change the racial wealth gap and eliminate poverty. The way we do this is through supporting initiatives to eliminate and defund the police, endorse reparations, and provide basic income to those experiencing poverty.
As an individual, don’t just read and have conversations, there are many active steps you can begin to take: Look at what organizations you can support or join. Vote. Organize in your community. Run for office.
As leaders, we need to ask ourselves, “who suffers by our slowness?” Who doesn’t get to live one day free because of our slowness? Reflect on these questions and then take action within your organization. Support policies that are equitable, that recognize people as individuals.
Wherever you can, make room for Black and BIPOC leaders to be resourced enough to make change possible. Acknowledge that your power as a leader may look like redistributing power and resources.
Ask yourself in two weeks from now: what have I done to shift power?

Resources:

Megan Ming Francis’s class at Harvard Kennedy School on Philanthropy and Social Movements
Dr. Ibram X Kendi’s Antiracist Research Institute at Boston University
Movement Capture And The Long Arc Of The Black Freedom Struggle
Dr. Carmen Rojas on The Problems With Philanthropy and What We Can Do To Fix It
The Case for Reparations
The Centuries Long Fight for Reparations

To watch the digital conversation in its entirety, visit our Facebook page.

***

#BuilditBackBetter is an ongoing initiative that will invite the NationSwell community to come together to surface the solutions and ideas that can help us to emerge from this period of crisis with a more equitable, inclusive, resilient society and planet. Learn more about it here.

Did COVID-19 Just Launch the Workplaces of Our Future?

Posted on July 23, 2020September 8, 2022 by NationSwell Team

The virus’ unexpected consequence was forcing us to create less rigid work environments.

The COVID-19 crisis has tested us all. Across the country and around the world, “business as usual” suddenly wasn’t — revealing how fragile our work routines really were. But the pandemic has also shown us something else: our ability to adapt and innovate is stronger than we thought.

Many of the changes that have been forced upon us were long overdue — especially changes in how we work. Some of these changes were accommodations for which workers had been pushing prior to the pandemic. But when the crisis abates, making these accommodations universal will have given businesses the footing to emerge with a stronger framework for the future.

“Amid that disruption, almost quietly, we’ve laid the groundwork for what could be some of the greatest advancements we have ever seen for diversity,” wrote Fast Company’s Arthur Woods. ”Notice new discussions we’re having around personal needs and challenges… Look at the new workplace policies that have shifted to adapt to human needs.”

Before the crisis, millions of Americans who didn’t have paid sick leave still had to come to work even when they were ill if they wanted their paycheck. But to cope with COVID-19 and contain the pandemic, many large companies implemented a temporary paid sick leave policy. Darden Restaurants made the policy permanent, saying it had been working on implementing paid sick leave even before the pandemic — and others may follow suit.

Another change is more fundamental: COVID-19 has transformed how and where we work. In just a few weeks, the percentage of employees who work from home jumped from 31% to 62%, Gallup reported.

Implementing these new policies on a large scale has led to an unexpected outcome: a broad swathe of employees are becoming more productive, such as:

- Workers with disabilities, and those who are neurodivergent, who are able to tailor their work environment to their specific needs, rather than those of their able-bodied colleagues.
- Workers caring for children or elders, who are able to arrange their schedules so they can achieve on their work tasks while still meeting family obligations
- Older workers, who may also be in the two categories above or divide their time between work and other activities such as volunteering

Taken together, almost all workers fall into at least one of these categories. Paid sick, remote work and flexible schedules are all policies that enable more kinds of people to participate in the workplace, regardless of age, home life, or health status.

That means these policies foster diversity. Organizations that have embraced diversity and inclusive workforce practices often have a competitive advantage: They have access to lived experience and insights from many different perspectives, therefore they are able to be more nimble and resilient when faced with a challenge.

AARP’s collaboration “Living, Learning and Earning Longer,” in partnership with the World Economic Forum and OECD, provides more evidence. Diverse companies, the AARP found, can …

- CREATE: “An organization’s diversity practices contribute directly to greater employee engagement.1 American business units in the top quartile of engagement realize 21% higher profitability than those in the bottom quartile.”
- PROSPER: “The multigenerational workforce can offer benefits to countries, employers, and employees. Countries can gain greater economic output, vibrant communities, and societies that are resilient to demographic shifts. Employers can benefit from the retention of intellectual capital, a more stable, productive and engaged workforce, and closer alignment to market needs. Employees can obtain greater self-fulfillment, financial security, and skill revitalization.”
- INVEST: “Mature workers around the world may have social, cultural, and human knowledge that is essential to an organization’s institutional memory. The loss of institutional knowledge can lead to a lower capacity for innovation and growth, reduced efficiency, and the loss of competitive advantage.”

In the era of COVID-19, companies have a unique opportunity: a chance to redesign work in a way that will make them more resilient to the next crisis, by adapting policies and practices to meet the needs of employees. These are changes that can create a better normal – one that employees are craving.

“More than half of at-home workers say they would prefer to continue working remotely as much as possible once restrictions on businesses and school closures are lifted,” Gallup reported. And management is catching on, too: of managers who oversaw remote employees, “55% say that once government restrictions are lifted and kids are back in school, the experience of COVID-19 will change their remote work policy.”

When employers invest in employees — specifically in ways that signal that to the employee that they’re valued as human beings and as contributors to the bottom line — it creates a culture of adaptive innovation.

COVID-19 has made work more intimate: “You can now see your LGBTQIA+ colleague is also a working parent balancing teaching her daughter at home,” wrote Woods. “While on a call, you now are aware your Latinx colleague has a preexisting medical condition and is also caring for an elderly parent.”

Everyone, it turns out, has special needs.

In order to continue this, companies have to be intentional: No company has done this perfectly before, but now there’s an open door for companies to redefine how they do business — and to make business both more successful and more human.

“We have an opportunity to consider this as a social experiment at scale, taking the time to identify any benefits that we have not previously considered,” wrote Sean Gilroy and Leena Haque for the World Economic Forum.

“If we want to introduce new ideas to society that might offer us a more desirable means of living,” they concluded, “this is a good time to discuss not just the ‘what’ but also the ‘why’ and ‘how’.”

This article was produced in partnership with AARP. You can learn more here about how AARP is shaping the Future of Work.

Tracking How Companies Are Reacting (And Adapting) To Coronavirus

Posted on July 23, 2020September 8, 2022 by NationSwell Team

Sometimes it takes a crisis to make the impossible possible — and the current COVID-19 pandemic is just such a crisis. The disease has forced many companies to change how they work, in ways they had always dismissed as impossible before.

For example: many employees, especially 50+ workers and disabled workers, spent years requesting simple changes to how they did their jobs — only to be denied. Up until just a few months ago, it was common for managers to believe that remote work wasn’t feasible, that flexible scheduling would decrease productivity, or that paid sick leave was too expensive.

With COVID-19, that all changed. Suddenly, companies were scrambling to find new ways to stay in business — and what many managers had seen as impractical “special accommodations” suddenly became vital adaptations. “I was told I could never work remotely,” one worker told MarketWatch. Now he has the option — and so do all his coworkers, allowing the company to get the best out of all its employees.

Already, the companies treating their workers compassionately are winning. Just Capital, a nonprofit that evaluates business ethics and practices, found that companies which did well on their COVID-19 index also did well in the markets.

As Scott Frisch, the COO of AARP, puts it: “This pandemic is an adaptation accelerator. Fully understanding the value of an age-inclusive workforce is part of that adaptation.”

JUST Capital has been closely tracking companies’ reactions to the pandemic. In March, they created the COVID-19 Corporate Response Tracker, a tool that creates a comprehensive report on “how America’s largest employers are treating employees and consumers” during the crisis.

The tracking tool opens with a graph showing which measures were the most common — from opening community relief funds to closing stores. Scrolling further, readers can also drill down to find out exactly how each of the 301 companies included in the report reacted, and how their policies played out.

The data show that many companies are taking advantage of the pandemic to think compassionately and create solutions that keep employees — and the company — not only functioning, but adaptive and prepared for the future.

Beyond the COVID-19 crisis, these are changes that will also support a multigenerational and multi-ability workforce. That creates more diverse and deeply resourced workplaces, allowing companies to draw on their workers’ lived experience to respond quickly to a future in flux.

“Business leaders, in this period of great uncertainty, have to consider new ways to ensure business continuity and organizational resilience,” Frisch said. “A multigenerational workforce, with four or five generations working alongside each other—if not physically, then virtually—helps to meet these challenges.”

These companies “are prioritizing their focus on supporting the economy — their workers, communities, and consumers — and will see this benefit long term,” JUST Capital concluded. “It’s why we believe the COVID-19 pandemic will be the turning point in which we finally see the stakeholder-first model overturn shareholder primacy.”

Investors are taking notice. “In light of an unforeseen pandemic wreaking havoc across entire industries, measuring companies based on criteria like profits or shareholder returns just won’t feel right,” Fortune’s Dria Roland wrote. “Analysts predict that this year, the most important metric of corporate stewardship will be how a company responded to COVID-19.”

And consumers are also paying attention to which companies prioritize their workers’ health and safety. According to business analysis company Statista, consumers surveyed worldwide indicated that “a brand’s behavior during the outbreak would have a huge impact on their likelihood to buy their products in the future.” In short: “global consumers base their future decisions on how brands currently respond to the crisis.”

But it’s not just a matter of gaining a reputation for doing the right thing. Disruption from COVID-19 has created open space for companies to redefine how they do business in a way that maximizes the potential of all their workers — and that will have effects that last long after this crisis.

Faced with imminent destruction, companies began listening to their employees’ pain points — not just as a PR exercise, but as a survival strategy. For example, Walmart, which previously had 347,000 workers going without paid sick leave, announced and later extended an emergency paid leave policy for workers stricken by the virus. McDonalds, which had previously denied 517,000 of its workers paid sick leave, also announced a new sick leave policy. Those changes were presented as temporary, but the New York Times reported that another company, Darden Restaurants, which owns chains such as Olive Garden “has taken the lesson and announced that it will henceforth provide paid sick leave on a permanent basis.” Although these changes don’t address all factors that would help workers ensure their health and financial security, it is a good start and progress that will require a much longer commitment to job quality.

And for workers who haven’t been taken ill, companies have begun co-creating flexible systems, partnering with their employees for input. As more and more people work from home, it opens possibilities to maximize the capabilities of all kinds of workers – workers with disabilities, young workers who can save money by living further from the office and older workers who may be caring for small children or for aging parents. Using programs such as Slack and Zoom hasn’t proved as cumbersome as managers feared — in fact, they’re user friendly, and employees have been quick to adapt to them.

As Frisch said: “Workers across the age span are proving adept at teleworking. This will have lasting consequences.”

If we think creatively, we might change the way we work, for the better — and emerge to a better world.

This article was produced in partnership with AARP. You can learn more here about how AARP is shaping the Future of Work.

Lumina Grants Boost Racial Equity Efforts During Crisis

Posted on July 9, 2020September 8, 2022 by NationSwell Team

I am unapologetic in my beliefs, my thoughts, and my work. Yes, it took some time to get there. It took a commitment to pushing boundaries for racial equality and inclusion. It took remaining steadfast in lifting up the voices of those who aren’t always heard.

Today, as we face a deadly pandemic, lifting up those voices is more crucial than ever. So, I turned to equally unapologetic affinity groups to support and elevate people of color who are disproportionately affected right now.

Just before the COVID-19 outbreak, Lumina Foundation awarded grants to five organizations dedicated to advancing racial equity across the philanthropic sector. Now, as the pandemic worsens, these efforts become even more urgent. Here are the five innovative groups awarded 2020 sector grants and the ways they’ll make progress over the coming year:

Association of Black Foundation Executives (ABFE) will advise, train, advocate, and increase investments that lead to better outcomes for Black communities.
Hispanics in Philanthropy (HIP) will create a trustee leadership program to improve the influence, voice and skills of Hispanic leaders in philanthropy.
CHANGE Philanthropy, a coalition of 10 philanthropic networks, will strengthen bridges across members to create connections, expand leadership, and build knowledge with accurate data.
Funders for LGBTQ Issues will provide cutting-edge research and train foundations on the needs of LGBTQ people of color, and the best ways to support them.
Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP) will provide racial equity training and workshops through the lens of the needs of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Responding in a crisis

In times of crisis, fear elevates racism and bigotry. As they say, “that train is never late.” We’ve seen some vicious instances of racial profiling around COVID-19 and after the 9/11 attacks.

That’s why the five organizations awarded grants to fight inequality are acting quickly. As they continue their day-to-day work, they have responded – as philanthropy always does in a crisis – to the broader, pressing needs of communities of color and those that serve them.

They’ve issued these open letters, offering immediate resources, funding, and advice:

AAPIP: Statement on COVID-19 and The Cure to Viral Racism is Within our Hands
Funders for LGBTQ Issues: LGBTQ Funding Resources in the COVID-19 Response
HIP: Funds to Address Census Outreach Efforts and Migration and Forced Displacement
ABFE: Federal Aid Plan for Non-Profits Needs More Input from Black-Led Organizations

Just like me and my team’s commitment to equity, these organizations are passionate in their missions – and unapologetic in their zeal to help people of color who are often overlooked. During this crisis and beyond, those passions and partnerships will lead to real results for the people we serve.

This was published in partnership with the Lumina Foundation. For more information on their work, visit their website.

How To Shift From Hostility to Empathy in Political Conversations

Posted on July 1, 2020September 8, 2022 by NationSwell Team

Political conversation with someone whose views are different than yours are tough. But even the thorniest divide can be more narrowed if we try “Moral Reframing“.

The technique allows you to identify the moral premise that matters to the other person and then present your idea in a way that makes sense to them. Watch this video and learn how to closer divides in your politics…and beyond.

This was produced in partnership with the Greater Good Science Center and the Einhorn Family Charitable Trust. Learn more about how you can bridge differences in your life here.

NationSwell Live: How ‘Mothering Justice’ Is Responding to the COVID-19 Crisis

Posted on June 17, 2020September 8, 2022 by NationSwell Team

One hour. Five incredible organizations. All that’s missing is you.

On June 26, 2020 at 1 P.M. EST, #NationSwellLive will convene leaders at the frontlines of COVID-19 response for communities with some of the most urgent need — and you can be a part of helping their efforts.

Ahead of our event, NationSwell spoke with Danielle Atkinson, founder and Executive Director of Mothering Justice. Mothering Justice is an organization whose mission is to “raise the voices of mothers and help them become policy makers and shapers” through “advocacy, leadership development, voter empowerment, and promoting family-friendly advocacy.” This is what they had to say about how they’re helping mothers and family caregivers through the COVID-19 crisis — and how you can support their efforts.

NationSwell: Tell us about yourself, Mothering Justice and the communities you serve.

Mothering Justice’s Danielle Atkinson: Years ago, I was looking for work in the progressive movement while I was pregnant. And when I got the job, I had to immediately think about maternity leave. My husband and I, by all means, we’re solidly middle class — but I was a contractor. My position didn’t allow me any protection around leave, or any job protections at all. And I definitely didn’t get paid leave. So I was able to keep my job, but I was only able to take four weeks off. And that was because it was unpaid — and I just knew that it would really be a burden on our finances if I was taking anymore. And four weeks is not enough to bond with the new baby, definitely not enough to heal.

When I came back to work, I was looking for an organization that was tackling this issue of leave and more generally mom issues.
And when I looked around, I really only found organizations that were led by white women, or use white women as the spokespeople. And I knew why, because again, I’ve been in the progressive movement for a really long time. And I knew that our stories and our face was seen as distracting, and could even be harmful to the cause because of the stigma that comes along with a mother of color needing help.

So I gathered the smartest moms of color I knew around owning this message, owning this strategy. And that’s when we came up with Mothering Justice. And the idea around Mothering Justice is, one: we want to be completely truthful about who we are and where we are in life and how the society was not established and set up and run for us; and two, we wanted to address the issues of financial stability that we were dealing with. And so we came up with a Mama’s Agenda, which are the issues that we hear again, and again from moms around what is impacting their own financial stability. And so we work on those issues and then we do leadership development to make sure that our mothers of color, we’re not just telling their sad story, but they were also armed with the policy insights that really just color their experience and the solution.

And then we do voter engagement, because we know that conventional wisdom is that married women vote a certain way and moms vote a certain way. And it really was not, it’s not a deep narrative around what a mother of, especially a mother of color, voter looks like. So in a nutshell, that’s what we do.

NationSwell: What are some points from your policy agenda?

Mothering Justice: The issues that makeup our platform are affordable childcare, leave policy — both paid sick days and family leave — wages and income support, and then maternal justice. And so we have been successful in raising the minimum wage here in Michigan and establishing a paid leave policy.

NationSwell: How has your work shifted or pivoted to meet the COVID-19 crisis?

Mothering Justice: So, we like to say the rest of the world is feeling right now what we always feel, having to balance — people are juggling a life that they really haven’t had to do before, right? Like, how is your house a classroom, a gymnasium, a workstation for you and maybe some other person? That at the least. And at the most, everyone’s understanding the importance of an essential worker. And we are talking about it in a way that we weren’t talking about it five months ago, right?

Essential workers were expendable workers. And we had this conversation about wages and benefits as: There are people that earned them because they have a level of education and an income level. And there are people that don’t because they just haven’t worked hard enough. Now, as our entire country is dependent on people on low wage work — as it always has, but now it’s visible. We are having a different conversation, and hopefully it will result in different outcomes. Hopefully, the conversation around paid leave or the importance of a stable childcare environment will be constant.

Because again, those have always been the backbones of our society. It’s just more visible now.

NationSwell: How can our audience support you in your efforts?

Mothering Justice: It’s really corny, but living your truth and being honest about what your circumstances are. Our society really runs on this narrative of bootstraps, which is not how any of us are really feeling, and surviving and thriving. We rely on a system; we live within a system. And if we are to be really honest and to look at the system, is it working for you? And maybe if it’s working for you, is it working for your cousin? Who is it working for, and who is not working for? And that might be someone you love and someone that you’re supporting. So we really need to be honest with ourselves and then reject the narrative that leads us to an internalized oppression, which leads us to a bootstraps mentality.

And if we really are real, we will say that we need to reconstruct our society around the values of caregiving, around caretaking and justice in a community. And it’s very easy to come to that conclusion when we first reject the narrative around only looking out for yourself. And everything else really flows that because you’re going to speak your truth. You’re going to raise the questions with potential elected officials. You’re going to demand that corporations pay a living wage. You’ll just live that.

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To learn more about #NationSwellLive, visit our event page here.

NationSwell Live: How NDN Collective Is Responding to COVID-19

Posted on June 15, 2020September 8, 2022 by NationSwell Team

One hour. Five incredible organizations. All that’s missing is you.

Ahead of our event, NationSwell spoke with some members of the leadership team for NDN Collective, an organization whose mission is to be “the most ambitious, systemic effort to empower indigenous communities in the history of philanthropy.” This is what they had to say about how COVID-19 has affected indigenous populations across North America, how they’ve pivoted their efforts to meet that urgent need — and how you can help assist their efforts.

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NationSwell: Who are the communities you serve, and how has COVID-19 impacted them?

Nick Tilsen, President and CEO of NDN Collective: One of the fundamental beliefs of NDN Collective is that we don’t recognize the colonial borders that divide indigenous people. We work with indigenous people in North America — hundreds of indigenous nations, and we only invest in indigenous-led organizations, which we define as Boards that are 100% indigenous and staff that are 70% indigenous. We don’t support organizations or give our support to organizations that are “serving a people.” We give resources to organizations that are led by the people of those places.

One area that we’re doing this work is in the area of philanthropy. Right now, 0.3% of all philanthropy in America goes to indigenous people — and that is clearly not enough. So part of our collective approach is really upsetting and disrupting the status quo in the field of philanthropy and addressing white supremacy in the field of philanthropy, because it’s a fundamental reason why indigenous people have not been supported.

When the COVID-19 crisis started, we wanted to leverage this infrastructure that we had built and address the invisibility issue of indigenous people. So we pivoted and made a couple big decisions.

One, that we were not going to stop existing programming that we were already doing by and for indigenous people.

Two, that we were going to create a $10 million scalable fund to support indigenous people in a variety of ways that indigenous people need to be supported in this moment.

Michael Johnson, Director of Advancement for NDN Collective: What we decided to do with the $10 million fund was create a decently robust grant opportunity for tribes, indigenous-led organizations and indigenous individuals. And we just finished round one of that. On the tribes and institutions side, we granted 95 grants for $2.5 million, all ranging for emergency response services for tribes dealing with the first wave of COVID-19. So we had projects that were looking at supporting medical supplies, or helping set up virtual communication systems for the tribe, or dealing with elder food and medical delivery or educational systems for youth.

Going into the second phase of the project in July, we’ll be pivoting a little bit. While we’ll still be doing mutual aid support, we’ll also be looking at a new kind of forward-facing opportunity that’s more aligned with transition planning and resiliency planning for community, thinking about how can we take this unfortunate moment to strategize about protecting, strengthening and making our communities more durable into the future. And this really fits back into NDN’s mission and our theory of change around investing in those who are defending, developing and de-colonizing in their community towards the strengthening of self-determination and building indigenous power.

Nikki Love, NDN Fund Managing Director: The work that we all do is movement building. So we have fellows that are on the front lines in a lot of these issues around climate justice, social justice — but that all of the work that we do on the investing and lending side has to support that. We’re going to be moving a hundred million into projects around renewable energy, infrastructure, social enterprise, directly supporting businesses in private sector economy, infrastructure and affordable housing.

When we were talking about COVID-19, one thing that was very evident is that our businesses, our native businesses, and there’s over 250,000 of them across the country, and probably more that are just not officially registered, and they’re hurting. And a lot of them are in retail, and food service and these accommodation industries that are directly impacted, disproportionately impacted. And then there’s already this big disparity ratio between the representation of our businesses compared to white businesses. And then we’re seeing this double effect of COVID-19. And then I would say an additional layer is that all of the federal relief programs under the Cares Act and the Small Business Administration, they’re just not really accessible for our businesses and they’re not either legally structured or they need additional capacity building to access them.

So in response to that, as part of that $10 million COVID response project, we also had to set aside artist and entrepreneur grants to support them directly.

NationSwell: How can our audience help?

NT: The number one way is that people can still contribute to our COVID-19 response fund directly. We work with individuals, we work with all ends of ways for people to give.

Another way is following our stuff on social media at NDN Collective, and being able to share out some of our messages, because such a big part of our work is about shifting the narrative and building a new narratives. And we’re constantly putting out information — that’s raw, authentic, from frontline indigenous communities for a wide variety of different things. And I think that addressing the invisibility issue with indigenous people is something that we all have to do collectively, it’s not just on us to do that.

And I think the other way is: There’s a growing movement for us to do land acknowledgements wherever we are in this country, because it’s through the process of the invisibilization of indigenous people, people have become disconnected from this historical reality that wherever they are in this country, they’re on indigenous people’s land somewhere. And so there’s a growing movement for people to acknowledge them, that this people’s land which they stand on, before meetings, before gatherings, before. And it’s a small gesture to honor the ancestors, but it’s also a reality and a way to bring the indigenous people in room into every conversation happening in this country.

NL: Another way is, a lot of conversations we have are like different investment vehicles, forms of capital. They’re not all known to most of our communities, even the economic development folks at our tribes. So we talk about the importance of social capital — inviting us into those spaces, and having those conversations with us, the knowledge sharing around how that side of the equation works. To the private investment community: Open more of those conversations and help us scaffold our way into those spaces.

To learn more about #NationSwellLive, visit our event page here.