On Oct. 8th, we had a deeply connective and insightful kickoff event to our Community Organizing Grant Round!
We gathered incredibly inspiring and accomplished speakers and changemakers:
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- Eddy Zheng, Founder, New Breath Foundation
- Rita Mancera, Executive Director, Puente de la Costa Sur (SV2 Grantee Partner)
- Ludovic Blain, Executive Director, California Donor Table
Eddy Zheng, Founder & President, New Breath Foundation (our Keynote Speaker) started by asking us to take a breath. He shared “if we don’t have anything in common, we have the breath in common.”
We were grateful to hear Eddy’s story. “Eddy spent over 20 years in California state prisons and immigration jails. He is the first Asian American juvenile sentenced to life to lead a public community foundation. Eddy first entered prison as a teenage boy, barely old enough to understand the consequences of his actions. While incarcerated, Eddy faced the trauma of a prison adolescence while coming to terms with the harm he caused. He also began to recognize the countless racial and social inequities that delivered so many young men like himself into the U.S. prison system in the first place… Eddy established New Breath Foundation not only to offer hope of new beginnings to (Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander) AANHPIs but also to unite with Black, Latinx, and Indigenous grassroots organizers to work together toward our collective vision of true healing and racial justice.” (New Breath Foundation website)
Some of Eddy’s sharing with SV2 included:
- Understanding that organizing comes in different forms. People organized to try to get Eddy and his friends out of solitary confinement. This is “People power.” Another form is that SV2 is organizing to make a difference via our Grant Round.
- Practicing trust-based philanthropy is ‘keeping our ears to the ground’ – being in and with the community, honoring our lived experiences and understanding the realities. The New Breath Foundation does the reporting and expenditure review for Grantee Partners. They also pay for coaches and evaluation tools to help nonprofits understand the state of their organization.
- The importance of being vulnerable and in solidarity: Eddy shares his story and his perspective, when he talks to young people he lets them know he’ll be there for them “no matter what,” just as he tells his daughter. Eddy believes the same thing with philanthropy.
After this powerful keynote, we transitioned to connecting with Rita Mancera and Ludovic Blain, our wonderful Breakout Speakers. Attendees selected which breakout they wanted to join.
Some highlights of our discussions:
Breakout with Rita:
Rita began by sharing that Puente de la Costa Sur serves 4 unincorporated communities in San Mateo: Pescadero, La Honda, Loma Mar, and San Gregorio. Many people in San Mateo don’t realize these communities are there. Rita shared that community organizing needs be targeted; if it is broad, it is hard to achieve. She also shared how organizing takes a lot of energy and time because organizers are working to change a system. She shared that Pescadero High School doesn’t have potable water and hasn’t had it in 20 years. The community went to make public comment on this – this was a time when there was a victory and people realized they can make an impact. They now continue to meet, write letters, and more to improve the water conditions in the school. The group also discussed examples of successful grassroots organizing.
Breakout with Ludovic:
Ludovic shared how power building is a movement for social change. He shared how gaps in policy and service are very significant, but trying to plug them with philanthropy can be hard because philanthropy is dwarfed by government. Community organizing is the most effective way to plug those gaps.
He underscored the difference between power building and power wielding:
- The work that shifts power relationships (power building)
- The work that makes good things happen from that (power wielding)
An example of this difference: a community organizes around their need for green space, and the mayor agrees to a new park (power building). But there are still many steps till the park gets built and used, including permits, design, construction, and maintenance (power wielding). Once power building becomes effective, Ludovic urged that we need to build power wielding structures to help community leaders and organizers succeed. Donors play a key role in resourcing those movements across time and across this whole life cycle – building to wielding.
The group also discussed how we fund power wielding (after the initial win). One big key to this is authentic relationships between nonprofits or electeds and donors. Being on the ground, in relationship, is what gives insight and knowledge to realize where systems still need to change.
We learned a lot from this incredible experience together.
Jason Zajac, SV2 Partner, shared:
“As one of the newer partner/donors at SV2, I am so impressed by the effort the group puts into communication and education at all levels. At this event, we benefited from presentations by several experts in the field of community organizing and one of the things that struck me the most was how excited they all seemed to be there! Even though they were not candidates for this grant round, the leaders of these impact organizations enthusiastically shared their knowledge and experience and genuinely enjoyed being part of the extended SV2 community.”