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To access the notes and materials from our calls and convenings, please click on the event you want. We'll provide brief synopses of each event to help you find the materials you are looking for. If you can't find them, please feel free to reach out to Stephanie.
December 2020 | Advancing Racial and Housing Justice in 2021
To close out Foundations for Racial Equity, we named and shared goals about how we wanted to push for racial equity in the housing and homelessness systems in the coming year. We did a virtual "gift exchange" of knowledge, resources, and words of encouragement and we formally ended the community of practice with words of appreciation for one another.
November 2020 | Organizing Philanthropy
In November, we talked about organizing philanthropy to achieve a vision of philanthropy's role in housing and racial justice. We named commitments we want to take to organize philanthropy and the ways that FRE participants can be a part of that work and started to name some individual goals we have in supporting our communities in their racial equity and homelessness work. At the end of this call, we heard the plan for how FRE will reconnect in 2021.
October 2020 | Virtual Convening and Next Steps
We held our October convening virtually over three days (October 5-7). During this time, we deepened our relationships and provided peer coaching for one another. We mapped out work that our organizations have done over the past two years related to racial equity and came to greater clarity on how FRE can continue to work together. During our virtual convening, we also received a re-introduction to the Equitable Evaluation Initiative and listened to a vision for housing justice by Ta-Nehisi Coates.
September 2020 | Evaluation of Racial Equity Tools & Preparation for October
We heard from Bill Block, a Funders Together member, and Marc Dones, executive director of the National Innovation Service, about an evaluation project they're undertaking to evaluate racial equity tools that communities are using. We also spent time mapping out questions and parts of an ecosystem that set us up for our October convening.
August 2020 | The Ecosystem of Racial Justice & Homelessness Work
In August, we debriefed our call from July and heard updates from a few colleagues about homelessness systems change work happening in their communities. We also had a broader conversation about what's needed to support a healthy ecosystem of of racial justice work in ending homelessness.
July 2020 | Community Updates and Activities for FRE
We heard updates from C4 Innovations about racial equity work happening in communities across the country and shared updates with each other about racial justice work our foundations are doing. We spent time reviewing and thinking about what FRE could do together as a group and named a few top ideas to continue exploring in 2020.
June 2020 | White Dominant Culture, Anti-Blackness, and Transformative Organizing
After our two-part webinar series on Anti-Blackness and Transformative Organizing in the Time of COVID-19 and amidst the country's reckoning with systemic racism and state-sanctioned violence against Black people, we spent some time reflecting and making commitments to ways we wanted to push our work in philanthropy and homelessness.
May 2020 | Introducing the Equitable Evaluation Initiative
In May, Marcia Coné from the Equitable Evaluation Initiative joined us to introduce FRE to EEI and the equitable evaluation framework. Together, we learned about a needed paradigm shift to reimagine the purpose and practice of evaluation to reflect the values that drive philanthropy and embrace new definitions of validity and complexity. We learned about equitable evaluation framework principles and discussed how equitable evaluation is or is not showing up in our organizations.
April 2020 | Virtual Convening
Due to COVID-19, we met virtually on April 6 and 7 to reconnect, hear updates about what's happening nationally to advance racial equity in homelessness, and talk about how to embed racial equity into our coronavirus response work related to homelessness. We also heard about the evaluation of Meyer Memorial Trust's DEI grantmaking and how they hope to shift and adapt based on the results.
March 2020 | Consumer Health Foundation
During our March call, we heard from Yanique Redwood, Executive Director of the Consumer Health Foundation, and Tony Burns, a person with lived experience on the board of CHF. They talked about the process to shift power foundation and transform their board, as well as how they and how are working to ensure an inclusive culture within the board and organization.
February 2020 | Emergent Fund & Meyer Foundation
On Valentine's Day, we showed up for each other on our monthly call. We learned from alicia sanchez gill from the Emergent Fund about how they are supporting communities to respond to rapidly changing conditions and that engage multiple identities and multi-racial alliance building as core to theory of change. We will also hear from Jane Ward and Karen Fitzgerald from the Meyer Foundation in DC about how they have revamped their grants process to be more inclusive and equitable.
January 2020 | Fund for an Inclusive California
In January, we kicked off the first of a 3-part learning series to look at different funders across the country who are embedding racial equity into their grantmaking. On January 31, we heard from Jazmin Segura, who manages the Fund for an Inclusive California. We learned about how she is embedding racial equity into her grantmaking to advance housing and racial justice in California, and how she is working at local, regional, and state levels to do so. We recalled some of the key learning topics FRE raised during our in-person convenings in 2019 and spent a few minutes reflecting on what we learned from Jazmin that could be helpful in sharing with other funders working to advance racial equity in housing and homelessness.
December 2019 | Reflections and Policy Updates
During our call on December 16, we shared what we made progress on in 2019 and what we want to bring greater intention to in 2020. We also spent time hearing some updates about homelessness policy and what to be on the lookout for from Funders Together.
November 2019 | Debriefing Chicago and Continuing Conversations
During our November call, we debriefed our convening in Chicago, with a focus on the workshop we had on white dominant culture. We learned about work that is starting in Los Angeles to examine the coordinated entry system and continued a conversation we had started in September around how funders can help ensure that racial equity homelessness work doesn't stay siloed in communities across the country.
October 2019 | Convening in Chicago
We will reconvene in Chicago over two and a half days, spending time looking at operationalizing racial equity in all parts of our work, examining whiteness in our foundations and the homelessness system, and setting goals for ourselves for the remainder of Foundations for Racial Equity. Part of our time will be spent jointly with another community of practice, Foundations for Employment and Housing.
September 2019 | Racial Equity and Coordinated Entry in King County
We heard from Joanna Bomba Grebb and Alex Ebrahimi from the King County Department of Community and Human Services Coordinated Entry for All about the work they're leading in King County to transform the coordinated entry assessment system and make it more equitable. We had an opportunity to ask questions and reflect with each other what implications there are for the work happening in our own communities.
August 2019 | Operationalizing Racial Equity
In August, we checked in briefly about our upcoming convening in October and previewed what we'll talk about in September. We'll reflected on what we heard during the 2019 Funders Institute around operationalizing racial equity and advancing racial equity from the ground up and dream up ways for us to bring back tools from the field to our own work and to the housing and homelessness field. We ended the call by sharing new reading materials for us to continue our own learning around racial equity.
July 2019 | Talking to Grantees about Racial Equity
During our July call, we got a sense of what other FRE members are doing when it comes ot asking grantees about racial equity. We talked about why funders should (or should not) be asking grantees about racial equity, as well as what is working in getting honest, specific answers and information. We named some recommendations for other funders working in housing and homelessness before we heard updates from Funders Together about how they're continuing to embed and operationalize racial equity in their work.
June 2019 | Racial Equity Work at HUD and USICH
During our June call, we heard from Lisa Coffman at HUD and Joe Savage at USICH about the racial equity work their agencies are undertaking. Lisa shared some information about the upcoming NOFA and her thoughts on how funders can be good partners in this work. Joe shared a bit about USICH's upcoming racial equity guide and what kind of support he thinks CoCs can use related to addressing racial disparities in the homelessness system.
May 2019 | Centering Customer Voice in Systems Change
Continuing the conversation from our April call, in May we dove deeper about what it means to center customer voice in systems change work. We were joined by Marc Dones, Azia Ruff, Mary Flower, and Danielle Winslow to learn about how people experiencing homelessness, especially from overrepresented populations, provided feedback for this work; how we can support systems change to be more equitable; and what we need to do to make sure that we are truly centering people experiencing homelessness in a new, more equitable system.
April 2019 | Centering People with Lived Experience
At the March convening in Portland, participants named centering people with lived experience as a critical first step to advancing racial equity. During our April call, we talked about ways funders can support the centering of people with lived experience.
March 2019 | Building our Learning Community
During our first in-person convening, we gathered to build relationships and deepen trust, share resources and learn from each other, and identify ways to collaborate. We learned from other foundation leaders and case studies about operationalizing racial equity and shared experiences through a organizational self-assessment. Through case consultations, we supported our peers who brought challenges to the table for peer support and input. As a group, we brought forth our most pressing questions and valuable resources and talked about the work for this community of practice as a whole. And, of course, we found moments of joy and appreciation for each other.
February 2019 | Update on SPARC Work & Foundational Knowledge
During this call, we heard an update from Jeff Olivet and Regina Cannon about SPARC's current and upcoming work. Participants asked questions about centering the voices of people with lived experience, the role of CEOs, and engaging cross-system partners. Kelly, from Cisco in Santa Clara, shared a bit about the SPARC work that just launched the week before. Stephanie then shared some themes from her intake calls with participants before transitioning into talking about the foundational knowledge participants should have before the March convening. Participants heard from Tina Gridiron, who introduced The Giving Practice and shared information about the March convening.
January 2019 | Kicking Off Foundations for Racial Equity
During this call, we kicked off our cohort program with quick introductions and a review of the goals for this group. Stephanie provided some brief updates about what other partners are up to, including the National Working Group on Racial Equity that met January 22-23 in DC, and previewed what the March convening might look like. Participants on the call provided input about what they wanted to discuss and learn together.