Opening Remarks

Funders Together board members Kristin Aldana-Taday and Andrea Iloulian will welcomed participants to the Funders Forum and to Los Angeles before attendees heard from Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.   

Speakers:

• Kristin Aldana-Taday, Program Officer, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation
• Andrea Iloulian, Senior Director, System Optimization and Communications, Homeless Initiative and Affordable Housing - LA County CEO 
• Ann Oliva, CEO, National Alliance to End Homelessness

Resources:

• Opening Remarks recording
• 2025 California Disaster Response
• Pathway Home Initiative from Los Angeles County
• Measure A Overview

10:00am PT

10:00am PT

Opening Plenary: Advancing Housing Justice through Local and National Policy and People Power 

With a change in federal administration, an ever-changing political landscape, and waning commitments to racial justice, the path to housing justice requires strengthening movements and connecting the dots between local and national policy, various housing justice advocacy and organizing efforts, and homelessness with other issue areas. And, with the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles that destroyed entire communities and displaced hundreds of people, we are at a moment where how we show up now – at the local, state, and national level – will have implications for generations to come.  

Featuring insights from movement leaders and grassroots organizers, this plenary focus on how we connect the dots between local and national movements advocating for social housing, tenant rights, and multi-issue decriminalization policies. We discussed the impact of the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles on displacement, housing, and recovery efforts. Panelists also shared their thinking about philanthropy’s critical role as a continued champion for racial justice, and how funders can use their resources to build collective power that transcends individual efforts. 

Speakers: 

• Jawanza Williams, Managing Director of Organizing, VOCAL-NY 
• Joanna Jackson, President & CEO, Weingart Foundation
• Rasheedah Phillips, Director of Housing, PolicyLink
• (moderator) Stephanie Chan, Chief Strategy Officer and Acting CEO, Funders Together to End Homelessness

Resources:

• Plenary recording
• Dismantling the Master's Clock On Race, Space, and Time by Rasheeda Phillips 
• PolicyLink: Transforming Our Housing Futures: The Movement for Social Housing 
• PolicyLink: Building Our Future: Grassroots Reflections on Social Housing
• VOCAL-New York: Homelessness
• Weingart Foundation: A Full Commitment to Equity and Justice

11:15am PT

Funder-to-Funder Discussion: Connecting the Dots 

Attendees had an opportunity to connect with other funders and respond to discussion prompts connecting the federal Administration transition, local and state policy, and grassroots movement building.

12:00pm PT

Lunch  

1:00pm PT

Case Consultations

Participants joined us for case consultations, which past attendees have rated as one of the most valuable parts of the Funders Forum. Case consultations are structured table discussions designed to showcase what funders across the country are doing to advance housing justice and for participants to share feedback, insights, and resources. Attendees had the ability to choose the case presentation that most interests them during this session and walk away with new connections and ideas for their own work.

Case questions included: 

• As you think about your own experience and knowledge of funding in affordable housing development or provision, what potential challenges, opportunities, or potential partnerships should we be aware of and investigate further?
• How can we authentically share power with our community advisory committee in a way that truly empowers those with lived experience while also ensuring alignment with our organizational goals and strategy? 
• How should our foundation consider its approach to funding organizers given that its strategy emphasizes systems change work while also recognizing the need to support hyperlocal community-based organizing groups? 
• Given the challenges and various potential paths for scaling our work at the intersection of gender-based violence and housing insecurity, how should we think about the sustainability of existing homelessness/gender-based violence coalition work and opportunities for scaling or growing coalitions in across the state
• What experience do you have with community development models for community ownership, and how are they financed?

2:25pm PT

Impact Fest: Celebrating Our Wins

Faced with a barrage of unjust policy changes, attacks on racial justice initiatives, homelessness numbers trending upward, natural disasters that displace hundreds of people, and a never-ending news cycle highlighting the precarity of everyone’s ability to survive, it is all too easy to fall into cynicism and despair about how to actualize the just and liberated future we hope to see.  

However, as Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba write in Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care (Haymarket Books, 2023), hope is not just something we feel but a practice and discipline we enact in the world. They write in their book, excerpted with permission for Nonprofit Quarterly Magazine that “this practice of hope allows us to remain creative and strategic. It does not require us to deny the severity of our situation or detract from our practice of grief. To practice active hope, we do not need to believe that everything will work out in the end. We need only decide who we are choosing to be and how we are choosing to function in relation to the outcome we desire, and abide by what those decisions demand of us.

During the Funders Forum’s inaugural Impact Fest, we shared stories of success from the field to inspire attendees to practice hope as a discipline and to remind all of us to celebrate our wins as we work toward our north star of housing justice.

Speakers: 

• Zach Lou, Coalition Director, California Green New Deal Coalition
• Jazmin Segura, Director of Strategic Initiatives, Housing Justice, Common Counsel Foundation 
• Sean Dollard

Resources:

• Impact Fest recording
• California Green New Deal 
• Fund for an Inclusive California and their priorities
• GES Coalition
• GES Coalition and Globeville Redevelopment Partners Receive a $6 Million Investment From The Colorado Health Foundation for Affordable Mixed-Use Housing Development in Denver’s Globeville Neighborhood

3:45pm PT

Closing Remarks

4:30pm PT

This off-site networking reception provided an opportunity for attendees to deepen the relationships they built throughout the day.