A national network of funders supporting strategic, innovative, and effective solutions to homelessness

What We're Reading on Racial Equity, Justice, and Liberation

When we named racial equity as a priority in our strategic plan, we also named it a value to start our own internal learning journey as an organization and as individuals. Starting in 2019, each month, we feature a "What We're Reading" section in our Member News that highlights what people in the Funders Together network are reading to expand their understanding of racial equity. This page is an archive of past articles, blog posts, and books that were featured in past editions of the FTEH Member News. We hope this will spur inspiration for your personal or organizational racial equity work and that you'll learn alongside us.

What We're Reading in: 20242023 | 202220212020 | 2019

 

March 2025
What We're Reading:
How We endUP: A Future Without Family Policing by the upEND Movement
Who's Reading It: Rachelle A. Matthews (RAM), Director of Membership and Programs at Funders Together to End Homelessness

In alignment with recent conversations across our network on abolition, care, and accountability, and following our recent webinar, I’ve revisited this critical piece from the upEND Movement. How We endUP boldly reimagines a future where the harms of the current child welfare system—what the authors aptly name the family policing system—are replaced with systems rooted in healing, support, and community-defined well-being.

This document centers the historical and ongoing targeting of Black, Native, and Latinx families, and offers a vision for abolition that is deeply intersectional and community-driven. It has challenged me to reflect more critically on how philanthropy can be part of dismantling carceral logic—not just in criminal legal systems, but in systems often seen as benign or protective. It’s especially resonant in the context of housing and family stability work, where state-sanctioned separation and surveillance are too often the default.

This is not light reading—but it is essential. It offers a roadmap not just for what to end, but what to build. If you’re engaging with questions around liberation, abolition, and care, this is a must-read.

 

February 2025
What We're Reading:
Democracy is a Verb! by Dr. Tiffany Manuel
Who's Reading It: Carey Cabrera, Membership and Knowledge Coordinator at Funders Together to End Homelessness

In her recent Substack post, Dr. Tiffany Manuel calls us to love justly in the pursuit of true democracy. She prompts us to think: What does love of community look like in this political moment? How do we ingrain love into our fight for real democracy, something our nation has never achieved? If we understand that love is a verb- an action- we must make the case for a democracy that centers radical love in policies that produce justice and repair, and not give up that fight.

 

January 2025
What We're Reading:
Nonprofit and philanthropy and our white moderate tendency to obey tyranny in advance by Vu Le
Who's Reading It: Lauren Bennett, Chief of External Affairs at Funders Together to End Homelessness

The inauguration has come and gone, and it is clearer than ever we are in a new political environment that aims to overwhelm and burn us out so we can't do the necessary work for justice for those at the sharpest intersections of marginalization and oppression. It is also clear that as people who care about collective liberation, we cannot obey in advance as the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors often do, as Vu Le points out in this article.

This timely article provided some truth-telling about what we cannot do in this moment, along with antidotes to that through critical and community-centered actions, like doubling down on our commitments to racial justice and DEI work, educating our boards and trustees about the importance of staying committed to this work, and preparing our grantmaking to abundantly resource proactive strategies. As we move forward, I encourage us all to keep this article bookmarked as a reference to evaluate whether our actions are leaning into housing justice values or if we are falling into "our white moderate tendency to obey tyranny in advance."


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  • Lauren Samblanet
    published this page in Funder Resources 2022-01-31 10:30:08 -0500

We joined Funders Together because we believe in the power of philanthropy to play a major role in ending homelessness, and we know we have much to learn from funders across the country.

-Christine Marge, Director of Housing and Financial Stability at United Way of Greater Los Angeles

I am thankful for the local partnerships here in the Pacific Northwest that we’ve been able to create and nurture thanks to the work of Funders Together. Having so many of the right players at the table makes our conversations – and all of our efforts – all the richer and more effective.

-David Wertheimer, Deputy Director at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Very often a lack of jobs and money is not the cause of poverty, but the symptom. The cause may lie deeper in our failure to give our fellow citizens a fair chance to develop their own capacities, in a lack of education and training, in a lack of medical care and housing, in a lack of decent communities in which to live and bring up their children.

-President Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964 State of the Union Address

Funders Together has given me a platform to engage the other funders in my community. Our local funding community has improved greatly to support housing first models and align of resources towards ending homelessness.

-Leslie Strnisha, Vice President at Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland

Our family foundation convenes local funders and key community stakeholders around strategies to end homelessness in Houston. Funders Together members have been invaluable mentors to us in this effort, traveling to our community to share their expertise and examples of best practices from around the nation.

-Nancy Frees Fountain, Managing Director at The Frees Foundation


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