2020 was a year of reckoning. In the midst of the devastation of COVID-19, people around the world rose up to defend Black life and, in doing so, helped accelerate conversations about safety, race and injustice. The power of queer and trans Black, indigenous and people of color was especially palpable, whether organizing people in the streets or turning out communities to the polls.

What will philanthropy do now that the media frenzy of 2020 has seemingly calmed, but our communities continue to face the same underlying crises of white supremacy, transphobia, patriarchy and more? This moment offers a critical opportunity for funders to reckon with ways our sector has hindered movement efforts and to step up to instead support silo-busting organizing for liberation.

Join groundbreaking queer, trans and non-binary organizers of color from Southerners on New Ground, the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, and the Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM) in conversation with funders. We’ll explore the challenges and opportunities movements are facing as they set the bold visions and build power towards a world where our communities can thrive. Borealis Philanthropy’s Transforming Movements Fund and the Foundation for a Just Society will facilitate conversation to examine ways our sector has hindered organizing, share lessons on supporting power-building, and explore opportunities for funders to amplify the impact of movements for liberation.

Moderated by Dani Martinez, Borealis Philanthropy, Paulina Helm-Hernandez, Foundation for a Just Society

Speakers:
Vanessa Maldonado- Flores, Providence Youth Student Movement (PrYSM)
Monserrat Padilla – Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network
Aesha Rasheed – Southerners on New Ground

This year has shown us our opposition’s next strategy for stigmatizing and dehumanizing trans people: pushing trans youth out of school sports. This panel will discuss what we learned this year, how this tactic is targeting the South, and how far we have to go to counter it. Panelists will discuss messaging and organizing responses, key areas of leverage for TGNC and allied communities, and how this tactic is driving a wedge between us and our usual allies.

Speakers:
Ryan Li Dahlstrom, Director of the Fund for Trans Generations, Borealis Philanthropy
Rebby Kern, Director of Education Policy at Equality North Carolina
Anne Lieberman (they/them) Director of Policy & Programs for Athlete Ally
Ashland Johnson, Founder and President , Inclusion Playbook

The field of philanthropy needs to be more honest with itself about how its practices inhibit the kinds of social justice and liberatory work we need right now. We know that traditional (and even some “progressive”) funder practices embody white supremacy culture and inhibit or disrupt the very work we need most right now.

Over the past 10 years, the Out in the South Initiative and Grantmakers for Southern Progress have been identifying how funders can be in actual alignment with southern movement organizations to build power and create structural change in the South. We would like to share some key lessons learned about how we can move money in ways that meet the needs and supports the vision of southern movement organizations. While the examples offered are rooted in southern movement work, they are applicable to work happening in most regions of the country (and the globe) that are facing long standing structural oppression and recent backlash and subsequent increases in white supremacist violence.

Join us to learn about three southern based funding structures that are moving money in ways that resources some of the most creative and brilliant work happening right now in service to LGBTQ liberation. The funding structures we will be learning from are The Contigo Fund, the Queer Mobilization Fund and the Southern Power Fund.

Speakers:
Chantelle Fisher-Borne, Project Director, Out in the South Initiative
Tamieka Mosley, Director, Grantmakers for Southern Progress
Ricky Bratz, Coordinator, Queer Mobilization Fund at Southern Vision Alliance
Michelle Ramos, Vision Keeper/Executive Director, Alternate ROOTS
Angelica Jones, Steering Committee, Contigo Fund

Are you an early-or mid-career professional in philanthropy, wondering what a journey forward looks like in this sector? Are you hungry to find more of your people who share values of intersectional racial equity and feel committed to building the future of philanthropy to reflect these values? Join Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, a community of changemakers committed to using philanthropy to build a more just, equitable, and sustainable future. Learn About professional development opportunities for emerging practitioners, how to get connected with your peers, and share your favorite cocktail or mocktail with the EPIP family while we engage in some lighthearted activities to keep us all connected.

Speaker:
Elyse Gordon, Director of Programs, EPIP

For many in the Black transgender and gender-nonconforming communities, the COVID-19 pandemic was a continuation of the centuries-long crisis of anti-Black racism, misogynoir and transphobia that has left these communities largely unable to access health care, housing, and employment. When national shelter-in-place orders went into effect last spring, Black trans community leaders mobilized their own grassroots networks and relationships to raise and distribute funds to trans and gender-nonconforming BIPOC communities with unprecedented speed. Together, they moved at least $3 million into the hands of QTBIPOC community members across the country hit hardest by the virus and ensuing economic fall-out, largely before institutional philanthropy could respond.

In this plenary, representatives from some of these grassroots groups will share what they learned in adapting their existing relationships and work to move money so quickly. They will also discuss the challenges they faced stepping into the vacuum left by the government and institutional philanthropy in the immediate wake of the pandemic, all while continuing to the day-to-day operations of their own under-resourced organizations. Panelists will also pose important questions to the audience about how institutional philanthropy can take accountability for its past failures to adequately support Black trans communities by helping groups like theirs continue to expand and thrive even as the pandemic recedes. Audience members will come away with new insight behind this alternative vision of “doing philanthropy” that is rooted in radical trust in community, as well as suggestions for how they can immediately adapt their own grantmaking to better support Black trans communities.

Speakers
Devin Lowe, Founder & Executive Director, Black Trans Travel Fund
Socorro “Cori” Moreland, Founder and CEO, Brotherhood510
Sybastian Smith, Vice President, I am Human Foundation
LaSaia Wade, Founder and Executive Director, Brave Space Alliance

Moderated by Bré Rivera, Program Officer, Black Trans Fund, Groundswell Fund

Session resources:

• The Black Trans Fund
• Black Trans Fund 2020 Docket
• Philanthropy OUTlook: LGBTQ Black Communities, from Funders for LGBTQ Issues and ABFE
• Black Trans Travel Fund
• I Am Human Foundation
• Brave Space Alliance
• Brotherhood510

We invite Funding Forward attendees to help inform our Day 2 plenary, Black Trans Brilliance: Black Trans Community Moving Money in Times of Crisis, by completing a brief pre-conference survey to help make the session as relevant as possible!  Please take a moment to share your thoughts in this short survey.

LGBTQ+ and immigration justice advocates currently face critical challenges and opportunities. The previous administration prioritized rolling back rights and protections for LGBTQ+ people across a spectrum of federal agencies and dramatically escalated attacks on immigrants – from increasing militarization at the Southern border to the separation of families to turning away asylum seekers, while allowing grave abuses by ICE and detention facilities to occur with impunity. This all-out assault against immigrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers dramatically increased LGBTQ+ immigrants’ vulnerability to detention, deportation, violence, and even death. Advocates and organizers are pushing the current administration and Congress to not only undo these harms, but also transform policies and practices at the border to respect the humanity of LGBTQ+ migrants. However, this transformation will not be easy. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and with increasing numbers of migrants arriving at the U.S./Mexico border seeking refuge and home in the United States, advocates and service providers must simultaneously address growing needs for resources on the ground, effectively respond to political and media rhetoric describing the “crisis” and “mess” at the border, and continue to fight against the criminalization of trans, queer, and Black asylum seekers. This workshop will provide a space to learn about these complex issues, including current and proposed immigration and asylum policy and practice changes and their impact on LGBTQ+ community members. It will also highlight a unique collaboration between Transgender Law Center, Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, and other LGBTQ+ and migrants’ rights organizations: a holistic humanitarian response that integrates grassroots organizing, legal services and advocacy, and uplifts the leadership of the most impacted.

Speakers:
Desiree Flores, Program Director, U.S. Social Justice, Arcus Foundation
Guerline M. Jozef, Co-founder & Executive Director, Haitian Bridge Alliance
Emem DuPuis Maurus, Attorney, Transgender Law Center
Judy Yu, Senior Program Officer, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression (SOGIE) Program, Wellspring Philanthropic Fund

Sponsored by: Arcus Foundation and Wellspring Philanthropic Fund

Remember when Black LGBTQ youth saved democracy? This session will explore the intersection of LGBTQ funding and nonpartisan civic engagement funding, telling the story of how Black, queer, and youth organizers in Georgia created one of the largest voter turnout operations in the history of the state. Spoiler alert: it started long before January 2021.

This conversation will demonstrate why Integrated Voter Engagement (IVE) is a proven model to increase civic engagement using c(3) funds and learn what kinds of funding make IVE a reality for local organizations. As described by Funders for Civic Engagement, “IVE groups train community members to reach out to their peers in a continuous, ongoing effort that increases the number of voters and leads to policy changes. […] In addition, their work has a long-term impact by developing local leaders and involving people in shaping the public policy decisions that affect their lives.” 

Grantmakers will learn how strategic c(3) investments in capacity building and organizing helped change the game in Georgia, built progressive infrastructure, and allowed the LGBTQ community to show up in a big way.

Moderator:
Rebecca Fox, Senior Program Officer in the SOGIE department, Wellspring Philanthropic Funds
Speakers:
Malika Redmond, Co- founder and CEO, Women Engaged
Fran Hutchins, Executive Director, Equality Federation Institute
Eric Paulk, Deputy Director, Equality Foundation of Georgia

Sponsored by: Wellspring Philanthropic Fund