Covid-19, economic hardship, and a revitalized movement for racial justice
Photo courtesy of Latino Community Foundation
In a year of masks, social distancing, and renewed fury at racism's lethal divisions laid bare, there is no little irony in the response from members of the CCG network: The way forward is through the pursuit of and openness to closer connections – among staff, nonprofit partners, and the communities they serve.
In late August, network members gathered virtually for a "Covid-19, Racial Justice, and the Urgency of Now" webinar to talk about the impact of what panelist Mark S. Lewis of the POISE Foundation called "this intersection of crises": the coronavirus, the economic collapse it triggered, and the widespread protests against police brutality sparked by the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
“We are very vulnerable with each other and with other nonprofit staff. It has created a deepening of relationships and reminded us that we are in this fight together.”
At the Asian American Federation (AAF) in New York City, these crises revealed the collective power that derives from tighter bonds among staff and personal relationships with the nonprofits the federation supports. The pandemic drew them closer, said panelist Meera Venugopal, AAF's development and communications manager: "We are very vulnerable with each other and with other nonprofit staff. It has created a deepening of relationships and reminded us that we are in this fight together."
Panelists touched only briefly on the pandemic's financial repercussions for funders. "We are all preparing for serious cuts in the future," Venugopal said, but for now "we've had to ramp up, really, every area of our work." The federation's Covid-19 Resource Center is serving as a clearinghouse to provide the 70 nonprofits that receive support from AAF with information on food and medical assistance, mental health and domestic violence resources, housing issues, and other needs exacerbated by the pandemic.
It is also raising funds to support smaller Asian-serving nonprofits that are struggling to meet the needs of seniors and others who have been hard-hit, and disbursing funds directly to low-wage workers whose lives were a struggle long before the shutdown wiped out their jobs.
Support for the Pandemic's Hardest Hit
"I have literally seen people standing in breadlines for 20 blocks, and in Queens" – the borough where Venugopal lives – "most of those in line are Asian or Hispanic." She said the level of "anxiety, grief, and loss" in a community that is largely immigrant and, in many cases, non-English speaking is forcing AAF and its members to "try all kinds of ways to reach people where they are." The deaths of Floyd and Taylor led AFF to new places to "engage with community members that we otherwise would not have met," she said, thus creating "a chance to talk about what racial justice looks like in New York."
On the other coast, the Latino Community Foundation (LCF) launched the Love Not Fear fund in March to support California's Latino and immigrant communities, which are being disproportionately affected by Covid-19 and its economic fallout. The foundation is also working to strengthen the networks of Latino-led organizations that serve these communities – through the pandemic and beyond.
“ Only one in five Latinos has the privilege to work from home, farmworkers are not given the protective gear they need, and grocery clerks are forced to choose between keeping their jobs or staying home to avoid the risk of getting sick. ”
"The loss of life and the economic impact has brought unimaginable pain,” said foundation CEO and panelist Jacqueline Martinez Garcel. "While everyone is experiencing a universal vulnerability, the people hurting the most are those who are deemed essential workers — but their lives are not treated as such. Systemic racism has paved a path for this virus to wreak havoc on the most vulnerable among us. Only one in five Latinos has the privilege to work from home, farmworkers are not given the protective gear they need, and grocery clerks are forced to choose between keeping their jobs or staying home to avoid the risk of getting sick.”
The Love Not Fear fund has been designed to unfold in three phases. The first phase is prioritizing funding to enable dozens of Latino-led nonprofits to provide immediate relief to farmworkers and their families in the Central Valley and Inland Empire. Phase II focuses on grants to strengthen Latino-led organizations on the frontlines of advocating and providing services to Latino families. Phase III will focus on addressing root causes of the economic crisis and building civic and economic power in Latino communities — "our ultimate mission," Martinez Garcel said. “We cannot afford to go back to what was: the systems, policies, and structures that are literally suffocating communities of color.”
At the organizational level, she said, LCF holds virtual weekly meetings and has instituted a practice of "one-on-one connections, with team members checking in on each other. This moment has forced all of us to slow down, and to build deeper relationships and expose our hearts — even if through a screen.”
"A Higher Level of Trust"
Lewis, POISE's president and CEO, said "the shutdown forced us to develop a higher level of trust as an organization."
“Our staff has risen to the occasion. ”
In the early days of the pandemic's spread in the Northeast, POISE postponed its traditional grant cycle to focus on Covid-19 assistance in the Pittsburgh area via a Critical Community Needs Fund (CCNF), which distributed grants ranging from $5,000 to $25,000 to support Black-led organizations on the front lines of pandemic aid to vulnerable communities. And as the emergence of the coronavirus as a disproportionate threat to Black Americans dovetailed with widespread protests over the police killings of Floyd and Taylor, POISE also expanded the scope of its Human Justice & Equity Fund to include seed grants to organizations working to advance youth leadership and social justice efforts.
Lewis noted that while many funders "pivoted" to respond to urgent new demands, "none of this work is new for us." And while "raising money in a period we wish had never happened made us feel conflicted," he said, as of mid-August the CCNF had raised a little over $1 million. There were also some unexpected savings: After POISE staff began working remotely in mid-March, it soon became clear that a planned search for a larger office space was unnecessary. Lewis and his staff discovered that "remote work gets done. We saved $30,000 to $40,000 a year by learning that we didn't need more room," he said. "Our staff has risen to the occasion."
Photo Courtesy of Asian American Foundation
Reflecting on the upheavals of 2020 and the demands they will continue to make on staff and resources, Lewis took a broader view: "Yes, the work is long and hard, but it was there before and it will continue."
Venugopal emphasized the centrality of solidarity: both "the magic that staff came together and created a cohesive unit" at AAF and the new ways they discovered to connect more broadly and deeply with the community and work together under unprecedented pressures. "We cannot get this done alone," she said. "With the protests, the uprisings, we've learned that it is through community and collective struggle that we go on."