Liberate the Capital!
It was an inspiring night at The Battery as the 12 finalists for Battery Powered’s fall theme, Recovery & Resilience, joined us (virtually) to share how they are supporting those most impacted by the coronavirus pandemic while rebuilding a more inclusive and equitable economy.
Below is a recap of the finalists’ presentations. To listen to the full event, you can access the recording here.
Feeding Families
When San Francisco schools closed on March 13th, “...overnight, a trusted and reliable source of healthy, nutritious meals for SFUSD families was threatened,” shared Jennifer LeBarre of Spark* SF Public Schools. But with the dedication of student nutrition staff and federal support, meal programs resumed one day later, largely through grab and go meals for pick up at 18 locations. Battery Powered support would fund their efforts to reach 840 of the most vulnerable youth, such as disabled youth or those with severe food allergies, in San Francisco with door-to-door meal delivery, supporting their goal to close the hunger gap that so many more families are facing now due to COVID.
18,000 families in Oakland rely on school meals to feed their children and as the impact of the pandemic expands, more and more people are becoming food insecure. Eat.Learn.Play along with the Oakland Unified School District, Alameda County Community Food Bank and World Central Kitchen forged a partnership that has provided more than 10 million meals in the last seven months to those in need in Oakland. At the same time, Eat.Learn.Play partnered with 130 local restaurants to distribute more than 2 million meals, bringing back nearly 1000 jobs. And when it became clear that farmers were also hurting, they partnered with local, person- of-color owned farms to deliver fresh produce boxes to thousands of families. An investment would support their work to stave off hunger among Oakland families while supporting local businesses.
Small Business Support
Since 2007, Mission Asset Fund has worked with more than 10,000 low-income and immigrant families to improve their financial security through a strength-based approach to a suite of financial services from lending to advising. But CEO José Quiñonez asked us, “How do we show up in this time of COVID?” Their rapid response fund provided 50,000 people nationwide with grants and loans, but 180,000 people applied. “How do we decide who to help?” asked José? Their equity lens led them to focus on the “last and the least” including undocumented immigrants ineligible for other support, families with children and those with a family member infected with COVID. Our funding would support their COVID Small Business Fund, which will enable small business owners of color to weather the current crisis through direct cash assistance, individual support, and affordable credit.
José Quiñonez, Mission Asset Fund
Supporting Essential Workers
National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA) represents the 2.5 million domestic workers and home care workers in the United States who “make all other work possible” co-founder and MacArthur Genius Ai-jen Poo shared with us. Domestic workers are an invisible workforce, and one that is predominantly made up of women of color. Historically and systematically excluded from labor protections, such as paid time off and health insurance, and living on poverty level wages, the housecleaners, nannies and home health care aids of our country have been hit particularly hard by COVID. NDWA is fighting for policy wins that protect and invest in domestic workers while lifting their voices -- efforts that a Battery Powered grant would support.
Ai-jen Poo, National Domestic Workers Alliance
“I didn’t take this job to be a hero, I make less than $11/ hour and I can barely pay my bills. We aren’t essential, we are sacrificial.” Andrea Dehlendorf, CEO of United for Respect, shared these words from a Walmart worker. Low pay, lack of healthcare, and lack of control over schedules are not new for the 16 million people working retail jobs in the U.S.; what is new in this COVID moment is a recognition of them as essential to our economy. United for Respect is working to transform conditions for these frontline workers: they led the campaign that resulted in Walmart increasing pay to $11/hour, and won paid family leave for 600,000 employees setting a new industry standard. Our support would help them get retail workers to the table with business, policy and political leaders, setting standards that value them.
Cash to the People
“The idea I want to share with you tonight is big and challenges some of our key beliefs about who deserves dignity in America: a guaranteed income,” started Natalie Foster, Co-Chair and Co-Founder of the Economic Security Project. A guaranteed income would provide an income floor for poor and middle class Americans and have an outsize benefit for Black and Brown families. As a result of COVID, more people than ever before are struggling, and regardless of the outcome of this year’s election, Congress will need to act quickly to provide economic relief. With our support, the Economic Security Project will advocate for a “COVID guaranteed income” that would provide monthly checks to households until the crisis has ended, and for a permanent federal guaranteed income.
San Francisco has an equity problem that is affecting our tiniest residents, said Zea Malawa, Director of Expecting Justice. 16% of all Black babies in our city are born prematurely, twice as frequently as white babies; Pacific Islander babies face similar rates. The biggest cause? Stress from poverty and racism. Expecting Justice has a big idea to fix that: the Abundant Birth Project. This would provide cash supplements to Black and Pacific Islander expecting mothers starting early in pregnancy through six months postpartum. Similar projects in Mexico and Canada have shown astounding improvements in birth outcomes; with UCSF and UC Berkeley as evaluation partners, learnings from this first-in-the-U.S. demonstration will be shared and, if successful, replicated so every baby, regardless of race, has a healthy start to life.
Zea Malawa, Expecting Justice
“Everything we know about poverty is wrong!” exclaimed Jesús Gerena, CEO of Family Independence Initiative (FII). Most people living in poverty move out of poverty within four years, but a small setback like hours being cut at work moves half of these folks right back into poverty. FII invests in these families using a strengths-based approach that gives families agency, builds their social relationships, and provides unrestricted cash payments. Through FII’s UpTogether platform, families track their progress and provide data that FII uses to advocate for anti-poverty policies that recognize families’ creativity, initiative and ingenuity. With a two-year investment of $3200, households see an average economic impact of $15,000, with significant increases in income and assets. Battery Powered funding would support this work for Oakland families.
Economic & Racial Justice
It would take 228 years for Black wealth and 84 years for Latinx wealth to match white wealth today. If we do nothing, median Black and Latinx wealth will be $0 by 2050. This hard truth launched the founding of Liberation in a Generation, a national organization building the power of people of color to transform the economy and close the yawning racial wealth gap. Solana Rice, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director, shared a three-prong strategy that Battery Powered would support: 1) support grassroots organizers of color to conduct anti-racist economic policy analysis; 2) build bridges between national and grassroots advocates of color around a unifying national economic policy; and, 3) amplify the vision of a liberation economy where people of color are primary contributors and beneficiaries of wealth.
“We don’t just fund marginalized communities, we are marginalized communities” said alicia sanchez gill, Executive Director of Emergent Fund, a national social justice response fund that supports Black, Indigenous and People of Color organizers and movement builders responding to crises. Innovative in their practices, they provide no strings attached funding to organizers when they need it most using their trust-based model. The crisis today? The “weight of inequity” during COVID. Small and nimble, this organization is meeting the needs of impacted frontline communities as they organize for economic and racial justice.
alicia sanchez gill, Emergent Fund
Stories Have Power
We heard from Byrhonda Lyons, a reporter at CalMatters, a non partisan, nonprofit newsroom covering California policy. Their California Divide project covers income inequality and the growing divide between the haves and have nots in California. These stories are critical to spurring positive change, and CalMatters has seen tangible wins. One of their stories about juvenile court fees led to three counties cancelling debt; their coverage of COVID outbreaks in farm worker communities led to new policy requiring employers to notify public health officials when there is an outbreak. Our support will allow them to tell more of these stories of inequality and, most importantly, engage those impacted in the storytelling and solution finding.
Sierra had been working on her GED for four years when she got the call that she would be part of Springboard to Opportunity’s guaranteed income project, which provides $1000/month for 12 months to Black mothers who make on average less than $12,000/year. Sierra didn’t lack grit or determination -- she lacked childcare. Fast forward to today: Sierra is in a medical billing class, is married and has bought her first home. Aisha Nyandoro, Springboard’s CEO, shared this triumph but noted, “wouldn’t that story have been so much better if Sierra shared it herself?” With Battery Powered funding, she could! Springboard’s Storytelling Lab will “change the narrative by changing the narrator” ensuring the perspectives of Black mothers are no longer mediated through journalists or thought leaders, but shared directly by the women themselves.
Aisha Nyandoro, Springboard to Opportunity
To learn more about our fall theme on Recovery & Resilience, check out the Issue Brief here.
Our theme continues the week of November 15th with a virtual Allocation Week! All Battery Powered members will be able to vote virtually on which of our finalists will receive grants. Be sure to RSVP for our two Allocation Week events:
- Sunday, November 15th at 5:00pm - Study Session - review the finalists and get all your questions answered about these organizations prior to voting.
- Wednesday, November 18th - 6:00pm - Final Results & Celebration - hear the final results and celebrate with fellow members
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Battery Powered is The Battery's giving program. To learn more or get involved, visit thebatterysf.com/batterypowered or contact [email protected]