Spring 2009 BAM Grantees
Black Alliance for Just Immigration
Spring 2009
$30,000
Oakland, CA
blackalliance.org
Project Description
To support the national Black Immigration Network, training racial justice organizers in immigration issues, providing technical assistance to address immigration issues among African Americans, and sponsoring public forums and conferences on immigration issues.
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Center for Community Change
Spring 2009
$50,000
Washington, DC
Communitychange.org
Project Description
For general support of the Center's activities, particularly their work to involve diverse constituencies in advancing progressive policy change that will benefit low-income communities of color.
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Center for Media Justice
Spring 2009
$50,000
Oakland, CA
centerformediajustice.org
Project Description
To increase effective and powerful communications from underrepresented communities and grassroots movements, create a space for thought leadership, and increase the capacity of strategic allies.
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Center for New Community
Spring 2009
$40,000
Chicago, IL
newcomm.org
Project Description
To build local, state, and national leaders and organizational capacity to counter the racist anti-immigrant movement.
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Center for Third World Organizing
Spring 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
ctwo.org
Project Description
For general support to build a broad movement for racial justice by recruiting and training young people of color throughout the country to be effective social change organizers; strengthen the capacity of grassroots organizations working in low-income communities of color; and engage a broad set of allies in popularizing creative and effective strategies to address the key racial justice issues.
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Critical Resistance
Spring 2009
$50,000
Oakland, CA
criticalresistance.org
Project Description
To continue the local organizing and build the national and regional movement to end the prison industrial complex while simultaneously building positive programs and institutions.
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Equal Justice Society
Spring 2009
$50,000
San Francisco, CA
equaljusticesociety.org
Project Description
To raise awareness on race in the law and popular discourse and in the face of equal protection laws that fail to incorporate modern day dynamics of discrimination and therefore deprive people and communities of color access to our courts and redress for discrimination.
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Generations Ahead
Spring 2009
$20,000
Oakland, CA
generations-ahead.org
Project Description
To increase the participation and leadership of racial justice and social justice advocates in regional and national debates and policy regarding new uses of genetic technologies in order to ensure that communities of color and other historically marginalized groups benefit from them, rather than being harmed or fundamentally disadvantaged by them.
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Justice Now
Spring 2009
$50,000
Oakland, CA
Jnow.org
Project Description
To support the Right to Family Project and the Gender Justice Campaign, which challenge prisons and their destruction of families and communities of color.
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Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights
Spring 2009
$50,000
San Francisco, CA
Lawyerscommittee.org
Project Description
To support the Lawyer Committee for Civil Rights’ racial justice work, with an emphasis on coalitional work to remove structural barriers and promote equal access to educational and employment opportunities and government benefits for persons of color.
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Mobilize the Immigrant Vote California Collaborative
Spring 2009
San Francisco, CA
$40,000
mivcalifornia.org
Project Description
To support a movement-building electoral organizing campaign and strengthen the strategic thinking and infrastructure of MIV for 2010-2012.
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Poverty & Race Research Action Council
Spring 2009
$40,000
Washington, DC
prrac.org
Project Description
For general support to continue research-based advocacy on behalf of low-income children and families of color in highly segregated and poverty concentrated urban areas.
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Right to the City
Spring 2009
$30,000
Brooklyn, NY
Righttothecity.org
Project Description
For general support of efforts to conduct movement building, organizational development, strategic planning, and national policy research and advocacy that elevates locally initiated racial justice and urban rights efforts to the level of regional and national impact.
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Speak Out - Institute for Democratic Education and Culture
Spring 2009
$40,000
Emeryville, CA
Speakoutnow.org
Project Description
For general operating support for educational programs and racial justice curriculum projects. Specifically this grant would also help fund the first year development of Curriculum for Social Change, a new web-based delivery curriculum designed to educate and train the next generation on social activism, racial justice and human rights.
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Wildflowers Institute
Spring 2009
San Francisco, CA
$40,000
Wildflowers.org
Project Description
For general support to continue studying and sharing how communities work. Wildflower Institute believes that the greatest promise for self-sustaining community change comes from strengthening the existing resources within the community and is documenting organic approaches to community building.
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Women of Color Resource Center
Spring 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
Coloredgirls.org
Project Description
For general operating support to continue work within the Economic Justice & Human Rights program and the Peace and Solidarity Program.
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World Trust Educational Services
Spring 2009
$15,000
Oakland, CA
world-trust.org
Project Description
To fund production costs for film release, "Cracking the Codes," part of the Heart-to Heart Conversations program that broadens and deepens a national conversation that includes the complexities of structural racism.
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LONGER DESCRIPTIONS >>>>>>>>>>>>
Black Alliance for Just Immigration
Spring 2009
$30,000
Oakland, CA
blackalliance.org
Project Description
To support organizing and sustaining the national Black Immigration Network, training racial justice organizers in immigration issues, providing technical assistance to organizations that are developing strategies to address immigration issues among African Americans, and sponsoring public forums and conferences on immigration issues.
Approach to Racial Justice
BAJI works to expose the root causes of immigration within a framework that looks at the impact of racism and economic globalization on African Americans and immigrants from the Global South. They are focused on building power in communities of color through education, training and alliance building in order to influence policy.
Movement Building
Key goals are to organize and consolidate a national Black Immigration Network and to develop and implement national and regional campaigns involving BIN members. BAJI is also working to build strategic relationships with and between national immigrant rights groups, national and local racial justice organizations, and national and local black civil rights organizations.
Center for Community Change
Spring 2009
$50,000
Washington, DC
Communitychange.org
Project Description
For general support of the Center's activities, particularly their work to involve diverse constituencies in advancing progressive policy change that will benefit low-income communities of color. The Center also works to support and connect local community organizing in African American communities.
Approach to Racial Justice
The Center is currently engaged in a multi-year effort to build a national movement, led by grassroots groups from different racial and ethnic communities, that is based on common values. The Center includes a racial justice analysis into all their programs, uniting diverse and sometimes competitive constituencies. One example is their push for explicit policies within the stimulus package to guarantee a specific percentage of jobs for people of color, low-income people, women and residents of low-income communities.
Movement Building
The Center’s Campaign for Community Values has grown into a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-issue and multi-generational coalition of more than 200 grassroots organizations, primarily representing people of color. These diverse organizations have made a commitment to work together to transform public policies in jobs and the economy, health care, and immigration reform.
Center for Media Justice
Spring 2009
$50,000
Oakland, CA
centerformediajustice.org
Project Description
To increase effective and powerful communications from underrepresented communities and grassroots movements, create a space for thought leadership, and increase the capacity of strategic allies. The Center is working to create a collaborative movement for racial justice and youth rights and transform public debate and media policy in the service of justice.
Approach to Racial Justice
CMJ works to develop media activists from historically marginalized communities. They work to directly link media policy and strategic communications to primary issues such as racial justice, economic and gender equity and youth rights.
Movement Building
The Center for Media Justice is dedicated to building a strong and effective movement for media justice and supporting organizing groups to incorporate media as a tool to reframe our humanity, strengthen social justice campaigns, and increase self-determination in our communities.
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Center for New Community
Spring 2009
$40,000
Chicago, IL
newcomm.org
Project Description
To build local, state, and national leaders along with organizational capacity to counter the racist anti-immigrant movement. Center for New Community will continue to organize and build alliances within the Latino/a, African American, Anglo, and other communities nationwide.
Approach to Racial Justice
The Center trains, supports and develops African American leaders, communities and organizations to carry out community dialogues on the negative impact of anti-immigrant public policy. Their goal is to create a national network of 400 African American leaders to respond to anti-immigrant activity and attitudes through education, organization and communication between African American and immigrant communities.
Movement Building
The Center is working to identify and help partner organizations respond—via direct actions and other public strategies—to dozens of anti-immigrant events across the nation, exposing the racism of these events and concurrently building the racial justice movement.
Center for Third World Organizing
Spring 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
ctwo.org
Project Description
For general support to build a broad movement for racial justice by recruiting and training young people of color throughout the country to be effective social change organizers; strengthen the capacity of grassroots organizations working in low-income communities of color; and engage a broad set of allies in popularizing creative and effective strategies to address key racial justice issues.
Approach to Racial Justice
CTWO promotes and sustains grassroots organizing in communities of color in the United States by providing intensive training and staff development, campaign assistance through intern training and placement, and intensive technical assistance and support for organizational leadership. CTWO develops new vehicles for communities of color to affect positive change by supporting the creation and development of multi-racial, multiethnic organizations and campaigns throughout the United States.
Movement Building
CTWO creates links between various communities of color to address the common problems of poverty and disenfranchisement and to increase the pool of trained organizers of color to work for community and labor organizations engaged in social justice efforts. One example is the Community Action Training Program (CAT). Since 1995, more than 2,000 individuals have participated in this intensive three-day organizing, grassroots fundraising, campaign development and direct action skills training program.
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Critical Resistance
Spring 2009
$50,000
Oakland, CA
criticalresistance.org
Project Description
To continue the local organizing and build the national and regional movement to end the prison industrial complex while simultaneously building positive programs and institutions.
Approach to Racial Justice
Critical Resistance challenges the prison industrial complex (PIC) as the primary manifestation of structural racism and interconnected forms of violence today. The organization connects the dots between strategies to dismantle aspects of the PIC while build new institutions and ways of life that actually support self-determination, collective health, and genuine safety.
Movement Building
Critical Resistance uses its volunteer collective structure as a racial justice movement building tool. Because the PIC is so complex and expansive, supporting a multitude of projects in diverse communities is a powerful way to share tactics and strategies among a broad base of communities.
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Equal Justice Society
Spring 2009
$50,000
San Francisco, CA
equaljusticesociety.org
Project Description
To raise awareness on race in the law and popular discourse and in the face of equal protection laws that fail to incorporate modern day dynamics of discrimination and therefore deprive people and communities of color access to our courts and redress for discrimination.
Approach to Racial Justice
EJS approaches racial justice through legal redress, communications strategies and alliance building. Their communications strategy illuminates race issues in the public forum through the Race, Media & Popular Culture program that embraces both media and arts/culture activities. Their alliance strategy addresses policy-public sector reform activities, namely affirmative action/equal opportunity policy advocacy and electoral organizing.
Movement Building
EJS facilitates a very specific legal movement of legal scholars, litigation directors of national organizations and others to counter laws supporting structural inequities, reclaim the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Justice Department and other agencies responsible for civil rights enforcement, and strengthen alliances. Bi-annual convenings on "Litigation Strategies in the Era of the Roberts Court" will be a key strategy of this movement.
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Generations Ahead
Spring 2009
$20,000
Oakland, CA
generations-ahead.org
Project Description
To increase the participation and leadership of racial justice and social justice advocates in regional and national debates and policy regarding new uses of genetic technologies in order to ensure that communities of color and other historically marginalized groups benefit from them, rather than being harmed or fundamentally disadvantaged by them.
Approach to Racial Justice
Generations Ahead works to advance a collective policy agenda for socially just uses of genetic technologies. The intersection of racial justice, reproductive justice, disability rights and LGBTQ rights is core to Generations Ahead analysis and work.
Movement Building
Generations Ahead is a field -building organization working to increase both the awareness of genetic technologies as a social justice issue and increase effective policy advocacy for responsible uses. They are advancing a social justice understanding and framework for genetic technologies among diverse constituencies while building the capacity of allied organizations to engage with these issues. They are also driving a national cross-movement strategy to expand community representation and public consultations on genetic technologies at a federal level.
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Justice Now
Spring 2009
$50,000
Oakland, CA
Jnow.org
Project Description
To support the Right to Family Project and the Gender Justice Campaign, which challenge prisons and their destruction of families and communities of color. Justice Now will also expand their Gender Justice Platform that seeks to unite the reproductive, gender, anti-violence and racial justice movements in their opposition to the prison complex.
Approach to Racial Justice
Justice Now uses an international human rights framework to discuss the intersections of discrimination such as gender, race, class and sexual orientation that lead to abuses of reproductive justice, as well as the intersections of rights, such as the rights to health, family, information, and freedom from discrimination that are needed to provide full reproductive justice. Justice Now also views prisons as an integral continuation of the United States’ history of systematically controlling and destroying communities of people of color
Movement Building
Expanding this work to a national scale requires the cross-movement Gender Justice platform to draft and distribute a national statement/pledge for partner organizations. Justice Now will also partner with people in prison to distribute and promote human rights reports.
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Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights
Spring 2009
$50,000
San Francisco, CA
Lawyerscommittee.org
Project Description
To support the Lawyer Committee for Civil Rights’ racial justice work, with an emphasis on coalitional work to remove structural barriers and promote equal access to educational and employment opportunities and government benefits for persons of color.
Approach to Racial Justice
LCCR has long used cutting-edge affirmative legal strategies to promote civil rights. LCCR will use this support to forward racial justice through legal redress of racial discrimination in education and housing matters, including the effective re-segregation of some schools in the Bay Area and systematic racial discrimination in housing policies in the Bay Area.
Movement Building
LCCR's strong strategic alliances have placed it at the forefront of the racial justice movement in California. To cite just two examples, LCCR worked with many other partners to oppose the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996 and, with many of these same partners, crafted a winning strategy to defeat Proposition 54 (which would have prohibited the state collecting data on race).
Mobilize the Immigrant Vote California Collaborative
Spring 2009
San Francisco, CA
$50,000
mivcalifornia.org
Project Description
To support a movement-building electoral organizing campaign and strengthen the strategic thinking and infrastructure of MIV for 2010-2012.
Approach to Racial Justice
MIV and its partner organizations used 2008 to advance a racial justice agenda in the arenas of power-building, policy change and cultural transformation. MIV believes that those most impacted by structural racism must be at the center of the strategies and practices to transform our society. Key to this theory are strong organizations led by low-income communities of color.
Movement Building
Partnerships are core to MIV's work. The MIV 2008 Campaign would not have been possible without the 28 core partner organizations and the 133 general campaign partner organizations. MIV also maintained communication with other key groups including the California Immigrant Policy Center, the California Alliance, and the national
We Are America Alliance. MIV’s unique role is to support community-based groups in California in building the progressive voting power of low-income immigrant communities of color and linking these efforts with their ongoing work. The ultimate goal is to strengthen the power of the broader racial, economic and social justice movement.
Poverty & Race Research Action Council
Spring 2009
$40,000
Washington, DC
prrac.org
Project Description
For general support to continue research-based advocacy on behalf of low-income children and families of color. PRRAC focuses on highly segregated and poverty concentrated urban areas predominantly occupied by African American and Latino families, with a significant number of low income Asian and Pacific Islanders in some metropolitan areas. PRRAC's work also informs social scientists, organizers and advocates who work with or on behalf of low-income people of color.
Approach to Racial Justice
PRRAC works to expose and dismantle key mechanisms of structural racism that disadvantage poor people of color. The interaction between government systems and the private market that promote racial segregation and concentrated poverty is of particular concern. PRRAC emphasizes the links between different areas of policy (housing, education, environmental policy, etc) and makes constructive policy proposals in coalition with other national and local organizations.
Movement Building
PRRC itself is a product of the movement, formed by major civil rights, civil liberties, and anti-poverty groups in 1989-90. To this day, strategic alliances are PRRAC's modus operandi as they convene a wide range of advocacy organizations and researchers on federal policy issues. They disseminate their work and the work of their allies on race and poverty issues as they build and participate in coalitions on key advocacy issues. PRRAC also supports public education efforts, including the bimonthly newsletter/journal Poverty & Race, and the award-winning civil rights history curriculum guide, Putting the Movement Back Into Civil Rights Teaching (co-published with Teaching for Change).
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Right to the City
Spring 2009
$30,000
Brooklyn, NY
Righttothecity.org
Project Description
For general support of efforts to conduct movement building, organizational development, strategic planning, and national policy research and advocacy that elevates locally initiated racial justice and urban rights efforts to the level of regional and national impact.
Approach to Racial Justice
Local organizations comprised of low-income people of color are beginning to articulate methods, models, and frameworks toward a new vision of urban development that prioritizes racial and environmental justice, civic participation, economic and human rights, and social and cultural networks as the basis for remaking cities. The Right to the City Alliance was established to align these dispersed and disaggregated local efforts into a multi-regional and national infrastructure that can deepen the local experience and expertise of neighborhood and citywide community organizations and elevate the genius and creativity of local work to the national level.
Movement Building
Right to the City intends to create a "national expression" of the RTTC Alliance through the development of urban rights and justice tribunals in our seven key regions. RTTC will also develop and exchange resources, conduct policy research, formulate demands, and implement national organizing through national Working Groups.
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Speak Out - Institute for Democratic Education and Culture
Spring 2009
$40,000
Emeryville, CA
Speakoutnow.org
Project Description
For general operating support for educational programs and racial justice curriculum projects. Specifically this grant would also help fund the first year development of Curriculum for Social Change, a new web-based delivery curriculum designed to educate and train the next generation on social activism, racial justice and human rights.
Approach to Racial Justice
Speak Out aims to create a racially just society by educating young people about the root causes of racism, racist ideology and practice. As a clearinghouse for progressive arts, education and politics, this is done through a multi-dimensional approach of material production, programs, speakers and films.
Movement Building
One main objective is to create the space to talk about racism and the legacy of structural racism in high schools, colleges and in communities around the country and guide people to become social change activists and build a broader movement.
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Wildflowers Institute
Spring 2009
San Francisco, CA
$40,00
Wildflowers.org
Project Description
For general support to continue studying and sharing how communities work. Wildflower Institute believes that the greatest promise for self-sustaining community change comes from strengthening the existing resources within the community and is documenting organic approaches to community building.
Approach to Racial Justice
Wildflower Institute addresses racial justice grantmaking by helping funders appreciate the importance of a cultural infrastructure in the development of social health, education, housing, and employment in the communities. We assist communities, funders, and organizations dedicated to social development and to fostering a synergy of cultures among heterogeneous groups of people.
Movement Building
The greatest challenge for the movement is not to be divided along different strategies. Mobilization/advocacy and community building must be used together to effectively address structural racism and realize a society where all people have an equitable and promising future.
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Women of Color Resource Center
Spring 2009
$40,000
Oakland, CA
Coloredgirls.org
Project Description
For general operating support to continue work within the Economic Justice & Human Rights program and the Peace and Solidarity Program. Specifically, support will strengthen research, education and advocacy work with the Welfare Rights Education and Advocacy Project (WREAP); sustain and expand the work of the Technological Empowerment and Media Project of Oakland (TEMPO); and embolden the education and leadership development work with Peace GAMES, Community Working Groups and "Do Tell" project.
Approach to Racial Justice
WCRC promotes an approach to women's issues that integrates race, class, sexuality, nationality, citizenship, age, ability and other markers of social inequity. Social justice feminism actively challenges racism, heterosexist bias, and class privilege. WCRC focuses on the gender and race dimensions of war, militarism and empire building. WCRC educates and mobilizes women of color as participants and leaders in the global effort to build a world at peace.
Movement Building
A recent WCRC training illustrated the great potential for movement building Lesbian and women of color veterans who had to confront discrimination, abuse and a deeply oppressive culture of silence around their identity, both during and after service created a community and network amongst two sometimes distinct, sometimes overlapping, groups. The training built the capacity of the peace movement in that it cultivated spokeswomen with a race, orientation and class analysis, to shape public discourse about the impacts of militarism on women's lives.
World Trust Educational Services
Spring 2009
$15,000
Oakland, CA
world-trust.org
Project Description
To fund production costs for film release, "Cracking the Codes," part of the Heart-to Heart Conversations program that broadens and deepens a national conversation that includes the complexities of structural racism.
Approach to Racial Justice
To develop programs, workshops, symposiums that bring people and organizations together who are already engaged or interested in using a structural framework for building a racial justice movement. The purpose of this new film is to educate, broaden and deepen conversations about race in a society that increasingly, though mistakenly, believes that it is post-racial.
Movement Building
World Trust recently held a day long symposium entitled Facing the Mountains: Breakthroughs to Racial Landscapes. We developed this Symposium in conjunction with Speak Out, Institute for a Democratic Education and Culture. The goal was to create a space in which a broad group of social justice organizations and their leaders could teach and learn from one another in a collaborative effort to uncover new ideas.
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"Culture is an indispensable weapon in the freedom struggle."
- Malcolm X