From the Community Foundation for Mississippi

Jackson has experienced increased rain and subsequent flooding of the Pearl River, impacting the city. This flooding has exacerbated the city's water issues, causing failures at the O.B. Curtis Water Treatment Plant. The City of Jackson and State of Mississippi, through the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency and Mississippi Department of Health, are working together under several states of emergency to address issues.

Click the link below to learn more and stay up-to-date on the water crisis and where to help support Jacksonians during this time.

This year's Annual Meeting will feature the presentation of the Truist Promise Award recognizing innovative philanthropy in the region. First presented in 2020, this honor has recognized groundbreaking work that has exemplified courageous leadership while transforming communities and improving lives.

Nominations for this year's Truist Promise Award are now open. The award recognizes a particular initiative and/or innovative grantmaking strategy or approach, done by an individual organization or through a collective partnership -- as such, it may be presented to more than one foundation if the initiative is a product of partnership and collaboration. More than one initiative may be recognized in a single year.

The Truist Promise Award recognizes work that focuses on significant and systemic issues facing the region and the country today. In addition, nominees must meet the following criteria:

• Work focused on issues of racial equity, racial justice or anti-racism.
• The innovative use of multiple forms of philanthropic capital, particularly beyond financial capital.
• Use of data and research in determining strategies and tactics.
• Cooperation with community partners, particularly in other sectors, or direct engagement with community members.
• Impact/outcomes that are evidence-based.

You may nominate any Philanthropy Southeast member organization, including your own, for the Promise Award. The recipient will be selected by a group of Philanthropy Southeast staff and Board members and will be recognized at the Chair's Dinner of the 2022 Annual Meeting.

Nominations are due Friday, September 30. Click below to submit your nominee!

From the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation

The Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation announced it will invest an additional $10 million from the Ford Foundation to support organizing and advocacy in the American South. Over the next five years, Ford's investment will augment the Babcock Foundation's ongoing primary grantmaking strategy, which is to help strengthen the growing organizations and networks working together to advance racial equity.

The Babcock Foundation sees how sustained investment in grassroots organizations and networks strengthens Southerners' lives in significant ways. In most of these states, there are growing networks of grassroots organizations with state-level alignment that are advancing voting rights and access to the ballot box, making constituents' voices are heard on the issues important to them. These organizations are engaged in census outreach and redistricting processes to ensure fair maps, adequate federal funding and accurate representation in state legislatures and Congress. Across the region, these groups also leapt into action when COVID-19 hit, creating mutual aid funds for people who were not eligible for federal assistance.

The unique collaboration between the Babcock and Ford Foundations highlights how trusting relationships yield lasting social benefits. The two foundations have worked together previously to target millions of dollars to areas that have suffered from a dearth of public and philanthropic investment. When the Babcock Foundation shared its revised strategic directions, with deepened commitments to power building and racial equity, Ford saw an opportunity to invest in the success of a shared vision for the region.

"The Babcock Foundation envisions a South where everyone can influence the decisions that affect quality of life, with responsive and representative leadership, people-centered policies, and abundant economic opportunities," said MRBF Chief Strategy Officer Elena Conley. "Ford's investment in the power building infrastructure will galvanize the work it will take to realize this vision."

"There is an urgent need to support the communities and people long excluded from the decisions affecting their lives, particularly in the American South," said Sarita Gupta, vice president of US programs for the Ford Foundation. "We are thrilled to partner with the Babcock Foundation to bolster the innovative advocacy that has always existed in the South and cannot wait to see what these organizations accomplish in the months and years to come."

Read more...

From Reporter Newspapers & Atlanta Intown

The stories of the more than 1 million Latinos living in Georgia are complex and too important to simply be used to check a box. Instead, their stories of vibrancy and success despite significant struggles can be used to shape Georgia's future.

That's a message Gigi Pedraza, executive director and founder of Latino Community Fund Georgia, is hoping to amplify as part of the organization's nonpartisan get out the vote campaign. The nonprofit membership organization works to support Latino and immigrant communities, whose votes could play a pivotal role in November's midterm elections.

"If narratives drive culture, and culture drives policy, this is the way we think we can create a Georgia that feels like home for all," she said.

This vision of Latinos stepping into the spotlight to tell their stories is central to LCF-Georgia's "Estamos Aquì­" campaign that recently kicked off with a screening of its "visual centerpiece," a video starring local rapper Victor Mariachi and directed by Samantha Ramirez-Herrera, founder of Atlanta-based creative agency OffThaRecord.

LCF-Georgia is also hosting the "Estamos Aquì" -- "We are here" -- festival on Saturday, Sept. 10, from 3 to 8 p.m. at Historic Fourth Ward Park Amphitheater. Mariachi will perform the song live as part of a lineup of Latino artists. Latino food and businesses will be highlighted. Voter registration booths will also be set up. And stories will be shared.

"I came to Atlanta 11 years ago with a dream as an undocumented immigrant Latina, not really knowing what my life was going to turn into," Ramirez-Herrera said during a panel discussion following the Aug. 18 "Estamos Aquì" video screening at Resonant Studios in south Atlanta.

"And one thing I noticed was that stories are what change the world," she said.

Read more...

From the Floyd County Chronicle

Nearly one month has passed since the deadly flood of annihilated parts of Eastern Kentucky leaving a large population in Appalachia still searching for much needed help.

Charity organizations such as the Hazard-based Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky sprang into action after assessing damages the flooding left behind.

Officials said foundation put nearly $509,000 in the form of cashier's checks directly into the hands of individuals and families that have been impacted by the flooding that swept across 12 FEMA declared counties. Those counties are Breathitt, Clay, Floyd, Knott, Leslie, Letcher, Magoffin, Martin, Perry, Pike, Owsley and Whitley.

On Aug. 24, a third round of checks were distributed at Jackson, at Jenny Wiley State Park, at the Knott County Sportsplex, at Whitesburg's CANE Kitchen, and at the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky offices in Hazard to flood victims who had not yet received aid from the foundation.

Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky Community Engagement Officer Kathy King Allen distributed checks to the Floyd/Pike flood victims at the Jenny Wiley State Park at May Lodge on Aug. 24.

King said the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky was on-site to distribute individual grant checks in the amount of $250 per household and an extra $50 per child in the household.

"We hope that these funds will help families with immediate needs after the devastating floods," Allen said. "If someone filled out an application and could not make it here today to pick up their checks, we will put it in the mail to them."

Funding for the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky, which has affiliates in several counties including Pike and Floyd, is dependent on corporations and personal donations, said King.

Read more...

From the Southern Poverty Law Center

hirty-nine voter outreach organizations across the Deep South will receive more than $4.6 million in funding as part of a new round of Vote Your Voice grants announced today by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta.

The grants will support voter education, registration and mobilization, especially among communities of color. The grants add to an earlier investment of more than $11 million in two-year grants awarded last year.

Included in this round of grants are Alabama Forward, Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAJC)-Atlanta, Engage Miami Civic Foundation (Engage Miami), the Power Coalition and Southern Echo.

"With the recent wave of unprecedented attacks on civil rights and liberties that disproportionately target communities of color, women and people with disabilities, it is more important than ever to defend our right to vote and make our voices heard," said Lecia Brooks, SPLC chief of staff and culture. "These grants will empower communities to get out to the polls, exercise their freedom to vote, and stand up for their right to an equal voice in government."

Vote Your Voice is a partnership between the SPLC and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta to increase voter registration, participation and civic engagement among communities of color in the Deep South. The initiative also is strengthening the field capacity of grassroots organizations through data and fundraising support and the testing of effective voter engagement strategies.

The SPLC has pledged $100 million to support Vote Your Voice through 2032.

"The bottom line is that everyone deserves a fair shot at a decent life," said Frank Fernandez, president and CEO of the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta. "If you are with the Community Foundation in that basic tenet, then you join the Foundation in teaching our children and all our neighbors that the right to vote is the cornerstone of democracy. It is by educating each other on the tenets of democracy, engaging in civic discourse and ultimately electing officials to represent and advocate for the things that we deem most important that citizens catalyze progress and change in our communities."

Read more...

From QCityMetro

The Gambrell Foundation announced Tuesday that it will give $1.8 million in support of Johnson C. Smith University.

The donation was made via the Mayor's Racial Equity Initiative and pushed the school past an $80 million fundraising goal set by the initiative.

Calling JCSU "a gem in the Queen City Crown," Gambrell Foundation President Sally Gambrell said the donation was long overdue.

"This is just the beginning of a relationship on my watch with Johnson C. Smith going forward," she said.

Why it matters: Since the killing of George Floyd in 2020 by Minneapolis police officers, U.S. corporations and wealthy donors have given generously in support of some historically Black colleges and universities.

In December 2020, MacKenzie Scott, one of the world's richest women, announced that she would give $45 million to North Carolina A&T State University, part of an $800 million gift to colleges and universities. She pledged more than $500 million of that total to HBCUs.

Less than a month later, Corning Inc. announced a $5.5 million gift to N.C. A&T.

Gambrell's mother, the late Sarah Belk Gambrell, supported JCSU with more than $115,000 in donations in the 1990s, and the university's auditorium in historic Biddle Hall is named in her honor, according to a JCSU web page.

A plan to address disparities

The Mayor's Racial Equity Initiative, announced on the JCSU campus in November 2021, was created with a goal of raising $250 million to address some Charlotte's social and economic disparities. Since then, the fund has raised $226 million, or 90 percent of its goal, according to Michael Marsicano, president and CEO of Foundation for the Carolinas, which oversees the fund.

Read more...

View data going back to 2014 today by
visiting the Southern Trends Report online!

If you have events or stories that you would like included in next week's newsletter - please send us an email or call the Philanthropy Southeast office at (404) 524-0911.

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