Grantmaking Blog

I'm excited to tell you about a project I've had the privilege of working with for the past several months.

In September 2010, our trustees selected the Idea4Oregon submitted by the Multnomah County-based Coalition of Communities of Color (CCC) to kick off the second $500 million of Meyer Memorial Trust grantmaking. The CCC pointed out that communities of color represent a significant, but often marginalized, source of energy and innovation to build back Oregon’s economy and ensure the on-going vitality of our state. It asked MMT to help communities of color “self-organize, network, develop pathways to greater social inclusion, build culturally-specific social capital and provide leadership within and outside communities of color.”

Since then, CCC co-chairs Nichole Maher (Native American Youth and Family Center) and Lee Po Cha (Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization) and representatives from all six Coalition communities have worked together to develop their idea into a detailed plan of action. Many CCC members have participated in leadership development programs and some operate culturally-specific leadership development programs currently. 

The Coalition is drawing on its collective knowledge and experience in leadership development in order to create and enrich culturally-specific programs that address leadership needs within the African American, Latino, Native American, Asian-Pacific Islander, African Immigrant and Slavic communities. The CCC will also create opportunities to increase networked connections among leaders of color and communities of color.

To assist the CCC, MMT commissioned national and statewide scans of leadership development programs compiled by FSG Social Impact Advisors. FSG identified a variety of foundation-funded programs throughout the US and Oregon. In addition, FSG placed leadership development programs along a continuum from 1) building the pipeline of leaders to 2) linking leaders within and across communities to 3) effecting systems change to dismantle structural racism.  This framework has been particularly helpful to the Coalition’s work.
 
This month, MMT awarded the Coalition $200,000 over two years for program design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.  Based on the final program design, the Coalition will develop a Request For Proposals, with MMT input. We expect to issue the RFP in late summer or early fall.

I will post updates on my blog as the work progresses, including announcing the RFP. Questions about this focused initiative can be posted here, or you can send me an barbara [at] mmt [dot] org (email). If you do not already receive our email alerts, you might want to sign up to receive them in the box on our home page.

Meyer Memorial Trust will be learning a great deal from this project and our partners at CCC. This is important work for Oregon.

Commenting on this Blog entry is closed.