4shared

Programs Section

Strategic Plan 2015 through 2019

In 2009, the Edward W. Hazen Foundation adopted a new mission statement making structural racism the central framework and focus of our work and identified the following goals to guide the Foundation through 2014.

  • To legitimize racial justice as a framework for analysis and action for education reform and youth development policy and practice
  • To continue to achieve policy victories in the two program areas (public education and youth development)
  • To contribute to the continued development of youth organizing and organizing for education reform as coherent fields with national reach
  • To preserve and rebuild the financial assets of the Foundation

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Hazen’s grant programs during this period have supported community organizations engaged in organizing for education justice and youth organizing on a range of issues, including education, immigration, juvenile justice, and LGBTQ rights. In addition to direct financial support, Hazen has created a capacity building initiative to increase the effectiveness of grantees’ racial justice analysis, internal training, and organizing campaigns. The Foundation also actively and intentionally engages with peer foundations and the broader philanthropic sector to increase support for the fields of education and youth organizing and for grantmaking that explicitly addresses race.

The Foundation is focused on collective action because the change desired is structural, not solely individual, although individuals involved in the work often undergo personal transformations as they experience agency and dispel the sense of alienation and powerlessness often associated with life in politically and economically weak communities. Patient, sustained support for the long, hard work of building a constituency that has been able to analyze their lived experiences and develop the social cohesion and legitimacy to wield power effectively has led to the creation of policy solutions such as an opportunity for undocumented students to access postsecondary education and achieve citizenship, or the DREAM Act; protections for LGBTQ youth of color in police proceedings including street stops and end “Stop and Frisk” policies; a statewide program to develop teachers for hard to staff schools from among community residents; and federal, state and local policies to end the disparate imposition of punitive school discipline practices that drive young people of color out of school.

Understanding that all people have multiple aspects of their identities, both as they assert themselves in the world and as perceptions of them affect responses by others and policies that impact them, the Foundation believes that it is critical to consider the intersections of race, gender and gender identity, age, and other factors in analyzing conditions and seeking change. Economics, a factor that also intersects with race, contributes to privilege or disadvantage, and so the Foundation supports organizations that seek to develop solutions that target the particular conditions confronting poor people of color, without expecting economic conditions to be a proxy for race. While economic conditions track closely to race, unless the racially inequitable underpinnings of our system of laws, policies, and practices are explicitly considered, no strategy will break the cycle of poverty.

Therefore, the Foundation assists grantees and the fields of youth organizing and organizing for educational justice in increasing their ability to analyze conditions and policies and develop campaigns and strategies that address root causes of structural racism and, as appropriate, account for the distinct impacts of gender and gender identity, disability, immigration status, economic class, and other factors.

It has also become clear that changing public policies will not in and of itself create the shift in conditions affecting young people of color and their communities. Systems and structures that block opportunity and uphold inequity for whole subgroups of people both shape and reify cultural norms rooted in racial bias. For example, Hazen grantees and others involved in immigration reform and justice for undocumented residents have successfully shifted the perception of undocumented students (Dreamers) from a drain on society to societal assets for whom public policy is a barrier to their achieving their aspirations and contributions to society. In New York Hazen grantees involved in pushing back on “Stop and Frisk” procedures have exposed the fallacy that unprovoked stops routinely result in disarming young men with guns, but rather rarely contribute the goals of safety and undermine respect and justice. Further work is necessary in order to aggregate such victories into a new set of societal norms that drive policy and behavior and to build the communications capacity to articulate and disseminate them.

 

During 2014, Foundation staff and consultants completed a review of the progress towards Hazen’s strategic goals. Their key findings include:

  • Grantees strengthened their analyses of and communications about racial justice issues, giving greater legitimacy to racial justice as a framework for analysis and action for organizing
    • Hazen’s capacity building initiative contributed to this improvement
  • Hazen’s impact extends beyond grantmaking – both for grantees and within the larger sector of philanthropy
    • Foundation staff played an active and influential role in legitimizing racial justice as a framework for grantees and philanthropic partners
    • The foundation also played a role in marshaling and expanding support inside and outside of philanthropy for youth organizing and education reform
    • Interviewees noted that Hazen has much to contribute to a broader public discourse on racial equity; some encouraged development of its communications capacity
  • Hazen grantees and informants agreed on a crucial opportunity over the coming years: linking economic inequity with racial justice issues to build a larger social justice movement
    • At the same time, respondents also identified the challenge of implementing policy wins that aim at greater racial and economic justice in ways that actually achieve the goals.

Further, the Foundation looked to data emerging from a review of six years of grantmaking and capacity supports provided through the national funding collaborative, Communities for Public Education Reform, and a scan of youth organizing completed by the Funders Collaborative on Youth Organizing, concluding that:

  • There exist today broader and deeper collaborations and networks among both education organizing and youth organizing groups than 4-6 years prior
  • Organizations have made advances in their use of communications, messaging, and social media
  • Organizations are undertaking increasingly sophisticated electoral work (GOTV, voter registration, voter education, et al.)
  • Many have achieved substantive victories and thereby greater credibility and legitimacy with policy makers, elected officials, and legislative bodies

However,

  • These organizations are reliant predominantly on foundations for funding in an environment in which support for organizing in general has shrunk over the past 5 years
  • Maintaining regional and national networks while also focusing on strong local organizing has created a strain on individual organizations and the field in general

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2015 THROUGH 2019

For the coming five year period, Hazen has reaffirmed its commitment to the mission and focus on support for grassroots organizations that develop the capacity of adults and young people to generate sophisticated analyses of their experiences living in a society shaped by structural oppressions and to identify issues central to that oppression, build power, and strive to change them. Looking to incorporate what we have learned over the past four years and to respond to the evolving work in the field, the Foundation has established the following goals for 2015 through 2019.

  • Provide support for grassroots organizations to deepen their intersectional analysis of structural racism as a foundation for action grounded in organizing for social justice.
  • To contribute to transformational change in policies, systems, and cultural norms through support for youth organizing and organizing for educational justice.
  • Contribute to the development of powerful youth organizing and organizing for educational justice.
  • Raise the visibility of youth organizing and organizing for educational justice among our peers in philanthropy, in the public consciousness, and on the national agenda
  • To continue the annual growth of the Foundation’s assets and, as a result, the resources available to increase and further, to make up to 5% or a maximum of $1 million of the corpus available for impact investments.

Knowing that social change requires a powerful constituency committed to advocating for justice, Hazen will continue to focus grant resources predominantly on grassroots organizations and activities that directly support their efforts. The Foundation will make 1, 2, and 3 year grants to organizations that are engaged in organizing for education justice and youth organizing, specifically those with a structural approach to dismantling racialized policies and advocating for just solutions to inequity. The grantees will be selected from among the Foundation’s current group of core grantees, but not exclusively so, nor will all current grantees continue to receive support. While there was great benefit to the previous strategy of sustained funding over four years, the decision limited greatly the number of organizations receiving grants and provided no point of entry for new work. By staggering the grant periods, the Foundation hopes to be able to provide funds to a broader range of organizations over the five years.

The Opportunity Fund will make some resources available for additional activities such as convening, alliances, research, and communications. We anticipate some growth in budget over this period and so the Foundation’s ability to provide this support will increase as they become available.

Hazen will continue to screen all its investments for social, environmental, and governance standards. However, in an effort to ensure that all of its assets are used to their greatest advantage in pursuit of the mission, the Foundation will commit up to $1 million or a maximum of 5% of the corpus to impact investments that directly address the challenges affecting youth and communities of color, specifically investments that:

  • Directly contribute to the financial and organizational sustainability of grantee organizations and/or other organizations not receiving grants but meeting Hazen’s criteria for support
  • Have the potential for impact on the communities in which our grantees and their constituencies reside, go to school, and live, or in communities with similar demographics
  • Contribute to the economic empowerment of communities of color
  • Contribute to providing products or services that have a positive impact on communities of color
  • Contribute to improving educational outcomes for young people of color
  • Have the potential to drive structural change that will increase racial equity and justice.

Finally, Hazen has long embraced its role as an advocate for the work of our grantees but also the larger fields of organizing for education justice, youth organizing, and racial justice. The review of the past four years also made clear that the Foundation’s efforts have contributed to the development of these fields, increasing support from the philanthropic sector and policy makers, and expansion of activity on the ground, but that there is room for growth of Hazen’s communications capacities in service of the mission. Therefore, as resources are available, the Foundation will seek opportunities to bring forward its experience as a funder of organizing for racial justice and that of the grantee community.