The killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and too many others at the hands of police have motivated activists of all stripes in the United States and abroad to demand justice for Black people. Their calls for justice have blossomed into a movement that demands attention and action to dismantle and reimagine the systems and institutions that uphold racism and injustice in our communities.

The Meyer Memorial Trust board condemns anti-Black racism and prejudice in all forms. We acknowledge the role anti-Blackness has played in Oregon, a state founded on the principle of excluding Black people from stepping inside its borders. We understand that the threads of anti-Blackness codified in Oregon’s original constitution remain woven into the fabric of our society. We know that injustice will persist until Oregonians can entirely disentangle our laws, institutions, policies and beliefs from those historic threads.

Since 2014, Meyer’s mission has been to work with and invest in organizations, communities, ideas and efforts that contribute to a flourishing and equitable Oregon. In our work we have defined equity to mean the existence of conditions where all people can reach their full potential. While all four of our grantmaking portfolios list people of color as priority populations, this moment in history demands that we be explicit about who faces barriers to reaching their full potential. Now is the moment to address the specific experiences of Black Oregonians, to state unequivocally that Black lives matter.

On June 29, we voted to launch a new program at Meyer: Justice Oregon for Black Lives. This is a $25 million five-year commitment to lift up Black Oregonians, leadership and organizations. This initiative harnesses the momentum toward racial justice by deepening investment in Black-led and Black-serving organizations, community well-being and lasting strategic change.

Strategies for Justice Oregon for Black Lives will be developed in collaboration with Black communities, leaders and organizations in Oregon. Meyer will strive to be flexible and responsive to meet the needs of a movement that is unfolding quickly and will continue to evolve. It is our intention that Justice Oregon for Black Lives will seed systems-level change by centering Black Oregonians and supporting work with the potential to improve the lives of all Oregonians. The work of achieving justice requires contribution from all sectors of society. We call on our peers in philanthropy and our partners in business and industry to pull the levers of power within their reach to support this movement. We look forward to working together.

Meyer remains committed to our nonprofit partners across Oregon, whose work we support through our Equitable Education, Healthy Environment, Housing Opportunities and Building Community portfolios. Justice Oregon deepens Meyer’s investment in the state beyond these portfolios.

In just a few weeks, the movement has opened a national dialogue, driven municipal policy changes and removed symbols of racism from sports arenas, consumer products, statehouses, state flags and monument pedestals. These signals of change are the result of decades of advocacy and groundwork laid by Black leaders, communities and organizations. We know there is more to come. We stand with the stalwart champions of justice and with the emerging leaders of the present mobilization. We are in this with you for the long haul.

— Toya Fick, Charles Wilhoite, Janet Hamada, Mitch Hornecker, Alice Cuprill-Comas and Amy Tykeson

A poet raises their fist in solidarity during a protest in Portland in support of justice for Black lives. Photo credit: Fred Joe photo

Three months before the heartbreaking footage of George Floyd’s murder ignited an inspiring wave of protests across the country, I had the privilege of leading a conversation at Meyer Memorial Trust with Alicia Garza, a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. She was clear: If philanthropy wants to see real change, we must be bold in aligning our actions with our values.

“Change is happening with or without you,” she said. “You get to decide if you are agents of that change or passively receiving it.”

I have worked and stayed in philanthropy because I believe that it is possible for philanthropy to show up differently and to push toward the alignment of actions and values that are rooted in racial justice. Now feels like a historic moment when the momentum has built thanks to the work of so many. Change that we’ve been pushing for feels possible.

I’ve been angry with the emergence of every hashtag documenting a life taken and don’t want to be part of talk without action. As we began dreaming about Justice Oregon, centering Black leadership, nonprofits and communities, I felt the first glimmer of hope that pushed through the rage that had been my constant companion for so long. As it started to emerge as a five-year initiative instead of a short-term infusion of dollars, a feeling of possibility replaced despair.

Today we are heeding the call to action with $25 million in new funding to launch Justice Oregon for Black Lives, the largest commitment Meyer has ever made.

The initiative will be a long-term effort, co-created with Black communities to understand how we can show up as the best possible partners in the work to advance racial justice and equity in Oregon. We are beginning by redoubling our commitment to several Black organizations in Portland with whom we are well aligned and have long-standing relationships. We know organizations working on these issues need money right now, and we have awarded five initial Justice Oregon grants, totalling $1 million. We wanted to honor and dignify the work that has been done without needing to work through an onerous process. These organizations are historically under-resourced, and we are awarding general operating grants so that the organizations can decide for themselves the best way to meet this moment’s potential.

We will move another $290,000 to organizations mobilizing in the Metro region to increase public safety and curtail police violence. Some of these organizations are new to Meyer, but their ambitions align with our own, and we want to build lasting relations as we make Oregon a state that not only has anti-racism ideals but lives up to them. There are leaders who have brilliant ideas of how to make the most of this moment to make significant progress on an issue that has long impacted Black people living in Oregon. We wanted to send a strong signal that we support these efforts and want them to have resources and support for their work now.

To make these investments, we tapped our endowment. This is a rare decision. But it is one that meets this moment. It is more important to contribute to the movement than to be afraid or cautious, to hide behind policies and procedures to keep from taking action. We need to take risks to ensure we are able to manifest the potential of this moment. We are moving resources out of the protection of the endowment to invest in the leadership that will allow us to build a more just future. This decision gives us latitude to invest in emerging leadership and space to build new relationships. A soon-to-be-hired program director will oversee this additional line of work, which will be done in close collaboration with Black communities in Oregon. Our hopes are that we can build new relationships with individuals and organizations, think creatively and holistically about how to be in partnership, and be transformational and impactful with our grants.

This decision is only made possible because of the relationships we have with Black communities, individuals and institutions, which offer us wisdom and direction. We also can tap the lessons learned from our work on equity that the foundation committed to in 2016. And, last, we are guided by Black feminist leadership that believes agitation builds momentum.

We know trust is one of the greatest resources to offer other leaders doing the hard work to achieve justice.

We need to move at the speed of trust and balance the desire to respond to the urgency of the moment with the intentionality of setting a strong foundation for the work ahead. We are excited to share the first round of grantmaking and ask for your guidance and support as we co-create what comes next.

We expect that centering Blackness will enhance the importance of all the other aspects of our equity work. As the pandemic has shown so clearly, Black, Indigenous and People of Color communities are disproportionately impacted when crisis hits, and our commitment to Black communities signals a strengthening of our commitment to all communities of color in Oregon. We stand with our Native, Latinx and Asian-American communities, believing that we can manifest meaningful change for Oregon to create a sense of belonging for all who call it home. This is especially powerful because this state originally was created to exclude so many of us. We believe that by centering those most impacted, we will build a stronger system that works for all.

All lives cannot matter if Black lives do not matter. This is the moment for us to center and focus and be active in the creation of a shared liberation.

In solidarity,

— Kaberi

Photo caption: Two siblings—one holding a sparkler and the other a sign that reads “Black Lives Matter”—stand in solidarity at a violin vigil in Portland for Elijah McClain. Photo credit: Fred Joe Photo

George Floyd begged the police for more than 8 minutes not to take his life.

Nearly two months have passed since his videotaped slaying, and hundreds of thousands of people continue to take to the streets to protest brutal policing practices against Black Americans, condemn racism, demand accountability and affirm that Black lives do in fact matter.

Diverse and overwhelmingly peaceful, the protests have had swift, wide-ranging impacts. Here in Oregon, tens of thousands from across the state have shown up amid the coronavirus pandemic to add their voices to the calls for justice. In Portland, Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero ordered “school resource officers” removed from the city’s schools, the Portland City Council approved $15 million in cuts from the Portland Police Bureau budget amidst policy calls to support broader public safety and community well-being, and new, reform-minded district attorneys have pledged to change prosecutorial practices in various jurisdictions including Multnomah County.

I’ll be plain: These local victories are the product of long-standing leadership, activism and direct action by Black leaders, steadfast allies and, especially, Black-led and Black-serving social change organizations, from established mainstays like the Urban League of Portland to grassroots efforts. Six weeks into the protests, the country is in a moment of unprecedented reckoning as systemic and institutional anti-Black racism are laid bare and growing crowds demand real change. In Oregon, we are faced with an urgent opportunity to transform and build anew. Radical change may be more possible today than ever before.

Meyer Memorial Trust, an institution with equity at the heart of our work, will meet the moment by supporting Black resilience in Oregon.

This month, our board of trustees approved the creation of a five-year, $25 million initiative to make strategic investments in Black lives. “Justice Oregon for Black Lives” is the largest initiative in our 38-year history. Its scale recognizes that racial injustice was built into the framework of a state founded on stolen lands and explicit in its exclusion of Black people. Justice is not simply an ideal; it is something Oregonians should expect to see in our everyday lives. This dedicated funding will deepen support for Black-centered organizations, uplift a just system of community well-being and invest in long-term lasting strategic change. By supporting Black-led and Black-serving organizations that intersect with other communities of color, we know that conditions will improve for all Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) in Oregon, and in turn, for all Oregonians.

In an indication of how vitally important this work is to Meyer, we are tapping into our endowment to fund this initiative beyond our usual annual grantmaking.

For six years, Meyer has built towards this moment. We’ve shared our equity journey, which has reshaped our grantmaking, our hiring practices and how we use our privilege, voice and power. Never has it been more clear that the core concepts of diversity, equity and inclusion point to racial justice, to an Oregon that lives up to the ideals it promised to some and withheld from others.

We start now and will build to make our mark. Initial general operating grants totaling $1 million go out this week to five organizations Meyer already has relationships with that are doing transformative work in Black communities. Another $290,000 supports organizations focused on a wide range of issue areas: decarceration and decriminalization, abolishment of the prison-industrial complex, hate tracking and advocacy, redefining public safety beyond policing and cross-cultural approaches to racial justice. We plan to hire a program director* with lived experience to lead the Justice Oregon for Black Lives initiative, deepening our relationships with Black-led organizations and starting new partnerships.

Philanthropic support of Black-led organizations historically falls short and with this infusion Meyer aims to reverse that trend and make this a mainstay of how we invest in Oregon’s future from now on. Oregon’s flawed founding does not predict its future. The times call on us to eradicate racism and right wrongs. We are proud to back leaders who are not only ready but determined to succeed.

— Michelle J. DePass

 

*Meyer launched a search for the Director of Oregon Justice for Black Lives on Sept. 14. Learn more here.

A mural in NE Portland honoring Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. | Artist: Christian Grijalva | Photo credit: Tojo Andrianarivo