Grantee StoriesNovember 8, 2016

Sleek, remodeled Earl Boyles Elementary — full of natural light, bright yellow walls, state-of-the-art courtyard play structures and technology-rich classrooms — stands at the corner of Southeast 112th  Avenue and Bush Street, in one of the poorest and most diverse sections of Portland.

Five years ago, median household income was $29,457 in the Earl Boyles enrollment zone, just 60 percent of the county median income of $49,049. More than a quarter of families primarily spoke a non-English language at home, and 24 percent of adults had not completed high school.

So, how did one of Oregon’s most-challenged elementary schools become a beacon of transformation?

The school’s statewide test ranking has skyrocketed from 8.3 percent in 2009 to 48.2 percent today. Attendance rates hover just below 100 percent. Students pour outside at the end of the school day, giggling excitedly to see Principal Ericka Guynes, Oregon’s 2013 Elementary Principal of the Year.

Wrap-around services and early learning opportunities for Earl Boyles students and their families stand as national models. So does its English-language learners programming and a slate of pre-K programming that helps families of young children connect with literacy and financial education classes, parenting tools and social services.

School district leaders, staff, volunteers, county programs and nonprofits connected with parents early and are sticking with them for the long haul. That recipe of partnership, especially programming designed around a community vision, is the secret of Earl Boyles’ success, and it offers hope for schools across the country.

As one Earl Boyles parent put it: “I never thought my children would have access to an education like this.”

Many people saw potential in Earl Boyles Elementary, including Swati Adarkar, president and co-founder of Portland’s Children’s Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for young children in Oregon. Adarkar has built a national reputation as a champion for early child care and education between birth and age 8. To Adarkar, the focus has real urgency because research shows that when kids — especially children from low-income families — don’t read at grade level by the third grade, their chances of graduating from high school plummet.

In 2008, only 65 percent of Oregon’s third-graders were reading at grade level, with much lower rates in poorer areas. And high school graduation rates place Oregon third from the bottom in national rankings.

Adarkar has spent the past few decades crisscrossing the country in search of successful early-engagement models that might work in Oregon.

It was on one trip to Chicago that she found true inspiration. There she met the leaders of Educare, which used funds from the Ounce of Prevention Fund to create a state-of-the-art school on Chicago’s South Side for low-income infants, toddlers, preschoolers and their families. Educare’s programs focus on literacy, language, early math and social-emotional skills, and staffers join with parents to help them become champions for their children’s education and achieve their education goals.

Adarkar called up then-David Douglas School District superintendent Don Grotting, a future Oregon superintendent of the year and student of early-intervention research. The superintendent immediately tapped Principal Guynes, who was making a name for herself as a then-new principal by translating forms into Spanish (a dominant language at Earl Boyles) and arranging caregiver get-togethers that transformed the school’s booster “club” of just one person into a thriving group.

They reached out to Portland State University’s Center for the Improvement of Child and Family Services to help design a program with the help of Earl Boyles’ families. They partnered with Mt. Hood Community College Head Start on how best to utilize their services. And they coordinated the onsite services of the Multnomah Early Childhood Program and the pre-existing Schools Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) program at Earl Boyles by planning for more services and parent engagement.

Together, the team raised money, studied and planned for two years before hatching Early Works, a 10-year initiative at Earl Boyles with a focus on children ages 3-5. In 2012, the team took a big step forward by hiring a former migrant education recruiter, Andreina Velasco, as their first Early Works Parent & Community Engagement Coordinator based at Earl Boyles. A bilingual native of Venezuela, Reed College alum and young mother, Velasco had learned the hard way as a Portland Public Schools teacher that children often aren’t socially and emotionally prepared for school. For Velasco, Portland’s K-12 system wasn’t set up to help every child succeed. Early Works was a personal, direct approach to address the gap.

Velasco partnered with the SUN program and Portland State University to find names, phone numbers and addresses of families who might one day send students to Earl Boyles. She talked to children at the school about young siblings still at home. She went door to door, visiting their families so they knew her. Her work was especially important when the Early Works team embraced a bigger, tougher ambition: reaching families of newborns and toddlers. New brain and social science research showed that the earlier educators reached children and parents, the sooner children would be ready to learn — even before they were born. Soon, Early Works enrollment began to double, then triple, as engagement with families became deeper and more committed.

An onsite staffer, known as a Family Resource Navigator, began connecting families to various services, including Portland’s housing agency, Home Forward. Padres Unidos, which translates into Parents United, the school’s parent leadership group, is fully facilitated, managed and promoted by parent leaders. The group reviews Early Works evaluation data, and numerous caregivers have overcome English-language challenges to advocate for early learning by giving speeches and providing testimony across the state.

A $7 million voter-approved construction bond gave Early Works and Principal Guynes what they truly needed: More space for preschool and kindergarten classrooms and services at Earl Boyles. It also gave parents something they never expected: a beautiful place to connect in their own backyard.

The bond paid for half the expansion, while Multnomah County foundations, including Meyer Memorial Trust, and individuals provided the rest. Today, the Richard C. Alexander Early Learning Wing at Earl Boyles serves 90 3- and 4-year-olds in the Earl Boyles catchment area.

Connected to the Early Learning Wing is the Earl Boyles Neighborhood Center, which includes a lending library, family food pantry, meeting rooms for partner agencies and families, an infant-toddler room, and an adult learning classroom that provides parent education.

The school campus buzzes day and night.

I’ve been thinking a lot about leaders lately. Not just because of what’s happening on the national stage but because Meyer has released new funding opportunities, two Requests for Proposals, focused on leadership development and capacity builders aligned with our equity goals.

What makes a leader? Personality? Technical skills? Others who are willing to follow? I suspect that many people who are considered leaders feel like “accidental” leaders. That’s particularly true for leaders from communities that are underrepresented in positions of leadership (think of CEOs, elected officials or executive directors).

So what can Meyer do to facilitate the development of leaders? Companies and nonprofit organizations have been working on this for a long time. Funders like the Evelyn & Walter Haas Jr. Fund, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Ford Family Foundation have already partnered with many organizations over the years to support leaders. So has Meyer. There are many good programs and many good answers to “What makes a leader?” Now, as Meyer integrates equity throughout our work, we have the opportunity to consider what is needed to create a unique sort of leadership, one with equity in mind.

I’ve talked with many traditional and nontraditional leaders, reviewed the literature, including an important read, Leadership for Large Scale Change, and considered my own experience. Here’s what I’ve found:

• Accessing leadership development support focused on “hard” or technical skills, such as financial management or fund development, is generally easier to find than programs that teach the “soft skills” like relationship building, personal development and trust building.
• Leaders of color and rural leaders place a higher priority than other leaders on interpersonal communication, conflict management, self-identity and giving and receiving feedback.
• There is a desire to move away from programs that focus on individual leaders and to develop or use nontraditional definitions of leadership, including leaders who may not be in high-level positions but have lived the community experience and are trusted by the community.  
• The pathway to leadership for leaders of color and people with disabilities is not smoothly paved and, in some cases, not even accessible.
• Many leaders are eager for developmental relationship support, such as peer circles, mentorship and informal networking opportunities.
• Organizations, particularly those that are small and not as well-funded, need more capacity to allow time and space for leaders to build their skills. This capacity could come in the form of additional staffing or operating support for core operations while leaders are accessing capacity building or leadership support.
• To address complex social issues, and particularly to address inequities, there is a need for more collective community, cross-sector and networked approaches.
• Networked and community-level leadership require nuanced and longer-term evaluative approaches, and results are harder to measure but may have more large-scale impact.

Meyer, through our Building Community portfolio, is excited to partner with leadership development programs in Oregon in the next year by providing grants for programming and for participation in peer learning.

We don’t have all the answers, and in true shared leadership fashion, we seek to learn from and alongside our grantees and partners. Our goal is to meet programs where they are and work together to fashion a future program that leverages all the wisdom of leaders leading leaders.

Say that three times fast!

For more information about our just released Requests for Proposals, please contact questions [at] mmt.org (questions[at]mmt[dot]org).

— Carol

Meyer's goal is to meet programs where they are and work together to fashion a future program that leverages all the wisdom of leaders leading leaders.

Collecting and sharing demographic data has emerged as a top priority in philanthropy, especially since national research found that both foundation demographics (CEO, staff and trustees) and the level of foundation funding directly serving people of color are significantly less than the percent of the population they represent.

In Oregon, a study by the Foundation Center found that less than 10 percent of foundation funding in Oregon was explicitly targeted to reach ethnic or racial minority communities, while people of color represent approximately 20 percent of the state’s population.

Another shortcoming revealed by this research is that data collected by foundations is inadequate and unreliable when it comes to identifying specifically which populations benefit from organizations, programs and projects they fund because most foundations don’t collect that information from grant applicants or grantees. Until recently, we couldn't tell with certainty because we didn't ask. We began collecting demographic data in a systematic and formal way in 2013.

To understand whether Meyer is making progress in pursuit of our mission to help achieve a flourishing and equitable Oregon “where all current and future residents have fair access to opportunities to learn, work, prosper, and participate in a vibrant cultural and civic life,” we became diligent and intentional about measuring the impact of our grant funds. We are collecting data about whether and how much our funding supports the diverse populations that make up our state.

Our staff has been working diligently to determine what and how we should approach this endeavor, first by studying what other foundations do. We discovered there is a wide array in the content of data collected – some use highly customized categories, some with race and ethnicity combined and others separated, and some with very minimalist categories, which we recognized would not acknowledge the breadth of community members in our region.

In 2013, we asked Education Northwest to conduct a survey and convene focus groups among recent Meyer applicant organizations and grantees to better understand what demographic data they already collect, how that data is used, and ask about the challenges groups face in collecting and using this data.

We are grateful to those who participated in our online survey, which had a remarkable response rate of close to 40%. Not only was the quantity of responses impressive (444 organizations), your narrative comments were very thoughtful and helpful. We also convened several focus groups in person and over the phone, reaching 26 leaders from different types and sizes of nonprofits from all fields, working in different communities across the state. We very much appreciate the feedback, ideas and time so many of you contributed.

What we learned pointed us to our next steps:

• We learned that only about half of respondents collect and use some form of demographic data. Advocacy and human service organizations topped the list of groups that do collect such data. Less than one-third of arts, culture and humanities nonprofits collect some form of demographic data, and environmental groups even less.
• For those organizations that do use demographic data, we learned that they use it to shape programs and services as well as internal operations.
• You encouraged us to recognize the differences and diversity among the nonprofits that we fund, and you shared concerns about applying a one-size-fits-all approach to this effort.
• You indicated a variety of positive opportunities to use demographic data for building organizational capacity and to achieve impact. You noted that it could help with communication and outreach, organizational and programmatic analysis, and internal and external decision-making. You also saw the opportunity to use this data to more effectively address issues related to culture and the growing ethnic and racial diversity in our state.
• One challenge we heard was the lack of organizational capacity to collect and interpret data appropriately and effectively. You also noted that data collection methods, data gaps and the information that can be gleaned have limitations. For certain populations, confidentiality was cited as a significant consideration.
• Some of the richest feedback emerged when we asked for ideas on how we could support grantees’ experiences with demographic data. You saw a potential role for us to assist with developing common data systems and metrics, as well as providing technical assistance and capacity building grants and training to implement plans for collecting/using demographic data to advance your missions, and to coordinate with other funders to the fullest extent possible.
• Finally, you suggested that Meyer might be able to help provide access to reliable and relevant demographic data, educate the field about how to use demographic data, and communicate clearly about how we will use any data that we request from you.
• All this feedback helped inform our approach going forward.

– Karissa

One of the things we’ve learned through research Meyer Memorial Trust has done in the past few years is that many of the people who could most benefit from philanthropic dollars have the least access to them. It remains a source of great frustration: The level of foundation funding directly serving people of color is significantly lower than the percentage of population they represent. So one of the strategies we’re pursuing at Meyer to put our Vision, Mission and Values into practice and promote greater equity in Oregon is to pay closer attention to the demographic profiles of our nonprofit partners and those they serve. We want to know who is being reached and who is not.

Fifty organizations participated in our demographic pilot last autumn. We asked applicants for our Responsive Grants program to supply race and ethnicity data information on the populations the organization served in general and the populations the organization intended to serve through a Meyer-funded project, as well as the organization’s board and staff.

I want to thank them for their honesty.

Collecting demographic data can be logistically, intellectually and emotionally challenging work. Some of the applicants in our pilot remain skeptical that the data is necessary or valuable. Some, who say they do not discriminate based on race or ethnicity, feel being color blind is effort enough. And others are eager to start tracking the data themselves.

In the interest of transparency, we turned the lens on ourselves, too. We posted the results of a race and ethnicity survey our staff and trustees participated in last year on our website before asking our nonprofit partners to provide their own data. We updated the data this month. If you look at the charts, one thing is clear: We are a changing organization. A few people have left, a few people have been hired. But our demographic survey revealed something else, too. Our staffers are on the same journey of self-assessment we are asking our nonprofit partners to take. It is heartfelt. It is personal. It is self-defining. It is anything but black and white.

A year ago, we promised pilot participants we would work hard to figure out the best use for the data. Our program team and other Trust staff continue to explore how to incorporate more robust demographic data into our due diligence work. I especially want to call out Meyer's grants manager, Karissa Lowe, whose painstaking work collecting and compiling the demographic data offered our first real window into who our final beneficiaries really are — and some of the barriers to reaching them. At this stage, we’ve made no firm decisions about how the data Meyer collects in our grant applications will impact the distribution of our grant dollars. But we have decided that knowing more about who our grant dollars reach and how organizational leadership reflects and engages diverse communities are crucial lenses that we will continue to apply to our grantmaking.

We care about how nonprofit boards, staff and others involved in programming include and reflect communities and constituents. And we know that many Oregon nonprofits care about the same things. Going forward, we realize that some organizations will have an easy time tracking the racial and ethnic information of their boards, their staffs, the populations they serve generally and the populations they intend to serve with Meyer funding. For other organizations, the data collection is more challenging. Meyer is committed to meeting organizations and communities where they are.

We understand that while its population demographics are in flux, Oregon is not one of the more diverse states in the nation. Many areas in the state have scant representation of communities of color. We’re not asking organizations to serve people who aren’t there. But we are asking our nonprofit partners, who share our interest in reaching the many and diverse populations that make up Oregon, to be thoughtful about two things: ensuring that community members who could benefit from their programs and services have equitable access to them and reflecting Oregon’s ethnic and racial communities in the makeup of their organizations.

— Doug

I keep pondering the grand jury’s decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for fatally shooting 18-year-old Michael Brown last August in Ferguson, Missouri.

The teen’s family continues to mourn. Seventeen hundred miles away, I share their confusion and anger. Protests, which quickly broadened beyond an isolated police shooting to shine light on inequities endured by African Americans in suburban St. Louis and across the country, are spreading. Communities are divided, both here in Oregon and on social media, by a gulf of misunderstanding between those who see what happened to Brown in the continuum of race in this divided country and those who identify instead with the plight of the white police officer.

Since Michael Brown’s death, there have been repeated reminders that white privilege does not exist in a vacuum: New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s excellent series addresses head on the lingering barriers blacks face in America. "One element of white privilege today," Kristof wrote on a recent Sunday, "is obliviousness to privilege, including a blithe disregard of the way past subjugation shapes present disadvantage." NYT columnist Charles M. Blow wrote eloquently of the inherent advantages in America, “the false dichotomy that chokes to death any real accountability and honesty. Systemic anti-black bias doesn’t dictate personal behavior, but it can certainly influence and inform it. And personal behavior can reinforce people’s belief that their biases are justified. So goes the cycle.”

Last night, as protests turned violent in Missouri and police in riot gear responded with tear gas, Rev. Chuck Currie tweeted about what we can do close to home to own our history and begin righting inequities. “There is an ongoing need for Oregonians to address racism just as much as there is a need for those in Missouri to address racism. #Ferguson.”

Throughout a sleepless night, my friend Andrew Mason, executive director of Open Meadow, an alternative school in Portland, was doing just that. He shared his musings with me. As I was struggling to put my thoughts in writing, Andrew’s comments reflected my own fears and frustrations. I applaud his instinct to add his voice as an ally of those outraged by history but determined not to repeat it. Here’s how the grand jury decision in Ferguson haunts Andrew:

Here’s what makes me afraid:

I am afraid my 10 year-old son will grow old in world where killing unarmed black men continues to be sanctioned by the law, just as it was 350 years ago.

I am afraid that my son will grow old in a world where young black men are 21 times more likely to be killed by police than white men.

I am afraid of the confusion. Confusion about the justice system, confusion about my right to second-guess this system.

I am afraid of the anger, the rage. Will I alienate friends, colleagues and neighbors?

I am afraid of the silence. Will white folks let this stand? Again? Will there be no outcry? Is the silence because you don’t care, because you’re afraid to care, because you don’t know how to care, or something else? Will confusion keep us quiet?

I am afraid of the resignation, the voice of devalued black lives – “I am not surprised,” “I am used to it,” “I was expecting it.”

I am afraid of the pain and cruelty of overt racism – “Why don’t they get over it?,” “#pantsupdontloot.”

I am afraid of the isolation. Saying nothing, I am alone. Saying something, I will alienate, frighten, offend. I am afraid of the continued inability for American communities – my community, our community – to have a healthy and productive dialogue about the disparities that have resulted from a 350-year history of violence by white folks against black folks.

I am afraid of being misunderstood. Afraid,even when I can’t figure out how anyone could be understood – how anyone could make sense of this, how this could happen?

Here’s what I’m not afraid of: When I wake up tomorrow morning and my white son goes to school, I’m not afraid of him being shot by the police, by the authorities sworn to protect him. I’ve never been afraid of that. — Andrew Mason

I hear Andrew’s challenge. Along with the staff and trustees of Meyer Memorial Trust, I am committed to being a part of this dialogue.

I’ll be joining him Tuesday, Nov. 25 at 4 p.m. at the Albina Ministerial Alliance Protest in front of the Justice Center at Southwest 3rd Avenue and Madison Street in downtown Portland. I also encourage people to attend the community dialogue at Open Meadow Middle School on Saturday, November 29.

— Doug

So it stands to reason that to meet Oregon’s education, environmental and health goals, to truly flourish as a state, we’ve got to make inroads in Oregon’s housing crisis. For more than a decade, a combination of high housing costs, rising energy prices and stagnant household income have challenged residents to find and hold onto housing.

Oregon’s housing crisis affects people across multiple income levels: Tens of thousands of Oregonians experienced homelessness last year — 20,000 school children in Oregon schools were homeless last year. Another 5,140 Oregonians lost their homes to foreclosure, a 25-percent increase from 2013. Families of modest means are struggling to keep up with housing costs. Gentrification has pushed entire communities out of their historic neighborhoods. A shortage of affordable housing is not merely an urban phenomenon: rural communities across the state also struggle with low vacancies and climbing rents. And our neighbors in small town Oregon have a difficult time filling service jobs because newcomers can’t find housing.

At Meyer Memorial Trust, we believe Oregonians deserve to have a safe place to wake up each morning and fall asleep at night, that housing is key to opportunity, success and breaking cycles of poverty. Hardworking families should be able to afford a home and still have enough money for groceries and other basic necessities. Seniors on fixed incomes, veterans and people with disabilities should be able to live independently with dignity. Young people should have a place to become established and grow into their dreams. Children deserve an opportunity to succeed in school and life, beginning with a safe, decent place to call home. More affordable homes in Oregon give us all a foundation on which to build better lives.

In 2007, Meyer launched its Affordable Housing Initiative to address the need for more affordable housing across the state, dedicating more than $9 million to the effort. Last year, we recommitted to the Initiative, pledging another $11 million over the next five years to support affordable housing solutions from Oregon’s wild, windy coastline to its austere eastern landscape of deserts and mountains.

This January, Meyer's Trustees authorized an additional $3.75 million to the Affordable Housing Initiative, demonstrating an increased commitment to meeting the housing needs of Oregonians. These added Sustaining Portfolio Strategy funds are dedicated to strengthening the long-term health and sustainability of Oregon’s existing affordable housing stock.

Rent-restricted affordable housing portfolios provide homes for more than 30,000 low-income households across Oregon. These portfolios represent a significant public investment by local, state and national funders. If Oregon hopes to increase its stock of affordable housing, it can not afford to lose the housing we already have.

Nonprofits and public agencies throughout Oregon have been engaged in building their capacity to oversee their affordable housing portfolios, ensuring accessible, affordable and high quality housing for low income Oregonians. The Initiative’s Sustaining Portfolios Strategy advances this work with a focus on long-term planning and increasing the sustainability of these crucial housing assets. Meyer awarded 13 AHI grants in February, totaling $2.19 million. Learn more about these recent grants on our website.

The Trust’s housing investments and commitment are critical, but not enough to address the state’s housing needs. Moving the needle requires a significant collective push. We need investments in homes, strategies to acquire land for future development to prevent displacement down the road, local flexibility to achieve housing goals, low-cost debt to help finance development and policy tools that will help us create the communities we want to see.

More than 50 Oregon groups are working on a broad Housing Opportunity Agenda to remove barriers that Oregonians with low incomes face when looking for a home. It’s a good thing. Housing experts, impacted communities and nonprofit leaders have identified solutions that can meaningfully address Oregon’s housing crisis. What is needed is a statewide commitment to prioritizing housing through a meaningful infusion of resources, policy flexibility to reduce development barriers and the exploration of innovation.

We can do more than hold the line. We can ensure Oregonians across the state have a place to call home. Oregon’s very future depends on getting affordable housing right.

— Doug

Does it feel like your head is spinning?

There’s been hardly a week over the past year that has not offered fresh urgency for Americans to get and stay engaged in national conversations about race.

From the deaths of unarmed black people at the hands of law enforcement officers, to the massacre of nine black parishioners in South Carolina at the hands of a man who wrote of wanting to start a race war, to the burning of black churches in the South, there have been ample and urgent opportunities to talk about the “Uncomfortable Subject."

The immediacy of these horrific events has caused many to stop and focus on the moment — to pay our respects. But I’m not satisfied with asking myself, “isn’t it tragic? Isn’t that sad?” My heart breaks and I am trying to figure out what more I can do.

I’ve mentioned before, I am working on, and learning about, being a more effective white ally. What that means to me is that I do what I can in the longer term work of breaking down inequities borne out of institutional and structural racism, and I work to overturn the inequities racism creates in education, housing, the workplace and the larger U.S. culture.

Becoming a white ally began with some incontrovertible personal truths: I have never had to fear being profiled when I walked into a store, or being pulled over when I drive a nice car, redlining when I wanted to buy a home, or rejection when I needed a loan or a job. I know that isn’t the reality for brown and black people. I believe racism exists. I’ve seen it denied, minimized, justified but I do not doubt the links between racism, economic disparities, classism, sexism, gender discrimination, and other forms of injustice. I learn about, and from, people who have worked for racial justice. I support the leadership of people of color. And, especially in this moment, I am reminded that I am not alone on this journey.

At the funeral eulogizing South Carolina State Senator Clementa Pinckney, President Barack Obama called for Americans to pay more attention to less apparent forms of racism. When he said, "maybe we now realize the way a racial bias can infect us even when we don't realize it so that we're guarding against not just racial slurs, but we're also guarding against the subtle impulse to call Johnny back for a job interview but not Jamal," it resonated for me. I thought of the important equity work we are doing here at Meyer, as well as my peers in the D5 Coalition who helping push philanthropy to reflect the diverse country we share.

When a recent Wall Street Journal editorial opined that “the system and philosophy of institutionalized racism identified by Dr. King no longer exists,” another white ally, Stewart Butterfield, the CEO of Slack, denounced the editorial board’s denial on Twitter. “Pretending it doesn't exist is, cognitively, really hard work. And it is dishonest and unfair and cruel work too. It's its own violence,” he tweeted. “Acknowledging that we still have a very, very long way to go is literally the least anyone could do.” That’s a white ally stepping onto the field, inspiring honest dialogue.

Another white ally comes from a family steeped in white privilege and generations of political power, Senator Paul Thurmond, the son of segregationist Strom Thurmond, addressed the matter of the Confederate flag, still flying above South Carolina’s state capitol after the killings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. Where other lawmakers testified the flag was about Southern heritage, Thurmond countered that the flag was deeply rooted in oppressive story of slavery. It was the truth. We have to begin with truth.

Time and time again, Oregonians hold as their number one value their quality of life. True quality of life for all requires each of us reach our full potential, a significant challenge when we don’t have a line of stepping stones laid out neatly from the moment we are born.

It’s not easy. When I get into conversations about race with people of color, I can at times feel my heart rate go up or I get anxious. I can’t experience firsthand the emotions or level of anger or frustration at being judged by the color of my skin. I’m not always sure what is the right thing or the wrong thing to say. It can feel like wandering into uncharted territory, but it is so important to do it. Otherwise, we’re really not working toward change if all we say when nine people lose their lives is, “isn’t that sad?”

It is sad. How do you handle that?

Me, I’m going to commit to continuing to educate myself and others about racism. To raise issues around racism and discrimination in public and private. I plan to personally learn and engage more around the work of our local organizations working to dismantle racism. But I am going to do more than that. Meyer has made many inroads in diversity and equity but our field hasn’t diversified much; nor has my social circle broadened as I would like. There’s work to do there. I like how my immediate professional world has changed. I’m better for it. More important, the Meyer Trust is better for it.

How about you? Tell me about the steps you’re taking to help make this place, our Oregon, flourish for everyone. Reach out to me in the comment section below, or on Twitter @dougastamm. I look forward to your insights.

— Doug

Many Meyer grants aided Oregonians in times of recession with food, utilities and housing. Other grants built important institutions in our state: health clinics, community centers, libraries and museums. Much of our past grantmaking was good and essential.

Then why shift?

Because our state has changed. Our challenges are bigger, more serious and more difficult to address. Oregon has grown from 3 million in just 12 years to 4 million citizens today. Twenty-two percent of our residents are people of color. Portland has the 3rd highest rate among major cities of unsheltered chronically homeless and we are 46th among states for our graduation rate. Our past method of grantmaking was not addressing these trends head-on.

What is Meyer changing?

We are no longer a purely responsive foundation waiting for nonprofit organizations to request funding. We are now very focused on meeting our state's most serious challenges. We have increased our staff and hired experts who have spent months listening to our community to learn what is needed and what approach is best. We hope to bring together talented leaders and nonprofit organizations within our state to address our issues in a comprehensive fashion, leveraging private, nonprofit and government funds. We have learned that focus is incredibly important. We have done this before with the Affordable Housing and Willamette River initiatives. Both have shown some positive measurable results. We believe it can work in other areas. And we are so committed that we are spending a greater portion of Meyer funds than has ever been allocated before.

We will review all programs with an equitable lens. Our demographics have changed remarkably and all of Oregon can not flourish unless all residents are included. We are learning with all of you how to accomplish this.

How is Meyer the same?

We are still concerned about the same issues (issues that surveys indicate Oregonians care most about): affordable housing, good schools, a healthy environment and strengthening our leaders and nonprofit organizations to be better equipped to changing conditions.

We remain totally committed to our nonprofit partners. They have helped set our direction and will be key in moving us toward it.

We still believe Oregon's problems can be solved.

The strength of this new approach depends upon our respectful partnership with nonprofit organizations and our acceptance of all residents. If we are all pulling together, we remain optimistic that Oregon can meet our challenges and that we can make it better place for all of us. We look forward to starting this process with you.

—DC

Debbie Craig stepped down from Meyer’s Board of Trustees in 2019, after serving 23 years.

So you've probably heard about the illustration contest Meyer and Northwest Health Foundation launched in February 2016, to help identify images from Oregon artists that further the discourse on equity.

We were drawn to the illustrations floating around the web, usually depicting three individuals standing on boxes outside a fence. Often the images were used to show the difference between equality, where everyone gets the same resources, and equity, which speaks to each person getting the resources they need.

Our contest ends March 31st, and while we've gotten some really interesting submissions from youths and adults, we're excited about what more may come our way.

Recently, we came across a LinkedIn post by Aasha M. Abdill, an independent evaluation and strategy consultant based in Washington, D.C., taking on the ubiquitous image of those three figures on boxes stacked outside a fence. She had a fresh perspective about how the popular image gets equity so very, very wrong.

With her permission, we share Aasha's post:

 

I have seen this picture floating around many times on LinkedIn for several months now.

While I very much appreciated the intended purpose of the image-- distinguishing equity from equality-- the first time I saw it, I could not click the "like" button. Something about the image bugged me.  Yet, I couldn't easily figure out why and I didn't have any free time to think on it. After a while I stopped seeing it in my feed and I forgot about it.

A couple of months later, a slightly different version resurfaced. It appeared consistently and boldly in my feed with little concern for my escalating irritation. As each LinkedIn colleague liked, shared and commented in its favor, I felt an irrational exasperation. I am not easily vexed so this was a clear problem that I knew I needed to address.

I stared at the image. It "stared" back at me. I frowned. I sighed. I furrowed my brow. I walked away. And, then it hit me. My voice in my head screamed with a mixture of indignation and relief, "That's why I can't stand you!"

Do you know why? If you don't, it's understandable because it exemplifies the insidiousness of implicit bias. So, I will not keep you entrapped for a second longer. Instead, I will ask you one question.

In the picture, why are the three individuals so observably different in capability (physical height and age)?

Social equity is imperative because structural inequality exists; that is, you can predict the outcomes of individuals based on social characteristics that should not have any direct correlation to the outcome. Why then, is it possible to predict? Because, social inequality is perpetuated by institutional and individual discrimination. So, to address social inequities, the boxes appearing in the second frame are necessarily doled out unequally so that equity can be achieved.

The problem with the picture is in its implicit bias that many do not see. If we believe, fundamentally, that all people regardless of race, class or creed are comparably able, there should be little difference between the individuals in this picture. What should be drawn as dissimilar are not the individuals but rather the bottom boxes they are standing on in the first frame.

While I fully appreciate the intended purpose of the image, its point regrettably rests upon a deeply ingrained belief of the inherent inequality of people. And, despite the sincere explicit intention for increasing understanding, empathy, and justice for redressing social inequities, the picture's sentiment implicitly reinforces the idea that minorities (or those otherwise unprivileged) have inferior abilities.

So, for all you artists — please! Please create another picture. One that conveys the important distinction of equity and equality without the hidden and deeply ingrained bigotry.

 

On that note, please submit your own entry into the Equity Illustrated design contest. Help us get this right.

And read the rest of Aasha's conversation-provoking post on LinkedIn here.

In March, Meyer staff has visited more than a dozen communities and connected with nearly 1,000 people representing the diversity of Oregon’s nonprofits, public educational institutions, government and Tribal agencies.

Dozens more information sessions are scheduled over the next four weeks as organizations prepare their response to the opening of Meyer’s 2016 funding opportunities on April 4th.

As we traveled across the state, we gathered together organizations and individuals interested in learning more about the four key areas we believe to be essential to a flourishing and equitable Oregon. The visits have been an excellent reminder of our shared values toward service and support so that all Oregonians may thrive.

I’m personally grateful for the hospitality and candor we’ve received. We have heard loud and clear about the barriers urgently experienced by many communities across our state. Meyer is committed to dismantling barriers and creating systemic conditions where all Oregonians experience the opportunity to reach their full potential. We’ve challenged ourselves, and we’ve asked our partners to join us in this challenge. Transformative work doesn’t happen overnight, and it doesn’t happen without you and the communities you serve. So thank you for your continued commitment to your communities and our partnership.

We look forward to seeing you!