As we launch into 2020, I would like to share news about a few exciting changes to leadership and titles at the Meyer Foundation.
At their June 4 board meeting, the board of directors of the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation approved 66 grants totaling $3,292,500 in general grantmaking to support a growing number of organizations working to further racial equity in the Greater Washington community within our four goals of housing, education, employment, and asset building; and four grants totaling $340,000 in capacity building to organizations seeking to support other Meyer grantee and community partners in strengthening their capacity to build movements that impact systems and advance racial equity.
We are long past any question about whether the president and many of the people around him and supporting him are racist. His actions and his words by any objective standard make it so. What is more important is to understand how our systems of government and white culture actively enable racism to continue to play out in our election processes, our governance processes, in virtually every aspect of our day-to-day existence in this country.
In May, Meyer Foundation staff and several grantee partners gathered for Latino Challenges Toward Racial Justice, a two-day workshop by c-Integral designed for people who live in or work with Latino communities, and who seek to end racial disparities in our institutions and end racism in our society.
The board of directors of the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation is pleased to announce its new executive committee, effective June 4: Dr. Charlene M. Dukes takes the helm as chair; Obiora “Bo” Menkiti as vice chair; Tori O’Neal-McElrath as secretary; and Tram Nguyen as treasurer.
The board of directors of the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation elected Karen Wawrzaszek, senior director of financial planning at Sullivan Bruyette Speros & Blayney, to the board at its June 4 meeting.
On April 25, our President and CEO Nicky Goren was invited, along with several of our grantee and philanthropic partners, to provide testimony before the DC Council’s Committee on Government Operations on the Racial Equity Achieves Results (REAR) Act of 2019 that would require the Office of Human Rights and the Department of Human Resources to develop and provide racial equity training for District employees, and the Office of Budget and Planning to design and implement a racial equity tool aimed at eliminating disparities based on race.
Maryland Program Director Julian Haynes shares an emerging area of work the Meyer Foundation has chosen to test the effectiveness of its systems change efforts.
Senior Director for Strategy and Equity Aisha Alexander-Young reintroduces her role at the Meyer Foundation and explains why the concept of non-racism falls short of what is really needed to bring about systems change: anti-racism.
Recently, CityBridge Education and the Meyer Foundation co-hosted a dinner conversation with former Mayor of New Orleans Mitch Landrieu, where he shared insights from his book, “In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History.”