Marguerite Casey Foundation

Help us welcome these 4?? visionary movement scholars to the growing MCF #FreedomScholar community! With this 2024 cohort, there are now 38 Freedom Scholars, leaders in academia whose research provides critical insight from and to social justice leaders and whose ideas encourage us to imagine how we can radically improve our democracy, economy, and society. Add your message of welcome and congratulations in the comments!

“I imagine a world where philanthropy sits at the feet of racial justice leaders and heeds from the lessons and pains that both those leaders and the philanthropy sector are learning and holding, so we can best be of service," shares Carmen Rojas, PhD, president and CEO of Marguerite Casey Foundation. Learn more about her transformational leadership in this profile piece from her alma mater University of California, Santa Cruz.

Biographer Jonathan Eig has given us such a gift with his New York Times bestselling book, KING: A LIFE. If you haven’t had the chance to read it yet, KING offers a revelatory portrait of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., blending newly declassified FBI files with vivid storytelling to reveal the complexities of his life and work. The biography not only follows King’s journey from the pulpit to the streets of Birmingham, Selma, and Memphis but delves into his private struggles, familial relationships, and the intense government repression he endured. Dr. King’s commitment to fighting for racial and economic justice, even at the cost of his life, emerges as a deeply humanizing story of personal and social transformation. I can’t wait to sit down with Jonathan Eig, and MCF Freedom Scholar Dr. Darrick Hamilton to celebrate this book and explore how King's understanding of justice can inspire a better vision for building economic and social policy today. There is so much about King’s critique of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism that can strengthen contemporary movements for freedom. For anyone in the NYC area, I hope you’ll join me at the Marguerite Casey Foundation Book Club event in partnership with NationSwell on November 19, as we learn together and envision a better future. Tickets are available at CaseyGrants.org/King.

"We must insist on a government and leaders that respect us and our needs," says MCF Board Member Stacey Abrams.

As Latino leaders from California heading major philanthropic organizations, Dr. Carmen Rojas, PhD (she/her), President and CEO of the Marguerite Casey Foundation, and Miguel A. Santana, President and CEO of the California Community Foundation, issued the following statement on the divisive and dangerous rhetoric targeting Latinos this election cycle. The full statement is on our website: https://lnkd.in/g4GJnEsd

The fall issue of Hammer and Hope just dropped and it’s packed with brilliant insights. This article by Nikki Marín Baena on how organizers for immigrant and worker rights are cutting a path out of the wreckage in North Carolina really spoke to me. Detailing the grassroots response to Hurricane Helene, Baena, co-founder of Siembra NC, writes about mobilizing communities in the wake of disaster, highlighting the critical role mutual aid and solidarity play in recovery efforts. Her reflections illustrate how, through organizations like Siembra NC, people are uniting in a “homegrown collective response” to clear debris, support impacted families, and combat misinformation amidst chaos. But the piece also serves as a stark reminder that our communities—including, as she writes, immigrant construction workers, line cooks, home cleaners, nannies, and farmworkers who have supported the region’s fast-paced growth—deserve more. “The huge scale of Helene’s destruction on top of years of divestment from public infrastructure will require a long recovery,” Baena warns. “To address that, we need a government that will invest in infrastructure not just in western North Carolina but across the state, so that our communities can be safe when the next storm—which we know is inevitable—arrives.” Her words resonate deeply with our work at Marguerite Casey Foundation, where we believe the best way to address inequality is by bringing the government front and center in any conversation. Our government has a duty to ensure people have the resources, rights, and protections they need to live a dignified and meaningful life. To quote MCF Freedom Scholar and esteemed economist Darrick Hamilton, “The government has a fiduciary responsibility to invest in its most treasured resource: its people.” As our communities endure polycrisis including organized abandonment, anti-immigrant violence, racial capitalism, climate devastation, and more, this article offers a poignant reminder of the importance of collective action *and* the need for systemic change that can transform government so it answers to everyday people. I hope you’ll join me in reading Hammer and Hope and give special attention to this piece.

Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, there is $1.7B earmarked for nearly 100 construction projects in Utah, but this incredible influx of resources could skip over local working people without the safeguards provided by “prevailing wage” laws. Prevailing wage law, writes Brandon Dew, president of the Central Utah Federation of Labor, and esteemed advisor to Marguerite Casey Foundation’s Public Dollars for Public Good initiative, protects Utah workers from “being undercut by large, out-of-state corporations” by ensuring that local workers and businesses should benefit when tax dollars are used to build roads, bridges, or state-funded projects. Turning prevailing wage into law: it’s our secret weapon against outsourcing and the key to ensuring public dollars benefit the local Utah workforce—today and tomorrow! Read Brandon’s full op-ed in The Salt Lake Tribune.

Happening this week!

In the last four years, Marguerite Casey Foundation (MCF) has made enormous strides to bring the full weight of our endowment into lockstep with our racial and economic justice values. Currently, we’ve reached 97% mission-aligned investments, and we get a lot of questions about how we’ve made this change so quickly. To help spread awareness about the how and why of values-aligned investing, my esteemed colleague Daniel Gould, CFA, CAIA, MCF’s Vice President Of Investments & Operations traveled to the Philanthropy Northwest conference in Montana last week to share the story of MCF’s journey to align our endowment with our mission. A packed room heard about the work Dan has led, alongside our board of directors and trusted partners, to create robust, values-aligned screening for our investments and the racial and gender diversity and inclusion requirements for the companies overseeing them. MCF was honored to present our story alongside two highly trusted and valued asset managers, Mamadou-Abou Sarr, CIFD, founder of V-Square Quantitative Management LLC, and Daryn Dodson, founder of Illumen Capital, who shared their approaches in the public and private equity markets and spoke to the experience of seeking funding in the current landscape. For my colleagues in philanthropy, if you are looking for actionable ideas on how to shift your institutional practices to align your endowment with your mission, I have good news: It doesn’t have to be hard, especially if you have the right partners.

We love to see it! ???????????? Throwback to the Bookmarks Festival of Authors and Books where MCF president and CEO, Dr. Carmen Rojas (center) moderated a panel with #MCFFreedomScholars Dr. Robin D. G. Kelley (left) and Dr. keeanga-yamahtta taylor (right) to honor the book OUR HISTORY HAS ALWAYS BEEN CONTRABAND: IN DEFENSE OF BLACK STUDIES, which was coedited by Kelley, Taylor, and Colin Kaepernick, with support from MCF. Thanks to everyone who came out to the discussion and book signing! If you missed the event you can still catch the learnings by downloading a free copy of the ebook, copublished by our friends at Haymarket Books and Kaepernick Publishing at CaseyGrants.org/FreeBook.