Liberty Hill Blog: News from the Frontlines

Council on Foundations honors Michele Prichard of Liberty Hill

Liberty Hill is thrilled to announce that the Council on Foundations  is presenting its Distinguished Service Award to Michele Prichard, our Director, Common Agenda.

The Distinguished Service Award, the Council’s highest honor, recognizes an exceptional individual who embodies the intellect, integrity, leadership, and accomplishment that define absolute excellence in the field of philanthropy.

Michele, who began working with Liberty Hill Foundation as a volunteer in 1982, was our executive director from 1989 to 1997 and then transitioned to special projects in 1998. She helped create new grant programs addressing poverty, racial justice, and environmental health. As Director, Common Agenda, she oversees projects relating to Liberty Hill-facilitated alliances of community organizations working on "common agenda" issues including environmental justice and bettering the lives of young men.

Michele serves on the board of the Venice Community Housing Corporation and the steering committee of GREEN LA. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa appointed her to the Harbor Community Benefit Foundation in 2011. She has served as a senior fellow in the UCLA School of Public Affairs since 2007.

“I deeply appreciate receiving The Council on Foundation’s Distinguished Service award," says Michele. "What is most meaningful to me is that this honor is a validation and celebration of the core ideas I have worked long and hard to champion within philanthropy: investment in community organizing to advance change, not charity; and engaging community leaders and residents as critical partners in foundation decision-making.”

The Distinguished Service Award will be presented to Michele at the Opening Plenary of the Council on Foundation's Annual Conference Sunday, April 29 at 11:30 a.m. at the JW Mariott at L.A. Live. Formed in 1949, the Council on Foundations is a nonprofit membership association of grantmaking foundations and corporations. Council members include more than 1,700 independent, operating, community, public and company-sponsored foundations, and corporate giving programs in the United States and abroad. The Council's mission is to provide the opportunity, leadership, and tools philanthropic organizations need to expand, enhance, and sustain their ability to advance the common good.

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Liberty Hill Honors Social Justice Leader Wendy Chang

On May 9, at Liberty Hill's 30th Annual Upton Sinclair Awards and Dinner, Wendy Chang, one's of L.A.'s most influential social justice leaders, will receive the 2012 Founders Award. This award honors an individual whose philanthropy
embodies the spirit of change, not charity.

Wendy, who has worked for more than 23 years in the world of nonprofits and foundations, is passionate about equality and justice for all, a commitment she has expressed through her inspiring professional and personal work in civic engagement and philanthropy.

When she was just five years old, Wendy Chang’s family immigrated from where to the United States seeking freedom and a better life, a journey that took courage and determination. Wendy remembers that “once we made the leap, however, there was no going back – so there was built-in commitment. I’ve since realized that  commitment holds a very strong truth in each of our lives. If you hold yourself responsible to your commitments, you’re living your life’s purpose.”

 

As a nonprofit professional, Wendy’s focus has been on grant making, program development, public policy, technical assistance, and training.Currently, Wendy directs grant making, initiatives, and capacity building activities at the Dwight Stuard Youth Fund. Originally established as an independent foundation in 2001, the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund was endowed by Dwight L. Stuart, Sr. to benefit and serve the needs of children and youth in the greater Los Angeles area.

Wendy’s previous positions include Executive Management Academy Director at the Whitecap Foundation; Director of Training and Advancement at Public Corporation for the Arts; Special Projects/Membership Director for the California Association of Nonprofits; and Director of Consulting Services for CompassPoint Nonprofit Services.

Wendy Chang is an active volunteer, donor, and long-time board member in many local organizations. For Wendy, contributing is the answer for achieving personal growth. As she has acknowledged “leadership and growth are manifested and come to life through the act of service.”

Wendy’s community contributions include serving as executive board member and chair of the Investment Committee and Audit Committee of the Liberty Hill Foundation; member and past chair of Asian American Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, Los Angeles; executive committee member of the LA Partnership for Early Childhood Investment; founding board treasurer and president-elect of the National Charity League, Inc., Westside Chapter; project lead and advisory member of the Trustee Initiative: Effectiveness through Diversity; as well as advisory board member of Foundation Boys. She is also a Cohort 3 Member of America's Leaders of Change of the National Urban Fellows.

Previously, Wendy was a founder and president of the Long Beach Nonprofit Partnership; president of Leadership Long Beach; membership vice president and training chair of Junior League of Long Beach; president of Asian Heritage Council; and chair, Financial Literacy of Women’s Leadership Circle. She was also a member of Los Angeles Urban Funders, as well as Family Foundation Committee and Program Advisory Member of Southern California Grantmakers.

Wendy is a founding member of five community giving circles: Asian American Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy’s National Donor Circle, Women of Color Giving Circle, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Islander Giving Circle, Circle of Change, and the OUT Fund, which she currently co-chairs. Wendy believes that giving circles have been a great vehicle to leverage resources for the community.

Wendy Chang  has also produced a number of  MarquezSTAR youth musicals, written and directed by Marquez Elementary teacher Jeff Lantos including: “Plymouth 2.0,” premiered at Santa Monica’s Broad Stage; “Water and Power,” an official selection for the 2010 New York Musical Theatre Festival; and “Carry On,” showcased in the Festival of New American Musicals.

Wendy is the recipient of the Leadership Long Beach Jim Ackerman Alumnus of the Year Award, Distinguished Leadership Award from California Association of Leadership Programs, Distinguished Leadership Award from Community Leadership Association; Community Pride Award from Children’s Nature Institute, and Business Associate of the Year from American Women’s Business Association. She is a graduate of University of California at Santa Cruz, with majors in Business Economics and Computer Science.

 Wendy’s intense commitment to social change is evident in her professional and volunteer life. She not only talks the talk but walks the walk. Wendy notes, “Being involved in Liberty Hill has taught me that change doesn’t just happen, it’s something you do. When you want change, actively seek it. We all have the power to make that choice.”

Join Liberty Hill at the 30th Annual Upton Sinclair Awards Dinner on May 9, 2012 as we honor Wendy Chang with the Founders Award. Purchase your tickets today! 

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Liberty Hill Honors Scholar-Advocate Manuel Pastor

On May 9, at Liberty Hill's 30th Annual Upton Sinclair Awards and Dinner, Manuel Pastor, one's of L.A.'s most influential authors and forward-looking researchers, will receive the 2012 Wally Marks Changemaker Award. This award honors an outstanding individual whose work in the community illustrates Dr. King's insight that while "the arc of history is long, it bends toward justice."

Manuel Pastor is truly a changemaker, making a critical connection between the interests of low-income communities of color on the one hand, and the economic and social future of entire metropolitan regions on the other. Professor of American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, he directs the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity and the Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration, research centers that work with and for community-based organizations working for social justice. 

Manuel, long an advocate (and sometimes an organizer), found his life – like so many others – changed dramatically by the 1992 civil unrest. The days of rage made evident the depth of despair in Los Angeles. The inadequacy of top-down responses made it clear that old models – including those many progressives had held dear – had to be reinvented. And the creative responses that emerged from the ground up – and continue to evolve and expand today – inspired and guided Pastor to work with others to forge a new approach to university-community partnerships for social change.

Manuel Pastor’s research in environmental justice, for example, has been conducted in direct collaboration with a wide range of activists in both Los Angeles and the Bay Area. After a decade of documenting disparities in both locales, Pastor and co-researchers developed a way to preemptively identify overburdened and socially vulnerable communities – and then worked directly with residents to “ground-truth” the toxic reality on the ground.  The results – community-based participatory research that offers an accurate picture of where hazardous sites are located and how they affect the health of nearby communities – have fed directly into a campaign to "Clean Up Green Up" three of the most environmentally stressed areas of Los Angeles.

But that’s just one example.  Manuel's work on low-wage Latino workers and the positive impact of unionization helped to support the campaign for a living wage in Los Angeles.  His work on regional equity – the inclusion of everyone in metropolitan prosperity – helped to inform organizers across the country as well as efforts for better workforce systems here in L.A. His work on immigrant communities has helped to support campaigns for comprehensive immigration reform and the Dream Act.  And his work on America’s changing demography and the importance of Black-Latino relations has both foreshadowed our national future and offered new models for community organizing.

And he writes.  In 2009, he co-authored This Could Be the Start of Something Big: How Social Movements for Regional Equity are Reshaping Metropolitan America, a volume that helped chart contemporary organizing and explain the rumblings that produced the Obama victory in 2008.  In 2010, he co-authored Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future, a book that documents the gap between progress in racial attitudes and racial realities, and offers a new set of strategies for both talking about race and achieving racial equity. And just this year, he co-authored Just Growth: Inclusion and Prosperity in American’s Metropolitan Regions, a book that uses an innovative mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to assert that equity is actually key to growth – a timely message for a U.S. economy still seeking to recover from economic crisis and distributional divides.

With his deep commitments to both activism and academic rigor, Manuel Pastor has become a critical translator between philanthropy and social movements.  Comfortable in the board room, the university, and the street, he has facilitated connections, helping to explain to funders how grassroots organizing works, how it builds the power necessary for justice, and why funding change, not charity, is a framework that needs to go beyond Liberty Hill.

Marqueece Harris-Dawson, President of Community Coalition in South LA, says, “Manuel Pastor has the heart of an organizer and the vision for social justice research that makes a wide-spread impact on people’s lives. Lifting him up as a leader means lifting up Los Angeles as the nation’s most important model of organizing, research, and policy that works for social justice.”

Join Liberty Hill at the 30th Annual Upton Sinclair Awards Dinner on May 9, 2012 as we honor Manuel Pastor with the 2012 Wally Marks Changemaker Award. Purchase Your Tickets Today!

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Liberty Hill Honors TV Luminary-Activist Paris Barclay

On May 9, at Liberty Hill's 30th Annual Upton Sinclair Awards and Dinner, one's of television's most acclaimed and multi-talented creators, Paris Barclay, will receive the 2012 Upton Sinclair Award.

This award is presented to a person of unwavering idealism and vision, a person like Upton Sinclair, whose lifelong crusade for equality and justice inspires us even today.

Paris Barclay's life and work are infused with his desire to tear down the walls between us, a lofty goal as expressed by Barbara Jordan, who said, “For the rest of the time on this planet, I want to bring people together…We, as human beings, must be able to accept people who are different from ourselves.” 

Whether he is vividly characterizing the disabled (in the Emmy-nominated “Wheels” episode of Glee), revealing the patriotism that drives the fictional White House (in The West Wing), or looking death unflinchingly in the eye (in Jimmy Smits’ final episode of NYPD Blue), Paris has used the medium to reach deeper into the hearts and minds of people around the world.

Born in Chicago Heights, Illinois, Paris earned a scholarship to attend The La Lumiere School in Indiana as its first African-American student (just one class behind future Chief Justice John Roberts). Accepted at Harvard, he honed his talents on the theater stage where he wrote 16 musicals before graduation (sometimes working alongside previous Upton Sinclair honoree John Manulis.)

After Harvard, Paris turned to advertising -- and for the first time (in 1986) bent the media to his message by writing and directing Elizabeth Taylor’s first television commercial: a dramatic PSA for the recently established American Foundation for AIDS Research. A few years later, he formed a music video and commercial production company, with the specific goal of nurturing and developing more people of color behind the camera. Black & White Television, as it was called, quickly became a major force in the field, and his videos for Bob Dylan, Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson, and most especially his 8 videos for LL Cool J won acclaim. (The MTV Award-winning “Mama Said Knock You Out,” LL Cool J’s black and white boxing video, is still recognized as a classic in the field.)

 And while the company “brought people together,” Paris found a bigger canvas in directing, writing and producing film and television.

Over 120 episodes later, Paris has overseen crimes-solvers (NYPD Blue, CSI, The Shield, Law & Order, Monk, Numbers, The Mentalist, NCIS: Los Angeles, Cold Case), doctors (ER, City of Angels, House, In Treatment), lawyers (The Good Wife, Law & Order) and outsiders (Weeds, Lost, Sons of Anarchy, Glee, and Smash). City of Angels, in particular, co-created with Steven Bochco and Nicholas Wootton, was a daring attempt to create a prime-time drama with a largely Black cast. Although it only lasted two seasons, it introduced viewers to the talents of Hill Harper, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, along with stars Blair Underwood and Vivica Fox.

Paris Barclay’s work has been recognized for its craft with two Emmy wins (from six nominations), one DGA Award (from ten nominations), four Peabody Awards, two Humanitas Prizes, two NAACP Image Awards, two recognitions from the TV Academy’s “Television With a Conscience,” and a Voice Award from the US Department of Health and Human Services. In 2010, he also received a Writers Guild nomination for co-writing Pedro with Dustin Lance Black, the story of HIV activist and Real World hero Pedro Zamora.

Paris is the face of his fellow directors as their First Vice President of the Directors Guild of America (tearing down walls again as the first African-American officer in the history of the Guild) and the chair of the DGA’s Political Action Committee. He has served on the board of the LA Gay and Lesbian Center, Project Angel Food, and currently serves on the Advisory Board for the Carsey-Wolf Center at UC Santa Barbara, and as a Trustee for the Humanitas Prize.  He has been recognized for his charitable and community service work for organizations such as GLAAD (the Stephen F. Kolzak Award), Project Angel Food (the Founders Award), OUTFEST, and was honored with the Pioneer Award at the Pan African Film Festival. Along with all these organizations, he is a strong supporter of the Trevor Project, the Black Aids Institute, the American Foundation for Equal Rights, and of course, Liberty Hill.

Next up: he’ll bring to the screen the story of Barbara Jordan, with Viola Davis set to star as his hero.

“There are only a handful of organizations in America that can truly claim they bring people together, across boundaries, beyond differences,” says Paris Barclay. “Liberty Hill is one of them.”

Join Liberty Hill at the 30th Annual Upton Sinclair Awards Dinner on May 9, 2012 as we honor Paris Barclay with The Upton Sinclair Award. Purchase your tickets today! 

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"The Guide to Green" Released

Byline: Cassie Gardener

In honor of Earth Day, Liberty Hill  is releasing its latest report,  “The Guide to Green: A Directory of Financial and Technical Assistance Programs for Businesses in the City of Los Angeles.”

This new 80-page, downloadable guide is the first of its kind in L.A. It's an up-to-date, carefully researched listing of programs that help business owners, especially small business owners, to go green. For owners and operations managers at, for example, dry cleaners, small factories, businesses located in incentive zones, and managers charged with environmental compliance, The Guide to Green covers more than 45 different city, state and federal programs.

The Guide to Green compiles website addresses, phone numbers, summary descriptions, requirement information and more in one easy-to-use booklet.

The Guide to Green covers programs with benefits that include technical assistance, training, tax credits, rebates, loans and grants. These programs help business owners revitalize their operations with new, cleaner and greener technologies that can help protect environmental quality while increasing productivity.

In addition to listing programs and services, Liberty Hill’s Guide to Green assesses each program for its user-friendliness, judged by how easy it is to use a program’s website, fill out an application, fulfill financial reporting obligations, and so on. Listings include current contact information at the sponsoring agency.

The Guide to Green researcher Jane Paul discovered that about half of the programs available to L.A.-area businesses are focused on “going green” improvements such as improving energy/water efficiency, reducing impacts on worker and community health, and adopting new environmentally friendly technologies.

For example, the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) Dry Cleaning Grants help dry cleaners switch to machines that do not use the toxic chemical perchloroethylene (PERC).

Paul says the balance of programs listed are designed to stimulate business growth and support economic viability, thus enhancing various environmental aspects of neighborhoods where eligible businesses are located.

Jane Paul, who is also the chair of the Green Retrofit Advisory Council to the City of LA and a faculty member in Antioch University’s Urban Sustainability program, says, “In several years of research on the green economy, I found that there was no comprehensive listing of the many technical and financial programs that exist to improve businesses.  Business owners, environmental agencies and business support centers are delighted to have all this information in one place.”

Liberty Hill, a long-time supporter of environmental health and justice efforts, supports community-based organizations, along with research, and policy initiatives that address the problem of cumulative environmental health impacts resulting from the L.A.-area’s high concentration of manufacturing industries, goods movement and transportation corridors.

Liberty Hill grantee groups Communities for a Better Environment, Coalition for a Safe Environment, Pacoima Beautiful and Union de Vecinos have joined together to create the Clean Up Green Up campaign, to establish “green zones” in the pilot communities of Boyle Heights, Pacoima and Wilmington where residents live in “toxic hot spots” compared to other neighborhoods. Liberty Hill’s 2010 publication Hidden Hazards provides the research and context behind this initiative.

Liberty Hill welcomes feedback about The Guide to Green as well as information on additional relevant programs. Please send questions and/or information for updates to guide2green@libertyhill.org.

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Being LGBT in the 21st Century

The film Bully has been the impetus for a national conversation on the dangerous and widespread impact bullying has on our kids and society. Liberty Hill has put together a webpage infographic "Being LGBT in the 21st Century" to show how profoundly bullying behavior impacts lgbt teens as well as some factors that can prevent it. Please share on social media and with all you know, so we can help curb these detrimental acts of intimidation.

In L.A.? Find out how local LGBT communities are building family and community acceptance and immigrant rights and challenging school yard bullying.

Liberty Hill staffer Darrell Tucci shares his story about being bullied. You can too. Share your story on our Facebook page.

And be part of Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network’s 2012 National Day of Silence on April 20.

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From Despair to Activist: The Challenges Facing LGBT Youth

A year and a half ago, Liberty Hill's Chief Development Officer Darrell Tucci, shared his story about surmounting the challenges of being an LGBT teen. We re-post this now as we release a new infographic that dramatically illustrates the difficulties LGBT youth face and the supports that can make all the difference.

At 18, I was suicidal.  I had decided I would take my life due to such deep self-hatred about being gay after years of being bullied and harassed about being the fat kid and the geek and often called faggot even though I wasn’t out or even sure I was gay.  I wrote a poem that would serve as my suicide note, I planned the date, got the prescription.  Two days before the planned date, I was walking as a sophmore through my university and just happened to look to my left and saw a Safe Space sticker on a faculty door.  It was closed.  I didn’t want to be seen looking at it but I knew it was some how gay related. 

I stuck a note under the door saying “I need help, please call” and included my number.

A young professor called.  He told me about this organization called GLSEN.  I never told him I was planning to kill myself.  But the idea there was an org helping high school kids struggling with what I was feeling made me feel less alone and I thought that I wanted to be sure no one else ever had to feel this way. 

I was bullied and harassed because people thought I was gay.  What kept me going was not that I was happy or less depressed but that I learned I might help someone else.  He introduced me to a therapist, the gay student group on campus and the GLSEN NNJ chapter.  I gave them my very first gift to a nonprofit. By meeting them, and others on campus they introduced me to, I finally told one of them how desperate I was and they helped get me into rehab to deal with my suicidality and my eating disorder in 1996.

I came back from rehab.  I came out at 20 with amazing support and immediately became an activist.  I lead the group with that same professor to add sexual orientation and gender identity to MSU's anti-discrimination policies immediately after Matthew Shepard's passing.  I changed majors and moved towards my nonprofit career.

I tell this story publicly now for the first time because I want youth to know there is hope but we as adults need to be sure they know where to find it. I hope you will check out the infographic about the challenges LGBT youth still face and the supports that can make all the difference. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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