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Merging Missions
Carnegie Corporation and other foundations working at the national level found they were hard pressed to serve the immigrant community whose most dire needs called for local action. Seeking effective new strategies to get needed money down to grassroots groups they couldn’t reach, representatives of several large foundations got together to think through better ways to facilitate funding and move immigrant civic engagement and integration forward. This initial meeting was organized by Michele Lord, an attorney with years of experience working on immigrant issues, who was consulting with the Ford Foundation. Observing how small immigrant organizations regularly banded together to be more efficient and effective, she suggested starting a parallel funding collaborative on a national level. The idea was one that resonated with Carnegie Corporation, whose president, Vartan Gregorian, was a longstanding proponent of strategic foundation partnerships.

“We’re strongest when funders who share the same goals combine forces,” says Taryn Higashi, deputy director of the Ford Foundation’s Human Rights Division. “A problem of this scope can’t be solved alone. It lends itself to a collective approach, which allows us to compensate for each others’ blind spots. The same is true for grassroots groups,” she adds. “Social change doesn’t happen because of one group’s success; it takes changing public opinion and systemic problem solving.”

The Four Freedoms Fund was started with grants totaling $2.8 million ($1 million from Carnegie Corporation). “There were two existing streams of funding, one from Carnegie Corporation supporting civic participation and one from Ford supporting human rights. They needed to merge: Simply put, we know people won’t participate in public life if they’re afraid,” Lord explains. Representatives of all five founding donors became members of the Board and, agreeing that the work should be integrated, they pushed forward a holistic strategy encompassing civic engagement and civil rights. The name Four Freedoms Fund was suggested by Craig McGarvey (a consultant and former program officer of the James Irvine Foundation) who had seen the Norman Rockwell paintings based on FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech on exhibit in Atlanta and been inspired.

Four Freedoms We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want...everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear...anywhere in the world. —President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Message to Congress, January 6, 1941

 

 

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