GOAL Grantees 2008-2009

Your Investment at Work: A Quick Summary of GOAL Grantmaking

Hundreds of donors have joined the movement for an equitable and just rebuilding of the Gulf Coast by investing with Twenty-First Century Foundation (21CF.) Here is a brief update on recent GOAL grantmaking.

100 Black Men of Metro Lake Charles
100 Black Men is a national leadership development and advocacy organization of concerned African American men whose goal is to improve the quality of life in the African American community through their collective resources, abilities, and experiences.

African-American Leadership Project
The African-American Leadership Project (AALP) was formed in New Orleans in 2002 as a nonpartisan volunteer network that serves as a center of strategic analysis, practical action, and rapid response on behalf of low-income and African American citizens of New Orleans.

AJAMM Ministries, Inc.
AJAMM Ministries works to provide a supportive environment for bringing women in ministry together to enhance their knowledge and increase their leadership skills. Their mission as a Christian ministry has been to help educate and equip women of the African Diaspora to work to their full potential in the church, civic, and social arenas by fostering spiritually awakening opportunities for growth and the promotion of righteousness and justice in Kingdom building.

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Louisiana
For 50 years, the ACLU of Louisiana has been working to stop racism, sexism, homophobia, censorship and other forms of discrimination. Nationwide, the ACLU has 300,000 members and over 2,000 volunteer lawyers. But in Louisiana, the picture’s a little more grim. ACLU has one staff attorney and relies mainly on donations from a community that is still struggling to get on its feet. Their issues include: (1) Justice After Katrina; (2) Racial Justice; (3) Lesbian & Gay Rights; (4) Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Religion; and (5) Prison Reform.

AMOS Network
The AMOS Network is an interfaith-based organization that works to generate equality and integrity within the community. By addressing systemic issues in the areas of city and county planning, youth and education, and community service, as well as social, economic, and racial injustice, AMOS acts as a catalyst for an inclusive social environment.

Bank Street Films
Bank Street Films is a production company formed by two filmmakers from New York City who six months after Hurricane Katrina, offered a free filmmaking class at the first school to reopen in New Orleans. The students responded with such passion that the film "Wade in the Water" was unexpectedly created. This film is a composite of over 200 hours of the students' footage, creating a portrait of New Orleans from the perspective of the children who survived the worst of the storm and now live in the notoriously violent neighborhood of Central City. "Wade in the Water" recalls the universal experience of middle school, offers a glimpse of family life from within FEMA trailers and flooded homes and is constantly illuminated by the thoughts, secrets, fears and dreams of its student filmmakers. Because of the students' dedication to documenting their environment, "Wade in the Water" offers a intimate and disturbing impression of adolescent life in the aftermath of a continuing disaster.

Black Men of Labor New Orleans
For the past 14 years, the Black Men Of Labor New Orleans (BMOL) has successfully served the people of Louisiana in the area of arts & culture and housing. They developed the Building Minds of Leaders Program in 2005 which provides African-American males 8 - 18 years old with training in traditional jazz music in conjunction with career development and mentoring. The BMOL has reached out to more than 15,000 male and female youth in mentoring and educating them about their self-worth and the contributions African-Americans have contributed to the building of New Orleans as well as America.

Black Men United for Change Justice and Equity
Black Men United for Change Justice and Equity (BMUFC) is a local grassroots intergenerational organization of African American who are fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, and primarily native New Orleanians interested in organizing and advocating on behalf black men and boys in post-Katrina New Orleans. BMUFC's core membership is approximately 25 to 35 men aging between early twenties to mid forties. It's mission is to educate, motivate, and advocate for African American men while helping them become self-sufficient for themselves, their families and their community.

Center for Environmental & Economic Justice, Inc.
The Center for Environmental & Economic Justice, Inc. (CEEJ) is a nonprofit, community-based organization that was founded in 1989 (formerly UJAMAA Community Services, Inc.). CEEJ's objectives include organizing grassroots community people and other community-based organizations to affect public policy on socio-economic development issues and environmental justice concerns that are germane to people of color and other ethnicities impacted by injustices. Also, CEEJ is working to eliminate environmental health hazards and to promote economic sustainability through community education and hazard control training, and by engaging in social justice issues that affect African Americans and other impacted ethnicities in Mississippi.

Citizen Engagement Laboratory
The Citizen Engagement Laboratory (CEL) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization formed to experiment and innovate in the field of digital cisten engagement, to advance the science of turning moments of awareness into movements for change. The CEL explores and innovates the use of technology and digital media to inform citizens, encourage activism, and create leaders of future scoial change efforts.

Coastal Women for Change
The mission of Coastal Women for Change (CWC) is to make a difference in our communities through securing and revitalizing local neighborhoods. CWC does this by ensuring that the communities have adequate information in a timely manner so as to both influence and make informed decisions about the recovery process and community development, now and in the future.

Critical Resistance-New Orleans
Critical Resistance (CR) seeks to build an international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex. In addressing the concerns of over-incarceration, CR organizes communities to re-think the essential elements of true security such as food, shelter, and freedom.

Desire Street Ministries
Desire Street Ministries exists to revitalize impoverished neighborhoods through spiritual and community development. Everything they do is based on two core values: their incarnational philosophy of ministry means that the leaders of their replication works choose to live in the neighborhoods they serve, seeking transformation from the inside out.; their commitment to indigenous leadership development means that they seek to equip and empower local leaders to continue transforming their neighborhoods.

East Biloxi Coordination, Relief and Redevelopment Agency
The East Biloxi Coordination, Relief and Redevelopment Agency was established within days of Hurricane Katrina with a mission to meet the needs of local residents for immediate relief and support. Currently, the agency delivers invaluable services to the thousands of East Biloxi residents who lost their homes and jobs in the disaster. This work includes the creation of a community plan for housing redevelopment in East Biloxi, housing repairs, and the establishment of a community development corporation to engage in housing construction.

Efforts of Grace, Inc.
Efforts of Grace/the Ashé Cultural Arts Center accomplishes its mission by presenting and producing cultural and art programs and events through the creation of partnerships and collaborations that bring the forces of community development, culturalist and artist support together.

Elsewhere Films
Brooklyn, NY-based Elsewhere Films is run by veteran documentary filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal and is dedicated to the development, production and distribution of films that entertain, engage and enlighten diverse audiences and support progressive social and political change. Elsewhere’s primary focus currently is an audience engagement campaign around its Academy Award nominated film Trouble The Water, building partnerships with national and grassroots faith-based, advocacy and service-based groups working on racial and economic justice, sustainable and equitable development and youth empowerment.

Emmitt Spurlock Memorial Foundation, Inc.
In partnership with faith-based organizations, the Emmitt Spurlock Memorial Foundation provides technical assistance to disaster relief recipients, identifies shelters, provides advocacy to displaced persons, and works with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in establishing the capacity to process applications at church sites.

Families & Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children
FFLIC engages in education, community building and leadership development through strategically chosen campaigns that empower individuals, families and communities to transform the current juvenile justice system and institutions negatively affecting Black children and youth within the context of rebuilding the Gulf Coast.

Focusing Our Community Upon Sustainability
The mission of FOCUS is to enrich and empower the residents and city of Moss Point by serving as a support system during the redevelopment of the city that was severely impacted by Hurricane Katrina. FOCUS will help the Moss Point community grow by developing community services and programs such as recreation, cultural programs, job training, character building, and workforce investment specifically designed to address the most urgent needs of citizens.

Grace Harbor Christian Ministries
GHCM is committed to building a multi-purpose community center for the east and west banks of Lower Plaquemines Parish focused on economic and black leadership development. GHCM is a local leader and voice in influencing local recovery and rebuilding efforts for low and moderate income citizens.

Gulf Coast Funders for Equity
The mission of the Gulf Coast Funders for Equity (GCFE) is to promote a just, equitable and sustainable rebuilding of the Gulf Coast region in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The GCFE is a collection of more than a dozen public and private foundations as well as networks of individual donors committed to equitable rebuilding along the Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama Gulf Coast with a core leadership of thirty.

Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools (Rethink)
The mission of Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools (Rethink) is to elevate the voices of our city's young people so they can influence policy-making about public education and have an impact on the historic decision-making process taking place in the city. In January 2006, a collaboration of New Orleans community organizers, artists, architects and media experts began organizing Rethink. The goal was to enable middle school youth whose lives had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina to play a major role in reshaping and resurrecting their public schools.

Lafayette Restoration Center
The Lafayette Restoration Center (LRC) is a faith-based nonprofit corporation that currently operates one mental health program for Katrina/Rita survivors. LRC offers mental health counseling by credentialed social workers, and pastoral care.

Louisiana Community Reinvestment Coalition
The mission of the Louisiana Community Reinvestment Coalition (LCRC) is to promote community and economic development and serve as advocates to prevent predatory lending, improve access to credit for low-to-moderate income residents and enhance affordable housing development, small business lending and general economic development toward asset building and wealth creation for all citizens in Louisiana.

Miami Workers Center
The Miami Workers Center, based in the Liberty City area of Miami and founded in 1999 as a volunteer organization, helps working class people build grassroots organizations and develop their leadership capacity through aggressive community organizing campaigns and education programs. The Center also actively builds coalitions and enters alliances to amplify progressive power and win racial, community, social, and economic justice.

Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative
The Mississippi Low Income Child Care Initiative (MLCCI) is a statewide organization of child-care providers, parents, and community leaders with a three-fold mission to: 1) enhance the quality of child development experiences for poor children in MS; 2) advocate for improved child care policies and greater public investment in child care subsidy programs for poor working families; and 3) build a strong, grassroots constituency for poor children and their families. )MLCCI was founded in 1998 at a state-wide gathering of over 100 low-income parents, child care providers, and community leaders who came together - despite fear of retaliation - to address poor families' unmet need for child care by setting and agenda for reform and calling for increased funding in the child care subsidy program. Their constituency is overwhelmingly African American: low-income families, mostly headed by women, as well as the child care providers who serve them.

Mississippi State Conference NAACP
The Mission of the NAACP of Mississippi is to ensure the political, educational, social and economic equality of rights of all persons. With more than 10,000 members and strong partnerships with local and statewide organizations, the NAACP has been instrumental in positively affecting the adoption and implementation of state priorities from housing and Community Development Block Grants to employment and overall Gulf Coast rebuilding.

Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans, Inc.
The mission of Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) is to revitalize New Orleans neighborhoods by increasing the number of homeowners and reducing the number of substandard or vacant houses through renovation into sustainable and productive homeownership. In addition to its citywide efforts, NHS is engaged in comprehensive community development within targeted neighborhoods to improve the quality of life and promote commercial redevelopment. "Safe Streets/Strong Communities (Safe Streets) seeks to reform the New Orleans Police Department, the Orleans Parish jail system, and the Orleans Parish Criminal Court System in order to achieve the vision of a true public safety system, one that creates safe streets and strong communities for everyone regardless of race or economic status."

New Orleans Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now
New Orleans Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) is a membership-based community organizing effort committed to making New Orleans a better place to live. As a leader in the rebuilding of New Orleans post the breaking of the levees, New Orleans ACORN has taken leadership on such issues as affordable housing, insurance pricing, living wages, lead poisoning prevention, and voting rights.

New Orleans Re-Think Project
The New Orleans Re-Think Project, organized by education advocates, brings youth voices into evaluating and shaping the future of New Orleans' schools. Re-Think is designed to help low-income young people whose lives have been devastated by Katrina to reframe the stories they tell about who they are and who they will become, and to develop the insight, vision, and voice to move from being 'powerless victim' to resilient, capable achievers and leaders.

New Orleans Women's Health Clinic
The New Orleans Women's Health Clinic (NOWHC) is a grassroots community-based non-profit women's health clinic located in the historic Treme Community - one of the oldest communities of free people of color in the U.S. The mission of NOWHC is to equip marginalized and underserved women with the means to control and care for their own bodies, sexuality, reproduction, health trhough a holistic, community-centered well women approach to health care which integrates sexual health and reproductive justice.

New Orleans Workers' Center for Racial Justice
The New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice strives to organize workers across the color line to fight for a just reconstruction of New Orleans and surrounding areas; to advance racial justice; and to build a city that protects human, civil, and immigrant rights. The Workers’ Center is dedicated to: (1) organizing workers across race and industry; (2) advancing racial justice; (3) building grassroots worker leadership, power and participation; (4) forging powerful multiracial alliances; and (5) fighting for a just reconstruction.

Philanthropy New York (formerly New York Regional Association of Grantmakers, Inc.)
Philanthropy New York is the nonprofit membership organization of and for philanthropy in the New York metropolitan area. They strengthen philanthropy by offering programs and resources that support effective and strategic grantmaking and that facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing, with the goal of communicating the value of the philanthropic sector in our society. The mission of its Gulf Coast Recovery Task Force is to equip member institutions and other donors across the country with information and resources to most effectively respond to both the immediate and long-term needs of the communities affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita; to facilitate collaboration among NYRAG members; to share knowledge about the benefits of collaboration; and to glean recommended practices that grantmakers can apply to other natural disasters in the future.

Operation REACH, Inc.
Operation REACH is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to providing access for youth and their families to high-quality educational opportunities. Our programs are designed to foster lifelong learning and personal success in the areas of work, recreation, and community service.

Organizing in the Trenches - The Movement in Jena
Organizing in the Trenches is an organization dedicated to improving conditions in the African-American community in Jena, LA, through youth leadership development and empowerment. They envision a vibrant, healthy community with opportunities and support for every African-American child, as well as a unified commitment to resisting racism

Safe Streets/Strong Communities
"Safe Streets/Strong Communities (Safe Streets) seeks to reform the New Orleans Police Department, the Orleans Parish jail system, and the Orleans Parish Criminal Court System in order to achieve the vision of a true public safety system, one that creates safe streets and strong communities for everyone regardless of race or economic status."

Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, Inc.
The SDPC is a collection of over 1000 social justice-minded Black pastors who are committed to building national advocacy partnerships and amplifying the voices of families displaced by the Hurricanes. Specifically, SDPC is committed to putting a face of humanity on the disaster, breaking barriers of silence and building bridges for advocacy. The organization’s annual conference will take place in New Orleans in February 2007 which will bring resources to the region.

Social Justice Leadership
The mission of Social Justice Leadership is to help usher in the transformation to a just society by catalyzing a new generation of individuals and organizations in the social justice movement. As articulated in its theory of social change, SJL hopes to assemble the elements for a new model of social justice organization: a values-driven and skillful leadership that understands the significance of reflective practice, a culture of organizational performance that is uncompromising on results, and a perspective toward movement-building that is strategic and long-term in its outlook.

Southern Mutual Help Association, Inc.
Southern Mutual Help Association (SMHA) helps people develop strong, healthy, prosperous rural communities in Louisiana. Their special focus is with distressed rural communities whose livelihoods are interdependent with their land and waters. SMHA primarily works with agricultural and pervasively poor communities, women and people of color. They help build rural communities through people's growth in their own empowerment and the just management of resources. Southern Mutual is playing a key role in the recovery and long-term development of hurricane-ravaged areas of South Louisiana ravaged through its Rural Recovery Response.

STEPS Coalition
In support of a fair, just, and sustainable recovery in South Mississippi, the STEPS Coalition is dedicated to the following five goals: (1) affordable housing, (2) equitable economic development, (3) environmental justice, (4) preservation of cultural and historic sites reflecting the African American and minority experience and, (5) civil rights and social justice. This new collaborative advocacy effort was started with seed funding from The Twenty-First Century Foundation and Oxfam America.

The Louisiana Justice Institute
The Louisiana Justice Institute (LJI) is a nonprofit civil rights legal advocacy organization, devoted to fostering social justice campaigns across Louisiana for communities of color and for impoverished communities. LJI is responsive to a specific and urgent need to resurrect capacity for statewide, systemic, legal advocacy on behalf of those most in need of assistance -- Louisiana's minority and poor residents.

The Lower Ninth Ward Neighborhood empowerment Network Association
The Lower Ninth Ward Neighborhood Empowerment Network Association (NENA) is a resident-organized and -controlled community development organization formed in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. NENA is working to organize community residents, both those who have returned to the neighborhood and those who are still displaced; to design and implement projects and programs in economic development, employment, education, and housing; and to advocate for the future of the community.

Tides, Inc.
Tides was established by Tides Foundation, Tides Center and Tides Shared Spaces to collaborate on programmatic strategies and operations. Tides strengthens the progressive movement through leading-edge thinking and technology, and efficient infrastructural services. Each Tides founding organization pursues a distinct yet related strategy to promote the Tides mission. Tides Foundation works with donors to increase and organize resources for positive social change. Tides Center is sponsor to nearly 200 projects nationwide working to advance progressive social change. Tides Shared Spaces develops and manages sustainable workspace for nonprofits, providing space, community, and a NonprofitCenters model for the sector. The organizations collaborate as partners sharing ideas, technical systems and an office complex to increase their operational efficiencies.

Youth Empowerment Project
The Youth Empowerment Project (YEP), born out of The Post Disposition Project (PDP), is a component of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana that has been in existence since the summer of 2001. YEP has been dedicated to securing the release of hundreds of incarcerated youth and providing them with aftercare support and monitoring services. With the recent juvenile justice reforms in Louisiana, the success of PDP, and the acknowledgement by PDP staff that there is a substantial need for more intensive aftercare services for youth exiting secure care, the idea for YEP was developed.

Zion Travelers Cooperative Center, Inc.
Zion Travelers Cooperative Center Inc. (ZTCC) is a faith-based community organization created after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita to physically, mentally, and spiritually rebuild the southern east bank of Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana. Founded by Zion Travelers Baptist Church with the assistance of the People's Institute for Survival & Beyond, and against the wishes of the Plaquemines Parish government, ZTCC started relief work for displaced residents in the east bank and remains the only organization doing so.

As we continue our grantmaking in the region, 21CF will stay true to its vision of equity and racial justice in the Gulf. And with your help, we will expand the impact of this strategy.

Please give generously—and please ACT NOW!

To join our strategy for long-term investment in Black communities, or to learn more, email Erica Waples, Donor Services Officer, at ewaples@21cf.org.

GOAL grantees

Click here to see GOAL grantees for 2007
Click here to see GOAL grantees for 2006

After the Deluge: Fighting the Impacts of Katrina and Rita
A Report from Twenty-First Century Foundation
January 2007
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