Stories

Appalachia

  • Investing our Endowment with a Focus on Racial Justice

    This article appeared in ImpactAlpha on August 13, 2020.

    The disproportionate harms to Black Americans wrought by COVID and those wrought by police brutality are symptoms of the same disease: racism hardwired into our political, economic, social and cultural systems.

    What Black and Latinx communities are experiencing is the culmination of four centuries of laws,...

    Wayne Lee-Sing, Unsplash
  • Combining Forces to Help Southerners Weather the Pandemic

    Foundations of all sizes are thinking creatively about ways to address the staggering implications of the COVID-19 crisis through our nonprofit partners. For the Babcock Foundation, an opportunity presented itself last month when our friends at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation invited us to submit a simple application for a $4 million “expenditure responsibility grant” to redeploy to...

    COVID testing in Georgia
  • Building a Bigger Table: COVID Response Funds Across the South

    “If you are more fortunate than others, build a longer table, not a taller fence.” - Unknown

    While it has been said COVID19 doesn’t discriminate – anyone from any background can be affected by the virus – this sentiment doesn’t tell the whole story. The virus has and will continue to disproportionately affect our most marginalized communities. The South is home to uniquely...

  • Long-Term Trust Sparks Quick, Meaningful Action

    The COVID crisis underscores the need to address short-term and long-term emergencies like the virus's disproportionate impacts caused by centuries of structural racism , and the very real threat to our democracy in this critical election and census year.

    Philanthropy can and should play a major role by meeting the immediate crisis and supporting long-term power building through...

  • The Fierce Urgency of Now

    “We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late.” - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Riverside Church, 1967

    If there is any hope for an equitable recovery from COVID-19, policy and funding decisions must be swift and...