Stories
For Love of Humankind: A Call to Action for Southern Philanthropy
We are issuing a clarion call to Southern philanthropic organizations to respond to the manic drumbeat of anti-immigrant rhetoric and cruelty coming from the White House. This month began with a mass shooting targeting the Latinx community. Days later, massive raids tore apart hundreds of...
Channeling Anguish into Action
Over the weekend, Americans watched in horror as yet another gunman expressing hatred toward immigrants targeted Latinx people in Texas, killing 22 people and wounding dozens more. Attacks by men touting white supremacist ideology have surged in recent years, and many believe racist rhetoric...
Our Partners are Steadfast: MRBF's Statement on Supreme Court Rulings
The board and staff of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation are relieved the Supreme Court blocked the administration’s plan to place a citizenship question on the 2020 census. As we stated when we signed an amicus brief to the court in April, the question would have depressed response rates...
Community Economic Development in South Carolina: Our History, Our Progress, Our Future
In 1994, the South Carolina Association of Community Development Corporations was established by four local community development corporations to advance the interests of their industry. But the state’s community economic development industry truly got its start when residents rallied to help each other rebuild after devastation. The organization has since renamed itself South Carolina...
Community Economic Development is Social Justice at Work
All too often, economic development excludes community members from the decisions affecting where they live, strains local resources and siphons financial returns to outside developers with no accountability to the community. There is a better way, one that provides communities with the infrastructure and support they need to access capital, address their needs, grow thriving businesses, build...
Building, Sharing and Speaking Truth to Power
With her retirement on the horizon, MRBF Deputy Director Gladys Washington delivered the keynote address to the Greater New Orleans Funders Network 's annual convening on October 22, 2019, which happened to be her birthday. Her remarks are as follows:
Thank you for having me here today for this convening of visionaries working toward a better Louisiana. The unity among...
Creating new opportunity for communities with innovative lending
This article originally appeared as a blog post by Virginia Community Capital.
In 2016, Fahe, a regional Network, financial intermediary, and CDFI, received $50 million in loan awards from the USDA Community Facilities Relending Program to pursue its mission: ending persistent poverty in Appalachia. Among its numerous initiatives, Fahe sought to build several...
MRBF opposes LGBTQ religious exemption to equal opportunity clause
The administration is poised to make it easier for employers to discriminate against LGBTQ people, those seeking reproductive care and women. The Department of Labor has proposed a new rule to grant federal contractors a broad religious exemption to the equal opportunity clause, which would put more than 11.3 million Americans who already suffer from high rates of poverty and workplace...
