"We must act boldly, and we must do it now": An interview with Vanessa Daniel
Vanessa Daniel, Executive Director of the Groundswell Fund
Pronouns: She/Her
Digital: Groundswell Fund, Groundswell Action Fund
Social: @vanessapdaniel, @pwr2thappl
A nonprofit that everyone should give to: Third Wave Fund
ReproJobs: Many foundations are not very public about their personnel policies or grantmaking processes. What led you to address publicly the internal and external changes you made at Groundswell in response to COVID-19?
Vanessa Daniel: Using our voice to transform philanthropy is core to our mission at Groundswell. We are proud to join the growing chorus of social justice funders who are publicly shifting their practices in ways that are necessary to respect the humanity of their staff and grantee partners during this pandemic.
Because we are a foundation primarily led by and supporting women of color and transgender people of color—focusing on Black women, Indigenous women, and Trans women of color, the same communities disproportionately impacted by Covid-19—we must use our platform to speak out for what our people need from philanthropy.
ReproJobs: What kinds of responses did you receive to your piece from grantees, foundations, and other RH/RR/RJ movement folks?
Vanessa Daniel: One of the first emails I received to our Covid-19 response statement was a message from a grantee saying, "OMG THIS IS WHY WE LOVE Y'ALL!!!!! THANK YOU!" That has been the general theme of the response from grantee partners and foundation colleagues alike. Our job is to have the back of our grantees and the communities they support, and that means being nimble enough to respond and pivot when needed.
ReproJobs: It's hard to believe that so much has changed since March 30, when you published the Medium piece. For one thing, it seems like the epidemic is here to stay, at least for the foreseeable future. What, if any, additional changes have you made or do you anticipate making for Groundswell staff and grantees to adjust to this new reality?
Vanessa Daniel: We have enacted a few changes in recent weeks in addition to the changes outlined in our public statement. We have moved over $800,000 in COVID-19 relief grants to the field and plan to reach $1.1 million this summer.
Grants are supporting organizations like:
United for Respect to organize Amazon and Walmart workers across the country;
Act for Women and Girls to campaign for rent forgiveness in Visalia, CA;
Trans Queer Pueblo to push for the release of queer and trans people from immigration detention centers in AZ; and the
Yellowhammer Fund, an Alabama-based abortion fund who is joining forces with the transgender-led TKO (The Knights and Orchids Society) to support reproductive health care access and mutual aid for people in AL, MS, and the FL panhandle.
In addition to grants, we have provided webinar trainings on digital organizing and begun revamping our training curriculum to support organizing groups with the shift to virtual and digital.
Internally, we have right-sized work-plans across the foundation to match what staff can sustainably do while also homeschooling their children, caring for sick loved ones, and functioning with no childcare. We have provided funds for our New York-based staff (many of whom have been listening to ambulance sirens around the clock for weeks) to relocate until the intensity of the pandemic calms down. And we have announced a week-long organizational closure this summer to give our full team more time off to rejuvenate and be with their families.
ReproJobs: What suggestions do you have for other reproductive health, rights, and justice funders in terms of shifting their approach to grantmaking right now?
Vanessa Daniel: COVID-19 is not a stand-alone event. It signals more tumultuous times ahead as the world faces the worsening impacts of climate change, historic wealth inequality, and rising authoritarianism. The time for timidity has passed. The time for gradualism has passed. Any funder who is serious about saving lives and the planet must act boldly, and they must do it now.
Durable grassroots power and participatory democracy are absolute requirements for human survival and won through year-round grassroots organizing, including voter engagement led by the most impacted communities. Fund it as our lives depended on it because they do.
We interviewed three RH/RR/RJ Executive Directors about the changes they made to support their staff during the pandemic. We asked them how foundations might be supportive, and they suggested much of what you've described -- additional general operating support, limited applications/reporting requirements, and increased support for organizational infrastructure. What do you think it might take to move foundations to act on these requests?
Vanessa Daniel: The more foundations that come out publicly to endorse changes like these and reach out to organize their peers, the more political space and social imperative there will be for others to follow suit.
I don't just mean the public foundations that tend to have more leadership from working-class people and women of color who push philanthropy to do the right thing, but family foundations, large private foundations, prominent donors, and trustees. We've seen some private foundations like the Libra Foundation making these kinds of bold, public moves to increase funding to grantees in light of the pandemic, and this is so important!
ReproJobs: In your piece, you quote racial justice activist Grace Lee Boggs: “The only way to survive is by taking care of one another.” Are there other activists whose work and/or words you're carrying with you during this time?
Vanessa Daniel: Covid-19 has exposed a far more dangerous giant than the virus itself; it has laid bare a toxic way of life that has brought humanity to the brink.
For too long, greed and wasteful overconsumption have prevailed over generosity and moderation. Distraction and denial have replaced presence and truth-telling. A fixation on individualism has drowned out the sense of collective well-being.
Viruses, scientists predict, are just one of the many apocalyptic effects that accompany climate change, which we are continuing to barrel towards. There is no comfortable shortcut; no scenario in which the giant of the status quo lives and humanity survives. We must act boldly to take it down by radically changing our way of life and coming back into balance and our right relationship with the planet and with each other. In the words of Executive Director Maria Poblet of Grassroots Policy Project:
“don’t let them scare you
I’ve seen bigger giants fall
why not this one, now”