Advocates increase funding for housing and homeless services:
WHAT: All forms of housing assistance—vouchers, rapid rehousing, supportive housing and affordable housing—are key to ending homelessness.
HOW: We invest in advocacy to increase public funding for homeless and extremely low income people.
- Focus on budget. We gave grants to DC Fiscal Policy Institute, the Fair Budget Coalition and Miriam’s Kitchen to advocate for increased resources for the most vulnerable residents in DC. These efforts, together with The Way Home Campaign, successfully increased funding for permanent supportive housing and other types of affordable housing. $100 million went into the DC Housing Production Trust Fund to create affordable housing and, for the first time, DC dedicated $10 million to preserving affordable housing.
Advocates anticipate and address roadblocks:
WHAT: Government programs that protect families should be championed.
HOW: We invest in organizations that fight efforts to weaken and end protections.
- Fund proactively. Food stamps (SNAP) are the primary bulwark against hunger in the United States, and provide necessary supplements that help families stay housed. SNAP serves millions of people across the country and promotes long-term health and well-being, especially in children. Our grant to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities helps educate communities and policymakers around the country in anticipation of proposed harmful cuts to this program.
Campaign strategy pays off:
WHAT: A centralized campaign—The 8th Amendment Project—works to abolish the death penalty.
HOW: We invest in advocacy, education, training, and grass roots organizing to support the campaign goal.
- Fund the trainers. We support the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation and the Florida Center for Capital Representation to provide expert training to death penalty lawyers and mitigators in order to reduce death sentences. Death sentences are down dramatically across the country—39 in 2013, 35 in 2014, 28 in 2015, and 20 in 2016.
- Stop the poison, expand the voices. We invest in Reprieve US’s Stop Lethal Injection Project, which has ended the supply of lethal injection drugs to the United States and debunked the “humane execution” myth. To expand the voices against capital punishment, we support grassroots organizing by the Catholic Mobilizing Network and others.
- Reverse the policy. With colleague funders, we invested in statewide campaigns that abolished the death penalty in five states: New Mexico, Illinois, Connecticut, Delaware [abolished by the court], and Maryland. These states joined New Jersey and New York as states that have abolished since 2007.