We Are Long Island Organizing Hub Administrator - Hauppauge, United States - Women's Diversity Network

Description

Long Island:
A National Bellwether

Long Island is currently experiencing rapid demographic change.

The 2020 Census indicated that close to 40 percent of Long Islanders now identify as non-white or Latino/Hispanic, representing an increase of nearly ten percent from the prior census.

Long Island is predicted to become a "majority minority" area a full decade prior to the rest of the country.

Often, Long Island serves as a bellwether for the issues that will face other areas of the country.

For example, the influx of unaccompanied child immigrants from Central American countries and the resulting cooperation between schools, local law enforcement, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement appeared in Long Island communities relatively early.

Similarly, the "Save Our Schools" campaign, an anti-equity effort that targets Critical Race Theory at the local school board level, relying on misinformation, is widespread in the region.

Despite the significant BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) population, 90 percent of elected officials identify as white; elected leadership do not reflect the communities they serve.

Due to both historic redlining and current policies, neighborhoods and schools remain racially segregated. The effects of systemic racism are far-reaching in the region.

About the Good Neighbors Initiative of the Long Island Community Foundation

The Good Neighbors Initiative (GNI) of the Long Island Community Foundation (LICF) is the first participatory grantmaking venture for the region.

Both national and local funders provided financial support and creativity to shape the Good Neighbors Initiative, and immediately shifted decision making power to community leaders.

The foundation of any successful people-power building initiative contains an amalgamation of diverse voices from the community.

The Good Neighbors Initiative provides a platform for collaborative leadership from a cross-issue group of regional Long Island leaders; these leaders guide a participatory grantmaking process towards long-term change.

GNI focuses on structural change to address the racism, transphobia, and xenophobia that plague Long Island and limit opportunities for its residents.

By working together across issues, Long Island's diverse community leaders are strengthening their capacity to advance equity, justice, and the right to fair representation.

GNI believes that successful regional, state, national policy, and culture change depend on "bottom-up" engagement with, and investments in, the capacity, interconnectivity, and sustainability of local grassroots groups, particularly in BIPOC communities and other communities that are underrepresented in leadership roles.

Such power building work -especially in a place as racially segregated, politically fragmented, and geographically diverse as Long Island - depends on building coalitions across identity groups and regions.

In 2020, GNI convened a participatory grantmaking Peer Group to guide grantmaking decisions.

This group further developed the vision and direction for this work and made its first round of grants in 2022.

The GNI Peer Group established and funded a Collaborative made up of Long Island grassroots and community groups representing a broad constituency.

Currently, the Collaborative is developing an aligned narrative that will provide a foundation for more deeply aligned organizing and power-building on Long Island in 2024 and well beyond.

Ultimately, this will create a deep bench of leadership for long-term action on local and statewide issues, both proactive and responsive.

GNI Framework

Our Why

• The mission of the GNI is to provide grants aimed at improving community organizing capacity on Long Island through participatory grantmaking.

Our What

• The GNI funds infrastructure, leadership development, organizational capacity, and training initiatives.

Our How

• We...

- award grants to organizations with a local presence.
- hold space for collaboration and community input.
- fund the development and sustainability of an organizing hub.
- offer shared tools, shared services, shared learning, and partnership opportunities.

About the We Are Long Island Hub

Given this theory of practice and building on the work of the GNI, the We Are Long Island

Organizing Hub was launched in January 2024 as a direct response to community partners

feedback on the need for a centralized locally powered place for organizing.

The We Are Long Island Organizing Hub has 17 original founding members who are all part of the fiber of Long Island and have collectively worked to develop the Hub as a solution to the longstanding problems organizers have faced on Long Island.

They have the creativity, knowledge, and experience to find the best solutions for their own and intertwined communities. Together, these 17 organizations have created a narrative of a shared vision and values which is the foundation of the We Are Long Island Organizing Hub and work moving