Child poverty, racial injustice, economic oppression of trans people and police misconduct. These are just some of the deeply entrenched problems that the current cohort of Rosenberg Foundation Leading Edge fellows plan to tackle.
The Leading Edge fellowship was created in 2016, in part through the work of Lateefah Simon, a MacArthur Fellowship awardee and staffer at Rosenberg at the time. The fellowship aims “to seed, incubate and accelerate bold ideas from progressive leaders in California,” said Kendra Fox-Davis, chief program officer at the Rosenberg Foundation.
In partnership with the Hellman Foundation and with support from the Meadow Fund, the Akonadi Foundation (where Simon is now president), the California Wellness Foundation and the Heising-Simons Foundation, the fellowship provides social justice leaders with $250,000 in general, unrestricted support over three years.
“One of the really important, overarching approaches to the fellowship is that we do strive to have it reflect trust-based philanthropic practices,” Fox-Davis said. “Unrestricted [funds] means exactly that. That is their funding to use as they see fit to best advance their work.”
Fellows also receive technical assistance with program development, fundraising and strategic communications as well as executive coaching, trainings and retreats. Fox-Davis says that the fellowship has always placed importance on the well-being of fellows. Since the current cohort—Leading Edge calls them a “formation”—has faced unprecedented challenges during COVID, she sees that wellness aspect as even more critical than before.
“We are really focused on balancing that work piece with the rest and reflection piece. So we also use the retreats as just an opportunity for these fellows to have time to relax and reflect on the work that they’ve been doing and just be loved on, basically,” Fox-Davis said. “We try to pack in all kinds of goodies and treats and massages and all of the types of things that you and I want to experience when we go somewhere to rest and recuperate.”
A commitment to equity
The philosophy behind Leading Edge is in keeping with the mission of the Rosenberg Foundation. Created in 1935 through a bequest from California business leader Max L. Rosenberg, it is “committed to equity” and aims to ensure that “every person in California has an equal opportunity to participate fully in the state’s economic, social and political life.”
To date, the foundation has made more than 3,000 grants totaling nearly $85 million to regional, state and national organizations advocating for social and economic justice in California. In addition to its Leading Edge funding, Rosenberg also makes grants for justice and public safety, immigrant and workers’ rights, and civic engagement.
To qualify for the Leading Edge Fellowship, fellows must be nominated by their colleagues. Competition is stiff, and the whittling-down process typically takes about nine months. Out of 100 nominees, nine were chosen for the 2022–2024 formation. Most fellows are mid-career and have already shown significant promise in the field. This is the third group of fellows so far. Fox-Davis says the relatively small group enables each fellow to receive enough money and the individual attention that the fellowship emphasizes.
“We are looking for leaders that do have a track record, but who want to take risks and want to experiment. They’re tackling some of the most challenging problems in our society. We’re looking for innovators in the social justice space,” she said.
Decriminalizing poverty
One of those innovators is Christina “Krea” Gomez, who envisions replacing the current youth justice system in California, which she sees as punitive and dehumanizing.
As a young woman, Gomez was homeless and became involved with the youth justice system. She credits the San Francisco-based Young Women’s Freedom Center with “saving her life.” Founded in 1993, the organization supports and emboldens cis and trans young women, trans young men, and gender-expansive young people whose lives are disproportionately effected by poverty, systemic racism, sexism, homophobia and mass incarceration. The Freedom Center, by the way, is also where Leading Edge founder and Akonadi Foundation President Lateefah Simon found help and eventually launched her career.
Gomez, now aged 45, has returned to the Young Women’s Freedom Center as a staff member. One of her proudest achievements there was working with the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to draft legislation that shut down Juvenile Hall, San Francisco’s juvenile prison.
While Gomez says assisting young, incarcerated individuals is critical, she recognizes that “it’s just a Band-Aid approach if you don’t get to the core of what actually is impacting them negatively.” Her Leading Edge project aims to address the myriad issues affecting poor youth and families in California, decreasing the likelihood that they will become involved in “unhealthy activities” that often lead to incarceration.
“At the Young Women’s Freedom Center, we conducted listening sessions to learn about what the members of its community needed,” Gomez said. “We learned that much of what [young people] were being arrested for were things that were a result of being poor. [For example], they would take cell phones and resell them.”
Gomez stresses that the overwhelming wealth gap in San Francisco necessitates “a new approach to addressing the needs of young people and their families, particularly poor Black and brown families.”
One way Gomez hopes to prevent incarceration among young people of color is by “getting the systems to talk to each other.” Frequently, young people are involved not only in the youth justice system, but also in the foster care, child welfare and homelessness systems, she said. “Sometimes, services were duplicated, there were gaps in services, and young people and their families weren’t getting what they needed, which resulted in young people continuing to funnel through the system.”
Through her project, Gomez hopes to eliminate these inefficiencies by providing mentors who, like herself, have experience in the youth justice system and can identify with the problems facing young people of color.
“The mentors will help them navigate the whole process and be able to link them to basic programming that is helpful and necessary for them,” Gomez said. She likens the mentors to first responders and plans for them to be well-compensated and respected “so they can do their jobs well.”
Gomez hopes to create positions for mentors who represent the communities they serve, including youth and families in the LGBTQ+ population, youth who’ve committed serious offenses, and young people who are first offenders. Gomez’ goal is “to ensure that young people don’t disappear into the system.”
Baby bonds
Shimica Gaskins, president and CEO of GRACE and End Child Poverty in California, is another Leading Edge fellow in the 2022–2024 formation. Her vision focuses on “eradicating child poverty in California.” It’s a goal that is near and dear to Gaskins’ heart.
“I was a child who grew up in deep poverty, in South Carolina, where my parents worked really, really hard, and they worked multiple jobs,” said Gaskins, 41. “We oftentimes had to rely on social service programs to get by, and I’m really a product of what it looks like to invest in children in our country at an early age.”
Gaskins, an attorney, acknowledges that her goal isn’t new. But she believes the establishment of a baby bonds system in California is one way to change the status quo.
Last year, Connecticut became the first state to create government-funded baby bonds or trusts for children from low-income families. It works like this: When a child whose birth was financed by Medicaid is born, Connecticut’s government invests $3,200 in a baby bond account for the child. The money accrues interest and when the child reaches the age of 18, they can use the funds to finance their education, buy a home, start a business or save for retirement.
“In California, we have the largest number of children living in poverty—but also the highest wealth, more billionaires than anywhere else,” Gaskins said. “And we have a state coffer that continues to grow every year, where we have billions of dollars of surplus. So the goal really is to take those tax revenues that we’ve grown and really invest them for the future, for children, particularly those children who we know have been, you know, divested from in their communities and their families.”
Gaskins and her organization are currently working on a policy proposal for the California legislature, the Hope, Opportunity, Perseverance, and Empowerment (HOPE) for Children Act of 2022 (or SB 854). The bill makes children who lost a parent or primary caregiver to COVID, and eligible children in the foster care system, the first groups to benefit from the bonds.
“There’s still a lot of education that we need to do around the conversation on poverty and wealth inequality,” Gaskins said. “I’m excited that I get to be a part of that in a small way through this project. This project, I think, will be able to grow a generation of children who have hope that they have this nest egg to help them be successful in the future.”