 Not too long ago HIPPS president and CEO who I think is right there taking a picture of me right now had a conversation with the author Carmen Rita Wong and Carmen said something that has stuck with me for I think at least a month and she said we can't achieve our way out of the color of our skin in a racist society and so I have been sitting with that for a while now and Was thinking about what we were going to talk about today And quite frankly this is the reality that we have to sit in right now and especially With everything that's been going on over the past few years and then thinking about the midterms that are coming up And I know that a lot of people in this room And especially our partners and allies with Hispanics and philanthropy have been thinking about the different ways that the American dream simply wasn't designed to apply to them and The few people who are able to achieve this idea of success have really had to buy into a system that isn't for us so What we've seen in the past couple of years legally is that a lot of these rights that we have fought so hard for that our Ancestors fought so hard for are being systematically taken away from us and then taking this American dream and making it more and more narrow At this point many of us I know me personally my family we are overwhelmed We're overwhelmed with dealing with COVID and other health issues with racist attacks on our families On our lives and just our way of being but then also to deal with attacks on our fundamental Freedoms is really putting us at a point where we have to make some very specific and difficult choices So today I'm really pleased to have Joe Scantelberry and Paul Ryan today to help us talk through some of these issues and We will have time later for all of you to come and engage with us ask us questions And and let's see how we can push some of the edges around these conversations today so Paul Actually, no Joe. I'm gonna start with you. We'll start with you So with living cities you have this ability to bring a network of donors and investors together And you're looking at both some really critical research, but also making investments. So over the past few years What has living cities learned about especially looking at the racial wealth gap? And how can those lessons be applied to think about how we invest in democracy? Good morning First let me say a little bit about living cities what it is. We are a 31-year-old philanthropic collaboration that has Actually committed itself to both financial institutions and private foundations Coming together to try to innovate and let's see how far we can go together So there's been a long history of work as we think about closing racial income and wealth gaps a couple of things We've learned first of all it requires intentionality it requires us to actually look at race explicitly and I know a lot of funders that's kind of a Uncomfortable space. I know financial institutions. That's an uncomfortable space But it's a space that actually speaks to the inequities that we see across the country. It's part of our history and in this capital Conference right where we're here talking about capital innovation. I've been watching pitches right left I mean sitting in the garden watching really in energetic conversations of really hopeful people Well part of the challenge that we have going forward as we always have to vision What is the hope that we can all exercise? So some of the things that we've learned is that through our catalyst fund Commitments, we've learned that we can drive change. We've learned from when the catalyst fund for instance that fund managers of color clearly Find and see Entrepreneurship and opportunities with people of color at a higher rate than white capital investors we've seen that the 1.3% of the 69.1 trillion that's invested in global capital assets and that 1.3% that is dedicated towards women and people of color that limited investment is Stifling it actually undermines our ability to expand opportunity and undermines our ability to actually move democracy forward and More importantly, we can talk about equitable economies and cities and at national levels and political campaigns But if we ultimately don't solve the flow of capital We won't get to where we should be. I'll stop there cuz we can go on I know that And something that I want to hold on to and come back to is this idea of hope and exercising hope because It's not just a thing. That's either there and you have it or you don't have it You have to actually practice it so let's hold on to that and come back to it a little bit later But Paul you also work with a group of donors who are specifically concerned with our civic engagement and the state of our democracy So we'd love to hear from you as well about what your donors are thinking about right now What they're most concerned about and what they're focusing on Thanks, Hilda. I'm good morning everybody So I've been at the funders committee for civic participation only since April of this year And I have prior to that 20 years of experience in the democracy movement as a lawyer and a policy expert and a nonprofit Manager and a fundraiser and I bring all of that experience to my new work in philanthropy So I've worked with philanthropists for decades and now I'm working in close partnership with philanthropists So what are they doing in this moment? First of all, they are organizing They are coming to events like this to ensure that their grant making their gift giving is in alignment They cannot be effective philanthropy cannot be siloed. There has to be collaboration between funders They're joining groups like the funders committee for civic participation So if you're a funder of democracy movement work and you're in this room today, and you're not a member of FCCP Please go to funders committee org forward slash join and check out our membership criterion and consider joining us We'd really appreciate having you You know for a long time throughout my career, I've noticed that funders really tend to like Proactive creative work. That's the type of democracy movement work They have preferred to fund as opposed to more reactive or defensive work But I think January 6th was really a wake-up call for many of us me included And including funders and philanthropists They've realized and I've come to realize that many of the institutions and practices around democracy How we do elections how we run government that we've taken for granted for decades. They're under threat today They're under very very serious threat. So I want to emphasize the importance of doing not only the proactive Creative type work, but also to really invest in the defensive work that will help defend our Democratic institutions This is done in the field on a variety of different ways I'm going to talk about two specific types of work policy public policy work and litigation and how these this defensive Important defensive work is showing up there today. So On the legislative landscape, there was a silver lining to the COVID pandemic, which is that we saw a rapid dramatic expansion of voting accessibility measures laws that made it easier to vote safely and securely either from home or Early in person with lower concentrations of voters anything to avoid big crowds long lines when the pandemic was raging I've been working for more than 20 years to try to implement some of these policy wins And we got them in very quick order when the pandemic hit. So silver lining there I'm wondering how many of you before the pandemic stood in lines to vote and in this year's election and in the last Elections recently since 2020 you've voted safely and securely from home my family my wife and I Filling out our ballots at the kitchen table and walking into a draw box two blocks from our house and I love that Accessibility I want to keep it. I want us to celebrate those wins, but be clear Those wins are under attack today because the elections did not go the way have not recent elections have not gone the way that Regressive forces authoritarian forces white supremacist forces and want them to go so we're seeing attacks on those recent expansions We're seeing attempts to roll back these new voter accessibility measures and we need to fight those and philanthropy has been helping and needs to continue helping that fight and Compounding this need to defend these recent gains is new attacks on voter voting rights We've seen an emboldened right attacking Really really basic measures with both suppression efforts things as simple as you're making it illegal to hand out water and food to people waiting in line to vote really inhumane Rollbacks or attempted rollbacks and voting rights. So that's some of the defense. We need to play on the policy front I want to talk about two pieces of litigation that are closely related the US Supreme Court This term is hearing two important elections related cases one was argued a couple weeks ago It's a redistricting case out of the state of Alabama by the name of Meryl V. Milligan And in that case the state of Alabama's Republican controlled legislature adopted a new redistricting map after the 2020 census that Created only one black majority district Out of a total of seven when numerically black voters make up more than 25 percent of voters in the state They're actually about 27 percent of the voters in Alabama at a minimum black voters should have had two Majority districts on the new state map. So this case has The plaintiff some voters and some voting rights groups challenged this new map. They won Before the lower court the three-judge federal district court and the state appealed to the US Supreme Court And there the state has argued before the Supreme Court a really really radical Concept which if they end up winning this case before the Supreme Court it will effectively gut Section two of the Voting Rights Act, which is really the last big remaining piece of the Voting Rights Act That's been on the book since the 1960s. So what's this radical argument? They are arguing that it is unconstitutional under the US Constitution to consider race at all when drawing redistricting maps even when it's done in an effort to comply with the Voting Rights Act and It's an absurd Proposition it's an absurd argument the Voting Rights Act was enacted specifically and intentionally to build voting power of long excluded communities most centrally black communities so Justice Katanji Brown Jackson made a very compelling argument or rebuttal to the state's arguments during the oral argument saying You know you want to talk originalism. Let's talk a real originalism. Let's look at the 13th 14th and 15th amendment They were all enacted. They were all ratified specifically to undo prior wrongs against black community. So Their purpose was to empower black voters and the Voting Rights Act is perfectly permissible and the consideration of race is not only permissible But necessary and required. So that's one important case We're gonna get a decision on later this year or early next year from the Supreme Court The second another elections case is out of North Carolina another case that introduces by the state's lawyers a radical argument that state courts have no power to review or declare unconstitutional or illegal laws passed by the state legislature Around elections now you may have noticed if you read the description for this event in the program It talks about separation of powers. It talks about these long-standing principles They are under attack in this case out of North Carolina Fundamentally would undermine the principles of separation of powers if the Supreme Court were to agree with the state that State courts can't consider the constitutionality of legislature past election laws. So keep your eyes out for those cases and I'm gonna I'll stop there But very important defensive work as well as offensive work to be supported by funders in this critical moment Thank you. Joe, is there anything that you wanted to add to that? Sure. Sure. So I Paul and I agreed we're both lawyers, but he was gonna do the lawyering here and lay out the legal case um When I hear what Paul just shared, which is very powerful and compelling You almost feel powerless You almost feel that if I'm not a lawyer if I'm not litigating if I'm not You know Close to supreme court clerks who could influence the conversation I guess I just have no way of moving this And it's up to a handful of people to make a decision to make things happen Um, and that's far from true Everything we have all of the inequities that we see in our society have been created Intentionally maintained and sometimes their genesis is forgotten All right, sometimes the genesis is forgotten, which is why justice Katanji Brown Jackson's Pull on original interpretation of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments are so important Right, we actually have to understand how these inequities were created And that's something that is part of all of our heritage here It's all part of the society we live in and continue to pay taxes into and support And at the same time I think about the struggles that people who were excluded All of the creativity all of the ways in which people who were excluded historically Found ways to thrive found ways to push forward and I think about cities Cities are places where we're approximate These are places where we see what another bump into one another and we all know that neighborhood We don't want to go into and what we don't realize that neighborhood was created intentionally Whether it be through red, you know, uh redlining whether it be through restrictive covenants Whether that be through the lack of investment in those communities These are things we can undo. Heather McGee and the some The some of us really speaks to that very in a very hopeful way And I think part of our challenge is that we all have to demonstrate hope in living cities We've have a network of 21 cities who have committed to closing racial income and wealth gaps And they're all trying different ways of approaching that work and we're learning from them. We're not funding at all But what we have done is we've created the space for them to look to think intentionally around racial equity To look at their data to look at how they disperse public dollars to reconsider Their housing patterns and their transportation patterns even things as fundamental as sanitation And water access some of you are familiar that water access really matters How do we get to these grand inequities the policy as you've heard? But also through our lack and our unwillingness to engage with one another around investment That's key and then and in a gathering like this where we're talking about impact investing The conversation is no longer one of well Should I make a charitable contribution to a fund manager? To a fund manager of color Should I be moved by a lynching that I happened to see on television during a pandemic when the whole world was watching? Or should I be fundamentally reconsidering my business? How I do business why I haven't found women of color as equal partners in innovation and ideas Should I reexamine why I don't see men of color and black men in particular as equal partners in work? Should I reexamine that and how do I do that? So that's a personal journey one has to take And you know the good thing is that there's google, right? I don't know any people of color. I don't know a lot about racism and indigenous people's history google. It's right there Audible it's right there. You can learn read you can do it while you're driving It's accessible. It's easy But now let's build the other part. Let's build relationship Let's connect Let's talk about and know that we're all on this learning journey together and this journey of recreating the society that we should have Is it going to happen overnight? No, it's not But if we don't begin now By the time we are a nation That is very clearly no longer a majority white nation We'll still be operating with the inequities that were created to advantage some over others and to exclude others We can begin to undo that now I think cities are a place to do that in a really really discreet and clear way Because the people and the needs are evident. They're all around us They become the grist of every election campaign. We talk about it all the time. Look what's happening in that city and the other city And frankly as cities go and their economies thrive World communities suburban communities also can prosper because it's one economy So my hope is That even as we have these struggles That we continue to think about ways to innovate together and that we build relationship together and this is very hard work because frankly there's always fear Fear of the folks coming over borders. We've had people run on that On that xenophobia specifically We have people running now on that fear specifically And we are there concerns and debates and policies to be discussed? Sure Well, but would anybody in this room feel comfortable watching children caged? I think not and yet we did And yet we did so Trying to stay hopeful But i'm also pushing us to think about what we see As not someone else's responsibility, but all of our collective responsibility. I dare say Working with the members that we have and working with the tremendous staff that I just became the CEO living cities last year We're the staff that I have We have this dynamic tension where we're in relationship trying to really think through what does a long term commitment to building equity actually look like And being comfortable with the fact that racial equity is not something we just achieved through a grant What the DEI statement or it's actually an investment in a long term process And a process of inclusion and for those of you who are profit-oriented A profitable one because the people that you engage become your co-creators your co-investors your partners and your customers Thank you so much And I want to pull this thread a little bit about the connection between cities and rural places I am from a very rural place. I grew up in this rural place And my politics do not really align with the predominant politics there, but so far it's been very civil and so it's okay but The reason why this connection is so important is because there is A sense that cities sort of control and there is a lot of tension between where I live and even Chicago Springfield the capital doesn't really it's not even a blip on the map early as far as conversation goes And so with hip what we have done with our new power building and justice program Which we call pb and j is very intentionally Use research that we had commissioned to see where our communities were growing In places where the resources weren't matching that growth And so we are working in the south in both cities but in rural places and ideally with organizations that have access to Multiple areas where our communities are bubbling up and have a presence, but don't have that access to power It also investing in the kind of work where folks can see themselves So it's not just about talking only about elections or talking only about supreme court cases Which are important, but some people can't access that right For people every day they want to talk about how does this affect my economy? How does this affect the ability for my children to go to school and be safe? How does this affect my my health you know my bodily autonomy? And so through our work what we're trying to do with a small group of folks is again like you said invest for the long term Build their capacities and their agency to feel and see themselves as part of this bigger democratic system that we're trying to build And ultimately get to a place where this idea of capital is much more integrated with with the wholeness of who we all are As people in in this geographic space. So I appreciate you making these connections Paul I want to go back to you So you are fairly new and Joe you're also fairly new, but you have a long history in in these spaces We're all No, no, no, no, no. I'm probably older than both of you But what I am saying is that you are not just people who have been living in a philanthropy pod Which I actually have been living in a philanthropy pod And so what I wanted to ask you was quite frankly We are in this particular place despite years of investment that have been done in certain ways So what are we getting wrong and what should we be doing? I'm going to share four specific areas for growth and improvement and change In how money is moved how grants and gifts are made in the democracy movement. First Movement organizations on the ground. They need multi-year general support grants not short term project specific Strings attached grants This is vitally important and this money, you know, it needs to be coming to these organizations 12 months a year every year of the election cycle not Flooding into these organizations in the six months leading up to an election And then drying up for the next 18 months that you cannot build and sustain a movement with that type of funding So multi-year general support grants number one number two funding grassroots organizing With metrics or deliverables that really accurately reflect what it takes to build power in communities So instead of incentivizing with the requirements for a grant The number of doors you knocked on the number of robocalls that were made the number of email blasts that went out the number of Contacts period That is not an effective measure for how movements are built and instead Funders need to be supporting long conversations on doorsteps not as many doors as you can knock on But a 30 minute deep canvassing type conversation where education is accomplished where relationships are built There there's some of this going on There is a very important project being funded by a collaborative of funders the democracy and power innovation fund is funding the Organizing lab at johns hopkins where they're really studying using social science approaches to study What actually works? What is working to build power in communities instead of these? tire metrics that are ineffective third There is insufficient funding of c4 activities 501 c4. This is issue advocacy and lobbying activities. This is also some actual election related work and philanthropy has long been shy about Fully utilizing the scope of activities that are perfectly permissible under tax law and other laws But they've never less shied away from it. So the funders committee at for civic participation We're doing a lot of programming to engage with funders to help them understand how they can better align their funding with these 501 c4 type activities And fourth and finally Funders need demand that groups receiving their support have truly inclusive and diverse Staffs membership board composition at every level within these organizations So to that and it's not true within the movement today There are a lot of organizations that are white led white run predominantly white culturally and not truly supportive And inclusive and diverse internally and we're not going to build a successful movement Until we have movement organizations that are truly diverse and inclusive So I want to pitch to you today. Joe mentioned at the outside He's hearing a lot of pitches today if you go to democracy pipeline.org You'll find a very brief description on a website that i've set up of a passion project of mine I need to raise two million bucks to launch this thing budget for year one is going to be two million dollars What this is is creating a Set a cohort of paid summer interns and to your fellowships to build a truly diverse and inclusive Movement or pipeline for democracy movement professionals This is across all departments that are necessary within movement organizations to make movements succeed So i'm talking about not only illegal and policy where I got my start But also the fundraising piece the communications piece everything that's required to run a democracy movement organization So democracy pipeline project Diverse and inclusive pipeline of next generation movement professionals and the final component of this fourth Take away as invest in youth organizing specifically youth of color around the united states This is vitally important. This is our future as a movement as our nation Thank you um Joe so I want to ask you the same question, but I also want to add a little bit to it So folks have been talking about fund us like you want us to win I mean and funding people to win So can you actually unpack for us like what is that winning? What is the winning that we're really looking for and then what are things that everybody on this room can be doing? Sure So first let me just double click on everything Paul just said so i'm endorsing all four Points double click double click double click um And definitely go to their website and see what that work is because it's critical frankly building the movement for democratic participation and democracy We just have to be committed to that. It's just a basic um What does the win look like so? Imagine yourself on a plane You don't know where that plane is going to land And you don't know what city it is. There's no announcements you land And you get in a cab taxi And you drive around And you see lots of people lots of diverse people But you can't find the ghetto the hood El barrio You can't find where the color line begins and ends Imagine yourself in that scenario now some of you're going I can't imagine that Except in an all-white city maybe somewhere but even there there's poverty and need But imagine what that would look like Once we recognize that that was created intentionally Maybe not yet. There was specific draft of the pen But the intention to exclude in business in education in housing in nutrition and health We see all the data Some of us call it the footprint of racism We see the data it's there And most of us are working on the edges of the footprint like the laces You know the laces or the tread rather than dealing with the foot itself My hope for us is that when we think about a win and what philanthropy specifically could be doing and what investment capital could and should be doing Is building relationships So that yes, you discovered post george floyd that there were lots of organizations who had need and they were led by people of color great And you're going to do that for a season until it's no longer brand new Because that is the pattern and it's been the pattern you're going to use words like movement and organizing and That'll be the new template for your grant proposals And anti-racism and equity And then you will move past that in another season But the condition remains I'm not asking you to be outside of the phenomena. I'm asking you to be conscious of the phenomena I'm asking us to be intentional about the phenomena and to set the goal That we remove the barriers to participation So in the capital arena 1.3 of a trillion of Of 69 trillion dollars of global investment asset investment 1.3 Percent of participation by people of color is appalling And that's not legislated Those are individual decisions by investors Those are people in this room who are watching and listening to all the pitches that are coming And all the hopeful ideas that are being presented and saying Okay, well, I'm going to give a token to that country I'm going to give a token so that I can be part of that rather than I'm going to build a genuine relationship with the people who are pitching to me So that we build something together philanthropy has to shift from the place of we're going to solve To we're in partnership with communities partnership with people and we're not always going to agree But we're going to stay in relationship and build And build the society in the country we should have So That's what I would add And double click Thank you We have some meaty questions go for it. So I think I think what I might do looking through these is I'll do two little rounds Because if we do all them together your head would explode. So First up and I'm going to paraphrase folks. Okay The first question is about dark money and what can we do about dark money? and then the other question is looking at The supreme court and what can everyday people do about what is happening with the supreme court? Who wants to go first? I'm happy to start So on the dark money front There's a little bit of good news in terms of where our court's jurisprudence is around money and politics And that is the court has not yet gutted the public's right to disclosure of money and politics We just need Elected officials legislators to act and to strengthen those laws that will has largely been lacking at the federal level And has more or less been lacking at the state municipal level too with a couple of exceptions here or there So without getting too deep into the weeds, although we have supreme court decisions like citizens united where the court said Unlimited corporate money in politics Disclosures the sort of the silver lining where we can still if we muster the political will And act laws that do shine light on dark money that eliminate dark money with with stronger disclosure laws What was there was a second part that was also supreme court supreme court? Elections matter everybody and we have the supreme court We have because we have this had the senate that we had and the president that we had from 2016 to 2020 There's no way to sugarcoat it and these are lifelong appointments But there I will say the ray of hope is that the supreme court has never led this nation To anything the supreme court is largely reactive and reflective of where the broader society is So we need grassroots organizing. We need to change the public's sentiment on these important issues that matter so much to us and Trust that the supreme court will eventually follow, but it's going to be we have some ugly years ahead of us at the court But they're not the leaders. We're the leaders. Yeah, I yeah, I just Pick it up for that because I think that is That's really the bottom line At the end of the day, I know so many folks who are despondent discouraged and at times. Well, Who am I really going to vote for? Does it really matter? Yes, it matters And it matters because that is a fundamental way in which we at the local level in particular Make decisions of who's going to lead who's going to direct resources Who's going to actually set policies that help grow businesses and grow communities Supreme court doesn't do that We do that And when we choose not to participate at the levels that we have chosen to not participate except if there's something Sensational on the ballot. I mean, you know nefarious, but I you know, I think the former president was trying to put marijuana on the on you know, make it a federal law You know, I was like this guy'll be reelected in a minute if he gets that right because so many folks I know I care about that. I'm going to do that The reality is is that we've got to be more than single issue participants. We have to Consider the whole And that's hard to do when we're all busy when we're tired. Hilda began with how tiring this all is How exhausting it all is how despondent it all is Do I have to wait for another lynching before you see me? Well, the truth of the matter is is that I can't let that be The litmus test of my engagement and our engagement I think about all the people who've come before us and they weren't always a majority But they were critical in continuing to move us forward and all of us have family stories of sacrifice and struggle And heroism and courage in whatever form they show up It's our time and it's not just our time for our moment and our issues It's our time for the future that we expect to see It was said yesterday. I think jeanne queen nazir talked about this in her comment She talked about eddie glade's book becoming Baldwin And there's a line in there where he says imagine just imagine If we could start this whole thing over And it was you and I starting it over What mistakes would we repeat? And which things would we learn from the history and innovate forward? I'd like to think at an impact innovation convening That there are people here who are bold enough to try something that is just off the cuff Really on the on the razor's edge But actually is the source of how we grow and how we build and what drives our economy That courage to try something new. I think that's required of us right now And to see it in both civic space private sector space Certainly philanthropic space because in philanthropy other than the tax code. There's nothing holding us back from doing what we can do so Let's do it I have a question here that i'm going to ask singly because I think it it merits a deeper response What do each of you think is the root cause for such a large number of americans responding to the clarion call of authoritarianism? And how can we reverse the disturbing trends? What do each of you think is the root cause for such a large number of americans responding to the clarion call of authoritarianism? And what can we do versus this trend? So, um, i'm sitting on my couch one september 6th when excuse me jenny six happened and It was just such an odd scene and i'm in maryland at the time and i'm watching this this is right down the road And i'm thinking is this happening? Is this really happening? And then at the same time as i realized it was happening I remembered it happened in wilksbury. I remembered it happened it across the south. I remember it happened in reconstruction I remember it happened in new york city I remember being chased myself in bay ridge bensonhurst when i was a high school student Black kid in an italian- irish new york neighborhood and that's supposed to be there. I was going to school And I persisted to go to school I remember and i'm sitting here saying to myself wow Horrible thing to see amazing to witness But then I asked myself the question that some of you probably said What if these were black and brown people? What would have been the response? And I had my own answer you may have had yours too and our answers probably Might be the same And so I asked myself, okay So if we're at the place now where we're our fear of a changing america An inclusive america and I attempts to bring people together if we're at the place where it has us Caging children at the border Storming the capital threatening Then what else do we need to wake up? And I don't mean being woke. I mean being active. I mean double-clicking I mean paying attention building relationship with the other Examining How we reinforce this evil weed pro racism in our society And I'm not a I'm not a I don't want to be partisan here, but I had to admire Liz Cheney Some of you watched her I had to watch her and benny thompson from mississippi Stand up and say This is not about party This is about the democracy itself And we refuse To be sick of fans. We refuse to accommodate. We refuse to go along even if it means we lose an election That's courage That's a profile and courage in the most classic example And it's courage that we all can learn and build from I'm gonna co-sign joe's response and i'm i'm gonna Respond myself in a way. I think that probably reinforces it What has created this climate that has made us so receptive to authoritarianism? I think that was pretty much the question white supremacy homophobia sexism This is who we are as a nation This is who we have been for several hundred years as a nation We are changing too slowly But we are changing we have been a nation of progress for several hundred years on all of these fronts I believe but these Problems within us are still here. I know because I was raised swimming in these isms I was raised as a white straight cis male Oblivious to all of my privileges for the first 20 years of my life and the past 30 years of my life working to Unwire this stuff from me and there is no finish line. This is gonna be a lifelong project for me for sure And we all need to be doing this You know my lane I think most specifically is talking to white folks about white supremacy and straight folks about homophobia You know because I know it because I am it it's within me. I'm trying to get it out of me But I think you know explicitly and implicitly both probably more Troublingly the implicit piece of it because it's harder for us to recognize in ourselves But we have a lot of work to do on these fronts as individuals and as a society And I think that's that's why we are where we are Thank you We have a question here about Please We have a question about who we bring into some of these conversations and specifically someone is asking Frankly why we're not engaging more with folks in the national security foreign policy and political strategy spaces When we're talking about securing our own democracy um I guess the short answer is at least some of us are and that's something that was new to me, you know 2017 2018 2019 I had been in this democracy election law space for um 15 plus years at that point It was the first time in my career that I started meeting with the national security folks because we as a nation Not me as an individual elected a president who Posed a very serious national security threat to the nation and threatened our not only our election systems but all sorts of national security issues so Those of us who are working on election security issues We are collaborating with National security folks because we do view both on the technology front What are our actual voting machines and systems? How vulnerable are they to attack? How do we make them less vulnerable to attack short answer paper ballots? Um But it's a great question and I think it needs more attention perhaps You know maybe in the press, but I will assure you that the the folks who are doing the policy and legal work We are collaborating definitely with national security folks Yeah, I think there's a lot of innovation in this space and a lot of relationships that get formed particularly from Um, when I think about full of proper leaders the rooms that they walk through and the engagements that they have The thing I would want to lift up from the question is whether we all feel like owners of the whole So I may feel like owners of a particular issue I may feel like owners so for living cities. We're concerned around economic Inclusion and opportunity and how we drive that demonstrate that so that and how we lift it up where it's happening Well so that it can be replicated because we are hopeful that as we demonstrate what's possible That americans will hold the possible and we've seen it already Even the call from long-term grants and general operating support. That's something living cities pioneered years ago That is now just part of what we call trust philanthropy and Responsive philanthropy and all the various labels that we innovate every couple of years but that said I think Thinking about ourselves as owners of the whole Is part of the challenge, right? How do I think about The problems of a rural community. How do I think about the problems of national security? How do I inform the conversation as opposed to leaving it to the voices of narrow interests and narrow views? So I'm going to tap on one legal case here. It's an old case Um, so the insular cases, right? These are cases that spoke to the citizenship of Puerto Rico the status of glom and and The basic point that the Supreme Court took was um Yeah, these people are part of the american order That's our territory And some will be citizens and some will be nationals But they can't possibly blend into the america into america They can't possibly now to me it was a page out of how we've treated tribal communities in terms of sovereignty Yes, you're here, but we're not going to respect that sovereignty. I'm not even really going to consult We're going to do what we want with you and with your people and with julien We're at a different point. All of us see Puerto Rico again and again and again and again losing power We ask ourselves, why is that? It's not that far from the us. Can't we figure that? Well, we don't have an interest in figuring that out and we as a nation don't see Fully That this is who we are all together So part of our challenge is how do we actually continue to raise those issues regardless of Ancient court cases that in effect said these people will never be us Because now as I look at us This is us all of us All of us and so the court case is stale But it still sits there Almost plus cv. Ferguson all over again still sits there And it informs our thinking it informs our practices informs our behavior. We have to do better So I think we have to become owners full owners And partners in building it absolutely I'm going to add a question that I have been mulling over lately and it's come up a lot especially these past few weeks here being in the Bay Area Let's talk about information and disinformation And the role that that plays especially in this time leading up to the midterms and thinking about what the next election will look like And specifically in Latino communities We have become very aware of the role of disinformation in Spanish media and how that kind of Portraits and gets to the space of you know influencing my parents and what they think and how they consume so one Why do you think this is becoming so prevalent and to What can we do about it now? So I'm gonna just step out here because I actually think it's very important that we Challenge those things that we know to be false Those things we know to be narratives that need to be changed and shifted But we also have to create new narratives And I don't mean create new narratives because we need to tell a tale I mean create new narratives because at the end of the day narratives inform our connection to women Um a mentor of mine once described how she was on a plane with someone who she knew the moment she sat down It was going to be an issue MAGA hat the whole nine and she's like, oh, jeez Can I get another seat? It was first class. She didn't want to move. So But she wasn't gonna go But by the end of the flight somehow they got into a conversation Now me I would have been headphones and bourbon and that's the end of that. Okay But somehow she being more gracious and bold got into a conversation and the conversation ultimately when it ended Was this individual Sharing the story of their son their children The struggles they were going through the needs they had the things that she knew in philanthropy that could inform the challenges They were facing that human connection. So his labeling his self labeling Her intentionality around connection changed that narrative immediately I think we have to lean into both our Uh our institutions, particularly those that we own when he was young and others. Those are ours Right, and we have to really speak to them speaking the truth So as a afro latino, I have to say when I grew up watching telenovelos with my family and seeing people in blackface I would be I would flip out. I was like, what is that about? Are you kidding me? You don't have one black person in all of mexico, venezuela or columbia really? really Open a door. Go look outside right And over time you've seen some change Not sufficient change, but we've seen some change. All right Those conversations however have to continue to happen within And without and I think that's part of the way we get there The hard part though is that there's such a ubiquitous volume of noise coming at folks that frankly so many of us have just tuned out From all the noise has become white noise and become inevitable noise So relationship matters because when I say to paul, a paul calls me and says, joe, I want you to pay attention to this My relationship with paul and with you makes me pay attention in a different way So some people call that organizing Some people call it family We've got to build it together absolutely Somehow we've gone from five minutes to three seconds, but paul, please go ahead um Quick response, which is I will encourage you if you're interested in election disinformation to go to paul s ryan.com That's s as in shameless paul s ryan.com go to the policy writing page and the top Item you'll find is a report that I co-authored and served as executive editor for right before leaving common cause and we published this report last fall And it goes through the entire problem of election disinformation from a public policy lens It's a 70 page report. There is no silver bullet response The responses or the policy solutions lie in several different areas of law and policy Including for example voter intimidation and false speech laws campaign finance laws federal communication laws federal consumer protection laws state media literacy laws and state privacy laws as well as the social media Corporate policies of entities like facebook and twitter and youtube complicated problem complicated but attainable solutions and again check out this report on My website is the title of it again as as a matter of fact the harms caused by election disinformation Right, so we have a minute back whoo final words Paul you start final comments final reflections final Calls to action I just want to thank you all for coming this morning getting out of bed getting here early first thing and thank you for my Fellow panelists on stage. It was really nice sharing the stage with both of you I want to thank you spanish and philanthropy for putting us together giving us an opportunity to have this conversation And I want to ask everyone in this convening to really think through What does it look like to invest in partnership with people of color and to make that an intentional step?