2020 Anti-racism Series

Over the past several weeks we have witnessed the violent deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd. Closer to home Jocques Clemmons and Daniel Hambrick are remembered, along with the disproportionate number of our black and brown neighbors who have died from COVID-19. These are the individual faces reflecting the oppressive systems that envelop everyone in their path—no one escapes; the only way forward is together.

Believing each of us wants to be liberated individually and to advance racial justice in our organizations, the Maddox Fund is sharing resources that we have used in our racial justice learning.

The field of philanthropy has been experiencing a learning curve. We have been challenged by books like Winners Take All (Anand Giridharadas), Decolonizing Wealth (Edgar Villanueva) and Just Giving: Why Philanthropy Is Failing Democracy and How It Can Do Better (Rob Reich). National foundation leaders, like the Ford Foundation, have led the way in racial equity conversations and in modeling an equitable, more just approach to philanthropy. The Maddox board started its own dive into matters of racial equity in 2017. By the end of 2019, we had articulated our own imperative to be a more just and equitable foundation as we seek to advance the lives of young people and further wildlife conservation.

Along the way, we discovered many resources for personal and organizational growth. While they are all available on our website, we have also decided to curate some of our favorites for you and send them out as a daily resource for the next several weeks. We hope that they will contribute to our understanding of current events as well as to our shared responsibility for advancing more liberating systems.

None of these items will require more than 30 minutes of your time—a quick read, a short video. You can take the resources in sequence or jump around to address your learning interests. To offer some structure to the sharing, we will be organizing the materials around three dimensions of racism: Individual, Organizational/Institutional, and Systemic (modeled after the work of Dismantling Racism and Lyndsey Godwin).

A core Maddox value is that we engage in our work with curiosity and humility. We provide these resources knowing well that Maddox has not fully lived into becoming an anti-racist organization. We humbly offer the resources to our community and welcome you as companions on the journey. We also welcome your feedback about how we can do better as a foundation and community partner. If you have resources to share, reach out and let us know.

The Maddox Fund also believes that we are all connected to one another—indeed, to all of nature. Activist, academic and artist Lilla Watson put it this way: “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” Our communal well-being is tied together. Together, let us dismantle historic systems that have marginalized our neighbors and create new systems to take their place—our collective liberation is at stake. 

The Maddox Fund is committed to helping create a more just and equitable community.  We fulfill this commitment with our partners by recognizing and addressing the systemic injustices that have marginalized communities and continue to leave many people behind. We engage in and reimagine partnerships to advance education, marginalized youth, and wildlife conservation.

Undergirding this commitment is the conviction that all human beings are interconnected, not just with one another, but with all of nature – a belief that makes our desire to foster connection and a sense of belonging even more urgent.