128 Collective

Youth organizing cleared the path for the Inflation Reduction Act. Over the past few years young climate activists took to the streets in climate strikes, worked to elect progressive climate champions, and advocated relentlessly for the Green New Deal, empowering and compelling leadership to pass climate legislation. While the gap between the change we need and the IRA reveals there is much more to do, the path forward for climate action remains lit by the energy of youth organizing.

128 Collective recognizes and supports the unique power of youth to drive the change we need for a just transition to a climate safer world. So it was a welcome opportunity to share our enthusiasm for youth when the Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing released their Youth Power Pledge to the philanthropic community.

At 128 Collective we’re diving into the roles that youth are playing in building and strengthening democracy. Here we share stories of how they are modernizing polling places, building campaigns based on issues they care about, and delivering election-winning margins. How can you help? Read ahead to see our ranking of best groups and geographies to support.

When high school senior Sheyla Street showed up to work the polls this past general election day, she faced a tough crowd, not of impatient voters but of senior poll workers who had bonded into a tight-knit pack over years of shared service. “The start of the day was rocky,” she noted, but the technical skills Sheyla brought to the team eventually won them over. Sheyla, currently a cyber science major at West Point, had completed the online training and came prepared to work with the new, technologically complex, voting machines that lined the hall and intimidated the seasoned crew. Her technological fluency enabled her to manage the machines while bringing the others up to speed. Sheyla noticed how the crew gradually came to value her skills and “at the end of the day they were happy I was there.”

An analysis of the political economy behind the win, and why we can’t just copy-and-paste this strategy onto other fights.

There’s a dangerous fossil fuel pipeline project that has flown under the radar of national attention. The Mountain Valley Pipeline stretches through West Virginia and Virginia, and is trying to bust into North Carolina. Last week, it suffered a major blow thanks to relentless organizing from a diverse coalition of working-class residents uniting to defend their land, air, and water from the destructive Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC.

We have seen wave upon wave of attacks on abortion rights in the US as conservative-led courts and state governments enacted a record number of anti-abortion laws and regulations in recent years. At the end of 2021, The Guttmacher Institute reported (accessed 1/20/22) that 108 abortion restrictions had been enacted in 19 states, the highest total in any year since Roe vs. Wade was affirmed in 1973. As we commemorated its 49th anniversary this past week, Roe vs. Wade has been all but hollowed out even before we hear the Supreme Court’s decision on the pending Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (accessed 1/20/22) case.

128 Collective recognizes the urgency of supporting access to abortion, and we see increasing opportunities through the harnessing of technology. To support this thesis, 128 Collective has championed University of California, San Francisco’s (UCSF’s) Bixby Center and its ANSIRH research team. They recently published groundbreaking research in this article in the Journal of American Medical Association on the safety of abortions pills remotely administered through telehealth.

You may have noticed that we at 128 Collective love a good read. From our weekly Reading Groups to active Slack channels we’re always sharing our discoveries, so when we found that December is officially Read a New Book Month it felt like our kind of celebration.

We wanted to pass on this joy to you, so we’ve found some climate-themed books to read and share. Perhaps your family embraces the Icelandic tradition of Jolabokaflod, you are looking for holiday gift sets, it’s time for a new book for a family read-aloud, or you simply want to curl up and enjoy a new adventure. Whatever your motivation, this month is for you.

Bill Gates’ philanthropic energy arm Breakthrough Energy this week revealed plans to fund and launch a climate-only media outlet called “Cipher”.

The advocacy coalition created by Gates to promote clean energy and climate action has pledged to give the new outfit complete editorial independence, though it will apparently operate as a “not-for-profit” media source.

A few days ago, I participated in my first training for political organizing to further climate action. I’ve been a donor for several years, and our foundation currently supports many activist organizations. I’d like to consider myself an activist, but when I took time to think about it, I had to admit I was closer to an advocate.

But what’s the difference between an advocate and activist? Risk, I think. Bold willingness to face physical violence or police brutality. In contrast, I wonder if being an advocate means something softer. Using your voice to speak out about, or on behalf of, others. Bringing attention and awareness to groups of less powerful people and shifting the hegemonic gaze. This is not an unimportant question.

Today is my 40th birthday.

And I have a cold to end all colds. I’m miserable. At least it’s not COVID; I have 3 at-home tests from the past week to prove it. But it still sucks.

When the Yale Program on Climate Communication last year reported evidence of a demographic shift within the groups that make up “Global Warming’s Six Americas,” Climate Changemakers Executive Director Eliza Nemser knew she had her hook.

That study conducted a series of surveys that found 26% of Americans were “alarmed” about climate change, while 29% described themselves as “concerned” and 8% were “dismissive”.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom faces a recall election next week that would make him the third governor in U.S. history to be ousted from office through a recall if he loses.

The implications for climate change policy are significant, but, at the same time, sources interviewed for this article said they do not believe a replacement would have enough time in office to undo the state’s far-reaching attempts to combat carbon emissions.

Leading with a quick note on our schedule, before we dig into California’s recall election less than a month from today: The newsletter is off for the last two weeks of August. We’ll be back after Labor Day. Happy end of summer! Meanwhile …

Leading the news is the possibility that Democrats may be about to lose the governorship of arguably the bluest state in the country — to a conservative radio talk show host who has called the climate crisis “a crock”.

Reframing power dynamics in philanthropy is easier said than done. This post is about how 128 Collective worked intimately with a handful of sexual and reproductive health organizations in East Africa, in hopes that we might better navigate between the global North and global South with actions not words. 

Context: 128 Collective staff in 2019 went to Kampala, in Uganda, to meet with prospective grantees. We flew people in from across East Africa, conducted a three-day workshop and let the grantees decide some major family-planning funding decisions for themselves. 

Hello! Happy to be here, and happy to begin this post by not discussing scalding summer weather or the oak mites that have invaded my neighborhood in the wake of cicada mania in Washington, D.C. First, some good news from a surprising quarter: White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy.

McCarthy was on the road this week to talk energy research at two national labs but paused her trip long enough to conduct an interview with Axios, which pressed her on a recent Reuters story that revealed the White House is working with airlines on a plan to halve the sector’s carbon emissions.

There’s a lot going on in Washington right now, as Congress eyes several weeks out of town for the annual August recess. Here’s a roundup to help navigate the ins and outs.

A group of liberal Democrats have floated legislation in Congress that would make large carbon emitters foot the bill for events linked to climate change and fossil fuel combustion. They hope to attach the “polluter pays” bill, from Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and others, to a forthcoming budget reconciliation measure this fall.

Meet Yari Greaney, a self-described goofball with a bright smile who can claim an impressive list of political accomplishments before she’s glimpsed the age of 30.

Greaney is 128 Collective’ recently hired program manager for Local Politics and Environmental Justice. She’s an avid hiker, birder and activist who always points out that she lives on Lisjan Ohlone lands on the east side of the San Francisco Bay, not in “El Cerrito,” as the area is commonly referred to in modern maps.

Tobita Chow is in many ways an environmentalist in new clothing. He’s a labor activist attempting to bridge climate action with international politics. He often finds himself in the middle of players who don’t trust each other and works to erase that gap. And that’s precisely why 128 Collective decided to fund him, as the energetic director of the People's Action project Justice Is Global.

Chow is another one of our favorite humans, in other words, but he would prefer this story not focus on him. He wants it to focus on China.

Hello and welcome back. So … on the one hand, we hope to contribute serious journalism to the progressive causes we support. As in, not press releases. We’d also like you to come back here and look forward to coming back here. So we’re going to try stuff. Shoot for some moons. The more serious affair on offer today sits beneath this post, as in story #2 right below this one. It’s a deep look at “theory of change” — a subject that’s very important in philanthropy. The more casual affair being this piece right here.

Our first experiment then — (in this column) (brace yourself) — is a wide-ranging, quick analysis of the news as we read it at 128 Collective, as parsed by a veteran climate and political reporter (me) who was hired by a thoughtful family foundation to write something refreshing. Away we go.

Starting this post with a caveat: This is not my personal blog. I’m a reporter hired to help tell the story of 128 Collective, the causes we care about and the humans we fund. That means you’ll often hear me toeing a line between “I” and “we” — but it should be clear that I’m hoping to recede as much as I can and let the organization do the talking.

So: In this piece we’re exploring “theory of change” and what it means for a nimble family foundation like ours. What it means for our staff and our wide-ranging expertise. I admit that I had never thought about the topic until about two weeks ago, so I’m learning as we go.

Tom is a youthful-looking Iowa native who shows up to Zoom meetings early. He’s likable, doesn’t get rattled and juggles a dozen projects at once. And he seems more interested in raising his kids and starting humane companies than, say, yachting off the Italian coast or buying overpriced sports teams.

It’s unlikely he’s ever owned leather pants, in other words. He’s not the sort that would bother to make those comparisons or see himself in another’s shadow, either. Much more likely is a discussion of open-source web development or carbon offsets or how to bring the best out of talented people than promotion of his own brand.

Hello! Today we launch an excellent newsletter. It’s free. It's here.

It’s called Climate Is Everything, because climate change really is about everything, and that makes it too easy to give it a confused shrug and back away, especially when heat waves aren’t pummeling the western United States and testing power grids up and down the Pacific Coast.

RedwoodJS recently won a Jammies award for Jamstack Product or Service of the Year! We were in great company with Eleventy and FaunaDB. We couldn't have done it without our more than 100 contributors who give their time and expertise to help build Redwood into what it is today.

During the awards everyone had a chance to put together a promotional video for their project. Here are ours:

At 128 Collective, we think of giving as a political act. We reject the idea that deprivation is merely an accidental lack that can be filled bit by bit through charity and technological advance. If such an idea were plausible a decade or two ago, it is hard to sustain today. What may have seemed like steady progress has now given way around the world to growing racist and nationalist movements based on a zero-sum struggle for resources and power, even as the stream of climate refugees begins to build. We see deprivation not as a lack but as a systematic outcome of our society.

The large-scale cooperative processes that sustain our lives, from the market economy to corporate bureaucracies to national and global governing institutions, are the same processes that generate concentrated pools of wealth and produce systematic inequalities among classes, races, countries, genders, sexualities. They are the same processes that give rise to the endemic insecurities and resentments that serve as the raw material for demagogic politicians to mobilize projects of national or racial supremacy. Finally, these same processes have left the world vulnerable to pandemic disease and are intensifying the existential threat of climate change.

Around the world, we are expecting spikes in pregnancies during this time of social isolation (as reported by Save the Children, Rewire.News, and Reuters). At present, and amidst the global pandemic of SARS-CoV-2, financial, logistical, legal, and discriminatory barriers to accessing comprehensive sexual and reproductive healthcare are increasingly exacerbated. We are now confronting commodity shortages, supply chain delays, further economic inequities, health risks, and new legal challenges. These limitations have been especially evident in abortion care.

Fortunately, there is a safe, non-surgical way to terminate an early pregnancy from one's own home using a combined regimen of two medications, Mifepristone and Misoprostol (Misoprostol-only regimens are also low-risk and effective, but the combined regimen is the standard of care in the United States). Although medication abortion care isn't as well-known as clinic-based surgical abortion, Mifepristone and Misoprostol were approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for abortion care twenty years ago, and have been in use ever since. In 2017, 39% of all legal abortions within the US were medication abortions. Like surgical abortion care, medication abortion care is highly effective at ending early pregnancy.

On February 23rd, Ahmaud Arbery was murdered by armed white men while jogging near Brunswick, Georgia. On March 13th, Breonna Taylor was murdered by Louisville Metro Police in her own home. On May 25th, George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis Police officers. These are just three of the names on the list of thousands of Black men and women who lost their lives to the systemic racism that is woven into the fabric of this country.

It will take a monumental anti-racist movement to change the underlying conditions that allow racism in the United States to flourish. As part of that movement, 128 Collective is committing $250,000 this year to projects that fight systemic racism. Here's how we intend the funds to be dispersed:

After deploying emergency funding for the Bay Area COVID-19 response, 128 Collective turned our attention to the global fight. In carving the way forward, we sought to answer a few questions:

After chatting with some grantees, other funders, and attending a host of webinars, we are taking the following steps at 128 Collective.

We find ourselves faced with a new crisis—COVID-19—that threatens the world's health and well-being. This is a moment of urgency, and this morning, Tom and I deployed $1 million toward efforts to fight against the virus and its effects.

At 128 Collective, our philanthropic investment concentrates on international efforts. From this lens, we have expertise in understanding long-standing challenges contributing to economic and social imbalances of power and resulting in climate change. Working at this level often means thinking about slow-moving pieces. This foray into emergency relief is the first time we have made such quick funding decisions.

For the past several months Tom, Rob and a couple of other contributors have been building a new Javascript framework. Today we're proud to unveil Redwood a framework for the next phase of the internet.

Redwood is meant to be deployed to the edge—CDNs and Lambda functions that can be distributed around the globe and served to users in milliseconds. In tech circles this is known as the JAMstack (Javascript, APIs and Markup). Until now the JAMstack has mostly focused on static sites being backed by a CMS (Content Management System). Redwood makes relational databases a first-class citizen in the JAMstack, allowing your front-end to get and send data to a real database through a GraphQL API. This, along with many other time-saving and productivity-enhancing features makes Redwood not only a powerful JS framework, but it's actually fun to work in, too.

128 Collective is at the beginning. We have just today launched our website, a sign to our patient grantees and partners that we are, in fact, a real thing. To nudge us forward, I am writing a letter to document where we are today and where we're hoping to go someday soon.

As a couple, when Tom and I come together, we goad one another to “push harder, and do more!” This has become our family motto. On my own, I've spent my career working with and learning about inequality, political economy, and the monitoring and measurement of human activity. Tom has worked ever since I've known him (twenty years this February) on gaps in technology and how to develop innovative solutions.