STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITIES FUND

DOCKET II – JULY 26, 2010

PROPOSED GRANT RECOMMENDATION BLURBS

The Strategic Opportunities Fund (SOF) responds in a timely manner to unforeseen crises or
open society challenges that impact US Program’s mission; research and development in new
areas of interest to USP that are not already a prominent part of grantmaking as well as
initiatives that are short-term and/or of high impact through its flexible grantmaking strategies.

Grants that will be recommended for approval on Docket II represent a range of SOF priority
areas, including four new grants related to the role that art and culture play in advancing social
justice goals at the national level; two rapid response requests for work regarding the recent
Supreme Court rulings on the case of Citizens United and the Court’s Juvenile Life Without
Parole ruling on life sentences imposed on juveniles in non-homicide cases; one legacy grant
for continued support of a project that seeks to challenge, through advocacy and litigation, the
anti-prostitution pledge requirement contained in the Global AIDS Act; and, finally, two out-of-
docket recommendations for projects that will support advocacy campaigns and data
visualization work for partners of the SOF/TIF jointly-funded New Orleans Coalition on Open
Governance that will coincide with the 5th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

In total, SOF will be making the following 10 grant recommendations with 8 appearing on the
July 26th docket and 2 being presented to Ann for her approval. Grant amounts and terms are
yet to be determined for a number of SOF’s recommendations.

Finally, SOF has made a gift, noted in the Legacy section of this document, on behalf of the
former USP Youth Media Program of its archival materials.

Arts & Culture Advancing Social Justice

Alternate ROOTS
$200,000 over 2 years (general support)

Alternate ROOTS, founded in 1976, is an organization based in the South and headquartered in
Atlanta, GA, whose mission is to support the creation and presentation of original art in all its
forms, which is rooted in a particular community of place, tradition or spirit. As a coalition of
cultural workers, ROOTS members strive to be allies in the elimination of all forms of
oppression. In particular, the organization is committed to social and economic justice and the
protection of the natural world and addresses these concerns through its programs and
services. Alternate ROOTS’ core programs include: the Community/Artist Partnership Program,
supporting residencies that foster collaborations between artists and community-based
organizations; Resources for Social Change, through which ROOTS provides trainings and
facilitates learning exchanges related to methodologies, tools and techniques for creating social
change through the arts for artists, activists and organizers; and the Annual Meeting, a week-
long convening that is centered around art-making, presentation of works-in-process,
professional development workshops, seminars, and musical performances. Across these
programs – and as progressive community-based artists – ROOTS members are grounded in

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the continuum of the citizen artist working for change, manifesting the principles of participatory
democracy.

Appalshop
$250,000 over 2 years (general support)

Founded in the coalfields of eastern Kentucky in 1969, Appalshop is a multi-disciplinary arts and
education center that produces original films, video, theater, music and spoken-word recordings,
radio, photography, multimedia, and print publications. Appalshop shapes its programs around
the belief that communities have the right to control their own culture, land and resources and to
have a voice in public life. To this end, Appalshop works to broaden and deepen cultural and
civic participation in Appalachia and nationally, guided by the belief that effective place-based
social change begins locally and expands nationally in coalition with others who have direct
knowledge of issues. Working with a wide range of activists inside and outside the Appalachian
region, Appalshop uses its multi-media resources to address complex intersectional issues that
include economic justice, racial inequality, human rights, the criminal justice system and
immigrant rights – holding that those who directly experience social injustice must participate in
devising and enacting equitable solutions that draw upon cultural strengths. Through its
Appalachian Media Institute (AMI), Appalshop supports youth artists to develop social issue-
based media projects and to build their capacity as emerging leaders

National Performance Network

Amount and grant term to be determined (general support)

The National Performance Network (NPN) is a collective of 70 organizations representing a

culturally and geographically diverse constituency of cultural organizers and artists. NPN
member organizations are actively engaged across economic sectors in developing creative
approaches to building a healthy, just, and sustainable world. Since its founding in 1985, the
network has served as a support system for artists whose work confronts issues of equity and
justice. NPN’s work at the cultural policy level keeps doors open for its members, partners and
colleagues to sit at policy-making tables, giving voice to stakeholders whose values have been
historically silenced. In 2001, NPN moved it’s center of operations to New Orleans, where it has
committed to supporting and sustaining programs based in Louisiana. Currently 25% of NPN’s
operating budget provides direct support to New Orleans artists and arts organizations through
fiscal sponsorship services, intermediary support, and the development of
a multi-tenant arts facility. In this capacity, NPN provides opportunities for national funders to
support emerging art and culture organizations operating at the most grassroots level.
Organizations, including Transforma Projects, HOME, New Orleans?, and the Porch 7th Ward
Cultural Organization. NPN is also currently working to develop a Multi-Tenant Arts Facility
(MTAF) which will provide infrastructure support and affordable office and studio space for six to
eight New Orleans arts organizations.

The Arts & Democracy Project (fiscal sponsor: State Voices)

$200,000 over 2 years (project support)

The Arts & Democracy Project builds the momentum of a growing movement that links arts and
culture, participatory democracy, and social justice. Growing out of a 2004 national convening,

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the project’s purpose is to increase civic engagement and close the gap between arts and
culture and sustained and strategic activism. Core program activities include: the Bridge
Conversation series, facilitating and documenting dialogue between artists and other activists;
the Learning Community for artists and cultural organizers who engage in collaborative inquiry;
and capacity-building activities to support emerging projects and organizations that are
advancing art and social justice practice. In all of its work, the project lifts up the creative power
of art and culture as catalysts for action, particularly among communities of people who have
been traditionally disenfranchised. Arts & Democracy takes on the most critical social issues of
the day social justice challenges of the day – immigration reform, census undercounts,
government accountability, and diminishing labor and educational opportunities – by engaging
those communities most impacted by the issues and acknowledging these partners as leaders
in the work. Through this approach, the project increases civic participation and connects
grassroots practice with policymaking.

StoryCorps
$50,000 over 1 year (renewal: general support)

StoryCorps’ mission is to provide Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs with the opportunity
to record, share, and preserve the stories of their lives. StoryCorps democratizes the
documentary process and puts the interview into the hands of everyday people. Since 2003,
more than 50,000 people have interviewed family and friends through StoryCorps. Each
conversation is recorded on a free CD and is preserved at the American Folklife Center at the
Library of Congress. While the documentary form has traditionally focused on creating a product
for distribution, StoryCorps places equal emphasis on the storytelling process itself. The
program is one of the largest oral history projects of its kind, and millions of listeners tune in
each week to its broadcasts on NPR’s Morning Edition.

Legacy

Bay Area Video Coalition

Gift Agreement between SOF and BAVC

On behalf of the former US Programs’ Youth Media Program, SOF is donating a substantial
collection of audio-visual materials from its Youth Media Library. The library consists of OSI
supported and non-supported youth made media and is being made available to BAVC for in-
house academic, research and educational purposes.

Brennan Center
$153,000 for 1 year (renewal: project support)

At the request of OSI’s General Counsel, SOF proposes renewed support for the Brennan
Center’s Nonprofit Rights Project which continues litigation and public advocacy to challenge
the anti-prostitution pledge requirement contained in the Global AIDS Act. At issue is a
requirement that public health groups receiving U.S. funds under the Global AIDS Act pledge
their “opposition to prostitution” in order to continue their life-saving HIV prevention work. Under
this policy, recipients of U.S. aid are restricted in how they use even their private funds,
impeding their ability to deliver effective prevention services to those most vulnerable to

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HIV/AIDS. In 2005, several organizations already in receipt of federal funds under the Global
AIDS Act contacted the Nonprofits Rights Project for counsel on how they could legally comply
with the pledge requirement while still protecting their First Amendment Freedoms. In May
2005, OSI and the Alliance for Open Society International (AOSI) reached an agreement that
the Nonprofit Rights Project would file a challenge to the requirement on their behalf. Given the
significant costs and the demand on their staff members, the Project has received funds to
conduct this litigation.

Rapid Response

Campaign Legal Center, Center for Public Accountability, Committee for Economic
Development, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington
$300,000 for 1 year (project support grants) co-funded with TIF (TIF’s contribution will be
$325,000) for a total of $625,000
This rapid response request was made by the Transparency & Integrity Fund

This series of grants will support varying responses to the recent U.S. Supreme Court’s decision
in the Citizens United case, which upheld that corporations must be recognized as people with
rights of free speech under the First Amendment. That decision recognized the right of
corporations to use unlimited funds at their disposal in support of or opposition to candidates for
elective office. The decision could significantly exacerbate the already pernicious role of money
in politics. A project support grant to Campaign Legal Center will support its work in defense of
existing campaign finance laws. A project support grant to the Center for Public Accountability
and the Committee for Economic Development will support jointly coordinated work on a
campaign to change corporate community attitudes and behaviors about political giving. The
final project support grant for this rapid response request will support Citizens for Responsibility
and Ethics in Washington’s new technologically sophisticated project to investigate and expose
groups like trade associations and 527’s who do not disclose contributors, in the coming
elections, to expose their financial backing.

Equal Justice Initiative, Inc.

$225,000 for 1 year (project support)
This rapid response request was made by the Criminal Justice Fund

This grant will support the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama (EJI) in its work to challenge life
imprisonment without parole following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Sullivan v. Florida
and Graham v. Florida in May 2010. This request reflects CJF’s interest to continue to support
for litigation and advocacy efforts to end life without parole for juveniles. Specifically, this grant
will support EJI’s management of direct legal assistance in cases directly affected by the
decisions; development of the next round of challenges to death-in-prison sentences imposed
on children; and the provision of guidance and structure to shape new litigation for juveniles who
will have only a one-year window within which to challenge their life-without-parole sentences
after decisions are released.

Out of Docket Recommendations

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Committee for a Better New Orleans (as fiscal sponsor for the New Orleans Coalition on
Open Governance)
$23,000 over four months (project support)

The CBNO-MAC Foundation, doing business as the Committee for a Better New Orleans
(CBNO), was created by the merger of CBNO with the Metropolitan Area Committee in 2001.
As a member of the New Orleans Coalition on Open Governance (NOCOG), CBNO-MAC will
manage this grant for the coalition. This grant will support a time-sensitive advocacy and
communications project linked to the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Capitalizing on a
likely spike in local, state, and national attention to the city of New Orleans five years after the
storm, NOCOG member organizations propose to engage in a multi-platform advocacy effort—
including data visualizations, video production and presentation/content development skills
building training—about the need for greater open governance in the city, the impacts of corrupt
and inaccessible government on specific communities, and NOCOG’s innovative approach to
challenging the status quo.

Nonprofit Knowledge Works

$24,000 over 6 months (project support)

Nonprofit Knowledge Works is a New Orleans, LA-based nonprofit created in 2005 by the
merger of the Center for Nonprofit Resources and the Greater New Orleans Community Data
Center (GNOCDC). The organization’s work is driven by the belief that evidence (data,
published research, and community perspective) is an essential foundation for the development
of effective social programs. The organization works with the New Orleans area nonprofit sector
to increase their ability to provide information–driven, systemic and effective solutions to
community problems. This project support grant will support the development of cutting edge
data visualizations for use in efforts to tell the story of New Orleans five years after Hurricane
Katrina by GNOCDC, members of the New Orleans Coalition on Open Governance (NOCOG),
the New Orleans Lens, other advocacy groups, and the media. Each year since Hurricane
Katrina, GNOCDC has published a new edition of the New Orleans Index, a comprehensive
guide to demographic, economic, and other information about the state of the city in the post-
hurricane recovery process.