Kenyatta Leal is living proof that having a secure job after being incarcerated can be a defining lifeline. After serving 19 years in prison, he not only found employment for himself, but eventually led a nationwide effort working with tech companies like Slack, Zoom, and Dropbox to create pathways to high-skilled engineering jobs for formerly incarcerated people.
How can companies establish a more equitable social and corporate sector? Tides' Corporate Impact Leaders Forum brought together corporate social impact leaders to share their insights on removing barriers imposed by historically inequitable systems, and the criteria for an authentic corporate commitment to equity.
Marsha Jackson, co-chair of Southern Sector Rising, fought and won to have “Shingle Mountain,” a 100,000-ton pile of toxic roofing debris, removed from her southern Dallas neighborhood. Now she continues to use her voice to help other communities like hers seek justice.
Our communities are in crisis, and they have been for a very long time. But we’re also more than our pain and sadness. Trans communities have been creating magic out of nothing for generations. As the trans justice movement continues to gain momentum, TJFP dreams of growing with it. We see our position not to set an agenda for a movement, but rather to fund it, allowing the people on the front lines to be the true leaders.
We wanted to reimagine what education for Native American students looks like from language to culture to identity. We started by engaging and asking our community: What do we want to see for our Native American young people? What’s your greatest hope, what do you want to see change?
Racial equity work can be very messy, because there is a lot we are still unlearning. I lean on lessons from the theory of Emergent Strategy: Change is small, change is incremental, and change is constant. That’s how I look at our work.
I am eager to focus on the unique intersection of philanthropy and the environment. Mosaic’s lens on social movements recognizes that if you look at any large-scale social change that has happened in history — from marriage equality to civil rights — you’ll see that social movements always played a critical, underpinning role in broad-level change over time.
To address homelessness holistically in our county, all of the stakeholders must come together and agree on policies, funding, and the strategies we need to adopt to make a significant impact in ending and preventing homelessness.
One year ago, I embraced the invitation to step in as the new leader of Tides. Amidst the most uncertain global context in recent history — a racial justice reckoning and a global pandemic — Tides experienced record growth. As I took on the role of CEO, this question sat at the forefront of my mind: How would Tides lean into this moment to create visible, palpable, systemic change that results in true shared prosperity and social justice?
Well, I think whenever you can invest in the skills and the potential of people who were formerly incarcerated and system-impacted, and working with employers to shift how they work to be more equitable and to be more welcoming — are keys to this work. It's this combination of individual investment in the people and partnership with leaders, the tech sector that creates this environment for systemic change, this is what we need, to move forward. I've watched men and women through this program, be able to break those cycles of generational poverty, break those cycles of generational incarceration, and really put themselves in a position where they could create generational wealth for their families.
We unapologetically, as you all know, are focused on Black women. And that's because we know that when Black women are in seats of power, they pursue agendas that are focused on equity in health care, in the economy, and education in a way that lifts all boats. So when Black women win, we all win. And yet, Black woman leadership is sorely missing across every single sector that’s represented here today. There are two Black women Fortune 500 CEOs; 3.6% of school superintendents across the nation are Black women. We have zero Black women in the Senate right now in Washington, DC. And so we are focused on what does it mean to center Black women in those roles.
We are still fighting now, today. Because even though Shingle Mountain has been moved. The little community that we have in our area. We have fought eight different batch plants. Those batch plants are constantly affecting our health. At my age I never had to go to a lung doctor before. I never had to constantly have the ENT look off in my vocal cords because they’ve been damaged. I never had to go through and have different allergy tests done before to figure out what’s going on through me. And that does need to be changed. They need to have better laws because when it has something to do with your constituent’s health, that needs to be priority. We will continue fighting that because everybody in the community should be able to breathe clean air the same way.