AAPIP Blog

AAPIP is excited to announce the launch of our Winners Circle Facebook contest and we need your help to make it a success.  Get everyone you know (friends, family, co-workers) to go to our Facebook page and vote for a  Giving Circle. We think they’ll have no trouble finding a group that shares their passion about a particular issue. (If not, maybe they’ll start their own circle.) The top three vote getters will receive the recognition they deserve AND share $6,000 in prize money to invest in community groups. Read here for more information, or go straight to our Facebook page to vote!

2012 marks the inauguration of the AAPIP Banyan Tree Award, in recognition of a key individual or institution with demonstrated commitment to Building Democratic Philanthropy within the field and the community. The first AAPIP Banyan Tree Award recipient is Alandra L. Washington, Deputy Director, W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The award will be presented to Ms. Washington at the AAPIP Annual Membership Meeting in Los Angeles, California, on April 29, 2012, in conjunction with the 2012 Council on Foundations Conference.

Ms. Washington is the Deputy Director for the Family Economic Security and Education and Learning teams at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. In addition to supporting the vice president for programs in providing overall coordination of the teams’ programming efforts in support of the Foundation’s mission, Ms. Washington manages a portfolio focused on philanthropic engagement and community philanthropy, through which she has worked with the AAPIP Community Philanthropy program, including the development of the AAPIP Giving Circle Network.

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Last Monday, April 2, at a national briefing in Washington DC convened by The White House, three of the nation’s largest foundations – The Ford Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation – together pledged $1 million to support an exploratory planning process focused on the development of national public-private partnerships to increase philanthropic investment in the Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI) community.

The National Philanthropic Briefing on the Asian American/Pacific Islander Community, was an ambitious day-long convening conducted by the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, and was intended to leverage and encourage concrete action on public-private partnerships to address a full range of complex social and economic needs in AAPI communities across the country. Nearly 200 participants, including chief executives and trustees from several of the nation’s leading foundations, joined Cabinet members and ranking officials from the Obama Administration in a set of conversations designed to challenge both the private and public sectors to increase investment in AAPI communities and invest in their capacity.
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In observance of the twentieth anniversary of the Los Angeles civil uprising following verdicts in the 1992 Rodney King case, award-winning actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith will present a feature performance of scenes from Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, the 1994 Tony Nominee for Best Play.  The session, Looking Back, Moving Forward: A Performance by Anna Deavere Smith, will focus on a complex array of issues including racial division, healing and the human condition.  This special mini-plenary session is being presented and designed by AAPIP (Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy) and ABFE (Association of Black Foundation Executives), in conjunction with the 2012 Council on Foundations Annual Conference, in Los Angeles, April 29-May 1.

The Los Angeles riots of 1992, the worst civil disturbance in America, exposed the deepening racial and class divisions in the U.S. While the riots were sparked by the acquittal of police officers charged with beating Rodney King, closer examination suggests it was declining income equality, a long history of police brutality and the belief that the justice system only served and protected a few which fueled anger, resentment and hopelessness that has carried on to this day.

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[San Francisco, CA – March 29, 2012] AAPIP (Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy) will today release, Emerging Opportunities: Giving and Participation By Silicon Valley Asian American Communities, at a special program in Silicon Valley hosted at the corporate headquarters of technology leader and business networking innovator, LinkedIn. The program at LinkedIn, which is now at capacity, will be broadcast via livestream at http://www.ustream.tv/linkedin-events, and will include featured remarks by Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen, New York Times bestselling author of Giving 2.0, and Peggy Saika, President/Executive Director of AAPIP, and publisher of the new report. You can join the livestream broadcast here, today, March 29, at 5:30 pm PT (7:30 pm CT/8:30 pm ET):

The livestream program will feature a release of some of the report’s key findings and recommendations from the qualitative non-randomized study, which include:

• Asian American/Pacific Islanders (AAPI) now number over 1 million people in the region, according to the 2010 US Census, and are now the majority or a significant population center in several key cities like Cupertino (63% AAPI), Fremont (50.6% AAPI) and Santa Clara (37.7% AAPI).
• While aggregated data on the region’s AAPI community indicate high levels of income and educational attainment, the data masks key disparities — as many as 1-in-10 AAPI in the region (11%) have less than a high-school diploma.
• Asian Americans in the region more often apply a business framework, including social entrepreneurship, to social change, and rely often but not consistently, on a metric-driven approach to assessing impact.
• And while family relationships remain a top influence in driving philanthropic behavior, the study reveals that friends and related-networks are a much stronger influence (80% among participants) when it comes to learning about specific causes or giving opportunities.

To download the report click here. For more information or to schedule a briefing on the report, contact Joe L. Lucero, Director, Strategic Communications, at joe@aapip.org.