By: Peggy Saika
What if each of us fully embraced the power of leveraging individual action for collective good? What if we all shared a vision that the sum of our actions is greater than the parts alone? At AAPIP, we describe that vision as Building Democratic Philanthropy. And in 2012, we’ve devoted considerable resources to build campaigns and a national public /private partnership exploration which express that vision through our work – The 1st STEP Campaign, National Giving Circle Campaign and a Public Private Partnership planning effort with the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAAPI).
1st STEP (Strategies To Equitable Philanthropy) is a bold, ambitious campaign to drive and sustain an increase in grantmaking to AAPI communities across the nation. Looking at detailed grantmaking data in the ten regions where there are AAPIP chapters: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco Bay Area, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles, the campaign uses data to inform a fuller picture of where philanthropy has made investments in the AAPI community – and where it hasn’t. 1st STEP provides AAPIP and our regional chapters with a fresh baseline to begin answering the question, what would even 1% of funding to communities look like based on what the funding history has been? Our research and data suggests that funding to all but one region has been well below 1% for the period from 2006 to 2010.
This data coupled with the social and human capital – the power of AAPIP’s leadership in chapters across the country, giving circle participants, key allies and community leaders we hope will continue the call for open, far-reaching and impact-driven conversations with grantmakers and other sources of private capital to expose where both the challenges – and the opportunities – are to improve conditions and build capacity in our communities.
Where 1st STEP is a regionally focused campaign building our chapters and communities, the Public Private Partnership Initiative (PPP) is a national effort to transform funding to the AAPI community at the national level by aligning public and private priorities, and mapping private capital to public resources and assets. The PPP offers a significant and historically unprecedented opportunity to leverage public resources and private capital to serve priorities shared by communities, the government and organized philanthropy alike.
The PPP has been years in the making, but on April 2, 2012 AAPIP joined the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAAPI) in convening over 200 national leaders from the public and private philanthropic sectors to launch the initiative. At the convening, The Ford Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation and The Kresge Foundation committed, together, $1 million to support the planning process. AAPIP is managing this planning process and working intently with WHIAAPI to develop a Blueprint for Action by late fall of 2013.
On September 29, the AAPIP Board of Directors invited Commissioners of WHIAAPI to a briefing session on the status of the PPP and to share preliminary data mapping private capital to public resources in the areas of education and health. The briefing was an important first step in developing a baseline of knowledge and information as the PPP initiative moves forward.
We’re now well underway with an 18-month process, and look forward to sharing updates on how planning for the PPP continues to develop, what we’ve learned, and what the philanthropic sector can anticipate in the coming months.
Working together – across our chapters, with individuals in giving circles across the country as part of our National Giving Circle Campaign and with the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, AAPIP is trying to practice Building Democratic Philanthropy. Our work continues to be defined by leveraging individual action for collective good. And our best example to date: The Giving Circle Campaign ends the year with 23 circles and well over 1,100 people engaged in philanthropic efforts all across the country and the first giving circle from the Big Island of Hawaii!
For more information about the 1st STEP Campaign or the Public Private Partnership Initiative, contact Joe L. Lucero, Lead Consultant, at . For information about the National Giving Circle Campaign contact Noelle Ito, Community Philanthropy Director, at .