Minding the Gap: Philanthropy’s Role in Addressing Income Inequality

Larger Community Foundations Annual MeetingAustin, Texas

February 27, 2014

Yanique Redwood, PhD, MPHPresident & CEO

The Consumer Health Foundation

“We always have inequality, and in America we’re not upset about

inequality of outcomes. But we are upset about inequality of

opportunity.”

From Brookings Report

o The majority of Americans believe that redistribution favors racial minorities

o Americans believe that we live in an open and fair society and that if someone is poor it is his or her own fault

Why does a health philanthropy care about income and wealth?

Advocacy for Economic Justice

• Research• Community Education• Public Will Campaigns• Policy Analysis• Community Mobilization• Coalition Building

CWBICommunity Wealth Building Initiative

• Worker-owner cooperative businesses

• Anchor institutions– Hospitals– Universities– Local governments

• Living wages• Ownership and wealth

Narrative and Economic Policy

Image borrowed from www.bmecommunity.org

Summary

• Fund advocacy to reform our current economic system

• Seed efforts to create more just and democratized economic systems

• Lift up a more accurate set of images, narratives, and representations of people of color who are poor