When Philanthropy Northwest began exploring the relationship of philanthropy to democracy in 2014, Daniel Kemmis wrote, "We find ourselves in the midst of an extended period of fairly acute and widespread uneasiness about the health of our democracy." Those words seem to ring even more true today. In the last two weeks, we have heard statements and seen actions challenging our democracy on a whole new level: a ban on vetted refugees and travelers from seven Muslim-majority countries; the disappearance of any mention of LGBTQ people on the White House website; proposed restrictions on women’s reproductive health and rights; reduced access to affordable healthcare; and new threats to our Native and public lands, to name just a few issues at the core of our network's values. Yet it is also heartening to see hundreds of thousands of people around the country exercise their rights to assemble, to protest and to express their opinions. This is what democracy looks like.

Following two executive orders targeting immigrants and refugees, on Friday, Jan. 27, just a week after his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that bars refugees and immigrants from a number of Muslim countries from entering the United States. It’s clear we are at the beginning of a long, hard fight. What comes next? We must stand for the rights of all people of color, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQ community. In response, Meyer is providing grants to five community-based organizations on the front lines of ensuring the security, safety and civil rights of all people in our community. Although we currently fund these organizations, now more than ever their human and financial resources are being tested by the great work before them. And we need them to be strong in this fight.

The recent election cycle has reminded us that even though the United States is one nation, we have many different ideas on how to make our country better. As I've been sharing Cascadia Foodshed Financing Project’s recent market research over the past few months, commissioned to identify strategies to grow Washington and Oregon's food economy, I've had a similar realization: We can all read the same research yet come to different conclusions about how to grow our regional food economy. Not surprisingly, our nonprofit and for-profit reviewers have come up with different investment recommendations. This divergence can be attributed to a logic model gap, or a difference in the tools used by different departments to implement a shared mission. For instance, a foundation program department may seek opportunities to catalyze system transformation, while the same foundation’s finance department seeks a positive financial return. As we "ground truth" our research, we are also seeking to understand if the conclusions touch on real investment opportunities.