美国国家公共电台 NPR--How has the Minnesota Freedom Fund's mission changed since an uptick in donations?

How has the Minnesota Freedom Fund's mission changed since an uptick in donations?

Transcript¹

Small social justice nonprofits in Minnesota were flooded with donations after the murder of George Floyd three years ago. But how much has changed in the larger picture of philanthropy.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Three years ago today, George Floyd was arrested in Minneapolis. Hours later, he was dead after one officer kneeled on his neck and others refused to help him. Millions protested around the country and the world, and millions of dollars poured into Minnesota's social justice organizations. Marianne Combs takes a closer look at one of them.

MARIANNE COMBS, BYLINE²: The Minnesota Freedom Fund was a scrappy little nonprofit in the spring of 2020, with just one paid employee and 7 or 8 working board members. Annual budget - $150,000. Most of that went to paying bail³ and immigration bonds for its clients. Then came May 25. Mirella Ceja-Orozco was a Minnesota Freedom Fund board member. After George Floyd's murder, she says there was an astonishing uptick in donations.

MIRELLA CEJA-OROZCO: From, you know, $50,000 to $100,000, to $1 million, to $5 million within the first week.

COMBS: Public generosity⁴ quickly crashed the nonprofit's donor⁵ page and its email server. Less than three weeks after Floyd's death, Minnesota Freedom Fund shut down its donation page entirely⁶. All told, the nonprofit received close to $42 million.

CEJA-OROZCO: Everything about our organization changed.

COMBS: Three years later, Orozco is now one of two directors of the Minnesota Freedom Fund, which employs 27 people. They work out of an office with no listed address because the organization also got attention from people who believed it only served to get criminals out of jail.

CEJA-OROZCO: The doxing started, where all of a sudden now all of our names were out in the ether. And we were being targeted with hate rhetoric⁷, death threats.

COMBS: Orozco's co-director, Elizer Darris, focuses on criminal bail bonds. He says the Minnesota Freedom Fund once served as a Band-Aid for a systemic issue. But its new mission is to put itself out of business by ending cash bail in Minnesota. To that end, this once tiny group recently launched a new organization to lobby at the state capitol.

ELIZER DARRIS: We have to have policy pass at the state legislature, at the county level. And we have to have cooperation at the local municipal level where these policy decisions are being made.

COMBS: The Minnesota Freedom Fund's story is exceptional. While other Black-led and social justice nonprofits received generous donations and grants, many of those organizations say the financial commitments are quickly drying up. Trista Harris is the former executive director of the Minnesota Council on Foundations. She says it's not just individual donors⁸ who have lost interest. Foundations are backing off, too.

TRISTA HARRIS: Because foundations sort of threw dollars in a lot of different directions and then didn't see transformative change, they blamed it on nonprofits. And they said, well, we tried. We thought that you were going to do big things with these dollars, and you didn't.

COMBS: Most social justice nonprofits simply do not have the capacity to take on huge projects without building out their organizations first, says Harris. That takes time and sustained giving.

HARRIS: There's just not a lot of support for Black-led nonprofits and their infrastructure⁹. So in the short term, when people need those organizations to set up, they're consistently surprised that they're not just ready to jump in. And it's because those resources haven't existed previously¹⁰.

COMBS: According to the philanthropy research site Candid¹¹, local foundations across the nation increased their annual giving to Black communities from $78 million in 2019 to $125 million in 2020. That's a 60% increase in just one year. But still, it's just 2% of total foundation giving. Harris says philanthropic organizations need to take a hard look at that 2% number when it comes to their own funding. Until then, small nonprofits will continue to struggle to be anything more than a Band-Aid on deep systemic wounds.

For NPR News, I'm Marianne Combs in Minneapolis.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 bail   

v.舀（水），保释；n.保证金，保释，保释人

参考例句：

• One of the prisoner's friends offered to bail him out.犯人的一个朋友答应保释他出来。
• She has been granted conditional bail.她被准予有条件保释。

4 generosity   

n.大度，慷慨，慷慨的行为

参考例句：

• We should match their generosity with our own.我们应该像他们一样慷慨大方。
• We adore them for their generosity.我们钦佩他们的慷慨。

5 donor   

n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体

参考例句：

• In these cases,the recipient usually takes care of the donor afterwards.在这类情况下，接受捐献者以后通常会照顾捐赠者。
• The Doctor transplanted the donor's heart to Mike's chest cavity.医生将捐赠者的心脏移植进麦克的胸腔。

6 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

7 rhetoric   

n.修辞学，浮夸之言语

参考例句：

• Do you know something about rhetoric?你懂点修辞学吗？
• Behind all the rhetoric,his relations with the army are dangerously poised.在冠冕堂皇的言辞背后，他和军队的关系岌岌可危。

8 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

10 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

11 candid   

adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的

参考例句：

• I cannot but hope the candid reader will give some allowance for it.我只有希望公正的读者多少包涵一些。
• He is quite candid with his friends.他对朋友相当坦诚。