Every 4^th Tuesday of the month, different members of our EPIP St. Louis community will lead monthly discussion on a particular topic or article. Grab a friend, bring your lunch and come prepared to meet new people and discuss ways to move the sector forward. EPIP St. Louis will provide snacks and deserts. 

Environmental Health

Tuesday May 28th, 12:00 - 1:00 pm @ St. Louis MHB

As understanding of the impact of climate change on human health continues to evolve, philanthropy has a significant opportunity to offer support in this space to help lessen the impacts. It is well documented that rising temperatures, more extreme weather, rising sea levels, and increasing CO₂ levels adversely impact human health. The Lancet Commission on Climate and Health recently noted that climate change is this generations’ greatest public health opportunity and it poses a major threat to the public health gains made over the past fifty years. Climate change has disproportionate impacts on communities of color and low-income communities across the world which has propelled many conversations around environmental justice. 

This month we are joined by Doneisha Bohannon, Program Officer at Missouri Foundation for Health, who will offer insights from a recent “The Funders Network” conference and conversations with the “Health & Environmental Funders Network.” We will explore options for improving heath and equity while addressing climate change and talk about how local funders see themselves being part of this work. Climate change is happening and there is a real opportunity for philanthropy to get involved to catalyze efforts in this space.

In preparation for our conversation, please read the following articles:
Improving Health and Equity While Addressing Climate Change
Our Climate Change And Health “Moment”: How Philanthropy Can Help

About the Facilitator: 

Doneisha Bohannon, MPH is a Program Officer with Missouri Foundation for Health where she works to support health and wellness programs in school districts and communities across the state. Doneisha holds a bachelor’s degree in Geography with a minor in Sociology/Anthropology and a master’s degree in Public Health. Throughout her career, she has worked to understand how people’s interaction with place, impacts their health. She is committed to environmental justice and works to ensure voices from individuals and communities most in need are elevated in conversations around health.

Join EPIP LA and AAPIP-LA for a lovely spring evening in Little Tokyo. We’ll start with drinks and appetizers at Far Bar, located in the historic Far East Building and walk over to the beautiful David Henry Hwang Theater in the Historic Center for the Arts to watch the East West Player’s production of Mamma Mia!

6pm – Far Bar Mixer (free, RSVP required if attending mixer only)
8pm – Mamma Mia (purchase your discounted ticket below)
East West Players is located around the corner from Far Bar at 120 Judge John Aiso St, Los Angeles, CA 90012.

The mixer is generously sponsored by Wendy Chang and the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund.

No one will be turned away for lack of funds, so if the ticket prices above are a concern for you, please contact us at losangeles@epip.org, and we'll add you to the RSVP list.

If you are only able to attend the mixer, please RSVP for free here.

We are excited to announce that nominations are now open for our current grant cycle. Nominations will close on May 24, so please get your nomination in soon.

As a reminder, our Giving Circle provides grants to support small, Los Angeles-based nonprofits typically operating with an annual budget under $1M.

Past grantees have included the Painted Brain, Teens Exploring Technology, Dance for Healing, Al Otro Lado, and 1in6.

We look forward to seeing you at our event on June 4th, where you will have a chance to hear about the nominees. Dinner will be provided.

Not a member of our Giving Circle yet? Learn more here.

Join EPIP Boston for a happy hour at Democracy Brewing, a worker-owned beer hall in Downtown Crossing. You'll have the opportunity to network with your colleagues in the philanthropic sector, celebrate summer, and learn more about EPIP membership. No formal agenda or pre-reading; instead, we'll build on the conversations started at the EPIP Boston Spring Convening around the resources that we offer each other as peers.

Join EPIP Colorado for a coffee chat on Friday, June 7th, from 8:30am-10am at Fluid Coffee Bar (501 E. 19th Ave. Denver, Colorado 80203) for a chat about personal influence, power, and leadership. Arrive between 8:30am-9am, grab a cuppa or a snack, connect with new and current friends, and we'll chat between 9am-10am!

People in philanthropy have different levels of power and influence based on our positions within our organizations and structures in which we operate. We can all be leaders from whatever position we hold, and we'd love to facilitate peer learning and assistance in developing strategies to leverage our individual power and influence. We'll base our conversation off of this blog post, "Exploring Influence without Authority" by Kad Smith and this article, "What Love Looks Like in Philanthropy", by F. Javier Torres and Leila Tamari, which provides one example of increasing transparency and sharing power in philanthropy.

Questions to consider discussing with your philanthropeers include:

• What is the difference between influence and power? What is your positional power?
• How do you leverage either or both influence and power towards social justice in your organization?
• What strategies have you used - successful or not - to influence policies and practices at your organization?
• What does leadership mean to you? What do you wish was different about leadership in philanthropy?

Hope to see you there!

Join EPIP LA on a private tour of Roy DeCarava: Work of Art with Director Megan Steinman at The Underground Museum in Arlington Heights. The exhibition includes about 50 black and white photographs spanning the artist’s career of nearly six decades, with the greatest concentration in the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. DeCarava trained to be a painter, but while using a camera to gather images for his printmaking work he began to gravitate toward photography, partly because of its immediacy but also because of the limitations he saw all around him for a black artist in a segregated nation. “A black painter, to be an artist,” he once said, “had to join the white world or not function — had to accept the values of white culture.” He became the first black photographer to win a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1952 and is perhaps best known for his portraits of jazz musicians. DeCarava’s full archive of images represents a broad search for visual meaning – from those jazz musicians to the civil rights movement, abstractions, studies of nature, and gestures of people.

Following the tour, we will have the chance to mingle over a light picnic in the Purple Garden, behind the museum.

Street parking is available, but limited. Rideshare is strongly encouraged. Space is limited for this event, so make sure to sign up today!

It’s been more than a year since recreational marijuana was legalized in California and the City of Los Angeles. Join us Monday, June 17 at 6:30pm as we bring back Cat Packer, LA’s Director of Cannabis Regulation, to learn about how marijuana legalization has impacted communities and about the department's social equity program. Pizza, beverages, and delightful conversation with fellow EPIPers will be provided.

How does white supremacy get in the way of coalition-building between communities of color? How does the perceived proximity to whiteness impact the way we view not only ourselves but people of color (POC) of other races and ethnicities? How can we get past it and create solidarity?

Join us for EPIP's first People of Color Network (PCN) regional gathering in Philadelphia in partnership with EPIP Philly. During this half-day event, participants will partake in a candid conversation about the barriers to building relationships across communities and the impact that can have on our day-to-day work. 

Facilitators from The BIPOC Project will lead a workshop entitled For Colored Folks Who Consider Our Mutual Liberation Is Enough, that will help participants explore personal challenges, build inter-group connections, and create practices and commitments for building anti-racist POC solidarity.

This gathering is open to EPIP members and non-members of color in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. If you are unsure of your membership status, email us at membership@epip.org. Please note that due to the nature of this workshop, registration is limited to 40 people. In the event we sell out, a waiting list will be created.  

Guest Speakers: 

Merle, Co-Founder, The BIPOC Project Merle is a Black, queer, cis woman with extensive management and practice experience in youth work, including a focus on challenging interpersonal and structural racism in youth programs; in building and organizing cross-sector networks focused on gender and racial justice; and in translating research in innovative and culturally competent practice in complex environments.

Fiona, Co-Founder, The BIPOC Project Fiona is an Asian, immigrant, queer, cis woman with extensive experience facilitating change and transformation at the intersection of personal development, group dynamics, organizational change, and social justice, including partnering organizations and coalitions to hone and embody a racial equity lens and practice.

About EPIP's People of Color Network

EPIP's People of Color Network responds to the distinct challenges of navigating philanthropy as a person of color and is intended to promote the retention, influence, and advancement of people of color in the philanthropic sector. Click here to learn more about PCN and to sign up for additional news and events related to EPIP's People of Color Network. 

If you would like to host a PCN regional gathering or have other questions regarding EPIP's programming, please contact Storme Gray, Director of Programs at programs@epip.org.

3rd Annual Beverage to Enhance Equity in Relationships (BEER)
4:00 - 7:00 pm at Sasha's on Shaw

Authentic relationships between nonprofits and funders are essential to create a thriving, socially just, and racially equitable St. Louis. We know nonprofit/funder power dynamics can’t be fixed over a single beverage, but we agree with Vu Le, author of the blog Nonprofit AF, that we need to create space “where foundations and nonprofits can just get a beer together, or coffee, or ice cream, without an agenda, and just talk about whatever…to see each other as human beings, and help to decrease the power dynamics so present in our sector.” It was in this spirit that Vu Le created the annual event - Beverage to Enhance Equity in Relationships (BEER). Join us at Sasha’s on Shaw on June 21^st from 4:00 -7:00 p.m. where we will gather for conversation and connection without an agenda.

EPIP St. Louis, Gladiator Consulting, Gateway Center for Giving, Launch St. Louis, and YNPN St. Louis are excited to host a local event for the national 3^rd annual Beverage to Enhance Equity in Relationships (BEER) in St. Louis. We hope to see you there!

Cost: free to attend, cash bar. 

Let's mix it up on Tuesday, June 25 at 5pm at The Escondite in downtown LA at our summer mixer with friends from Young Nonprofit Professionals Network!

All nonprofit and philanthropic friends are welcome to join at this FREE event.

Drinks available for purchase -- Escondite Happy Hour from 5-8pm ($5 craft beer; $4 canned beer; $4 single well cocktails; $4 red/white house wine; $3-5 appetizers)

Parking lot onsite and metered parking available in area.