The unprecedented fury of Hurricane Sandy in 2012 forced us to witness en masse the heart-wrenching vulnerability and inequality in our city and around the region. Against the backdrop of the Trayvon Martin ruling and the Supreme Court’s rollback of the Voting Rights Act, thousands of New Yorkers also continued to experience the humiliation—and in some cases brutality—of “stop and frisk” by beat cops, simply because of the color of their skin or their gender identity. And independent research confirmed that 95% of the wealth generated in the wake of the Great Recession has been captured by the wealthiest 1% of our population.
But our community of philanthropic and grassroots activists is not about blame, we’re about action. In North Star Fund’s 2013 annual report you’ll meet the North Star Fund leaders of the Communities United for Police Reform campaign and the creators of our Education Justice Fund. You’ll also meet donor and community activists using organizing and electoral reform to bring grassroots-led change to Albany, and to make our capital address the deep inequalities and lack of opportunities in New York State.
We hope you will enjoy reading the 2013 annual report, and seeing all that can be accomplished when we come together to make a deeper investment in grassroots organizing and activism. That “other world” of regenerative economics, fairness, compassion, and a turning away from the deep social and racial injustices of our past, is still possible.