Hundreds gathered recently at the Paul Robeson Campus Center at Rutgers University for the Newark Future Forum. Presented by Victoria Foundation, in partnership with Rutgers University – Newark, the one-day symposium featured local and national experts, residents, philanthropic organizations, and community leaders who discussed the pressing issues facing Newark and similar communities nationwide.
“The Newark Future Forum, held as part of Victoria Foundation’s centennial celebration, was designed to provide the community with an opportunity to engage in thought-provoking discussions and gain valuable insights around the foundation’s areas of focus: strengthening community power, fostering economic justice, and promoting youth self-determination,” Victoria Foundation Executive Officer Craig Drinkard said.
To kick-off the forum, Chief Vincent Mann, Turtle Clan chief of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation, led a Land Acknowledgement in honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day and opening remarks were given by Drinkard, Newark Mayor Ras J. Baraka, and Interim Chancellor of Rutgers University Jeffrey Robinson. The morning plenary, “Building Collective Power: Community-Led Solutions for Equity and Justice” was moderated by Drinkard and featured esteemed leaders in philanthropy and social change: Lisa Owens, executive director at the Hyams Foundation; Jennifer Ching, executive director at the North Star Fund; and Nyoka Acevedo, fund coordinator at the Youth Organizing and Culture Change Fund.
The panelists discussed philanthropy’s role in critical issues around the nation and how more needs to be done – financially and personally – by these organizations to strengthen the overall response to these issues. Additional topics included the power of organizing within the nonprofit sector to strengthen causes, pathways to greater collaboration and solidarity across sectors, offering practical examples of innovations, visionary perspectives, and opportunities for building collective power to advance racial equity and justice.
“All of us in this room have some form of institutional power,” Acevedo said. “Our silence – when youth are jeopardizing their physical bodies, their futures on climate, against genocide, against police brutality – is more than our tepid action. We should be willing to put our institutional reputation front and center, too, as an emphasis to offset that risk.”
After the morning panel, Majora Carter – MacArthur Fellow, Peabody Award-winning broadcaster, lecturer at Princeton University’s Keller Center, and author of “Reclaiming Your Community: You Don’t Have to Move Out of Your Neighborhood to Live in a Better One” – took to the stage to discuss her experiences with economic development and urban revitalization during her lunchtime keynote address.
Carter spoke about growing up in the South Bronx and watching the disintegration of her neighborhood because of systemic disinvestment. She noted that communities of color were often used in the development of low value establishments that brought little wealth building to the area, such as waste facilities and power plants. She recalled walking through the neighborhood thinking she would be gone from this area soon, “planning her escape,” as Carter recalled, from the South Bronx as soon as it was possible for her to do so.
Sometime later, Carter would go back and realize the potential within her hometown. She developed the Boogie Down Grind café in an old building in the South Bronx to provide the community with a quality business that would uplift the local economy without displacing residents. This has led to her stance that community members in neglected neighborhoods can come together to revitalize the area instead of leaving them behind.
“If people can invest their own best selves right back into our communities and keep their example and their money and their time so that we are building from the inside – really, truly building a level of social cohesion that exists because we feed ourselves with the idea that this is the place where we need to be what we want to be which builds power in every single way,” Carter said during her address.
In the afternoon, there were three breakout panels featuring local and national experts, and each focused on one of the foundation’s strategy areas: economic justice, community power, and youth self-determination.
After the panel sessions, attendees and speakers had the opportunity to network during a light closing reception.
The Newark Future Forum was a remarkable success, with many attendees remarking that it was an energizing day full of opportunities for collaboration, amazing speakers, and thought-provoking conversations.
“I am deeply grateful for all the hearts and minds that worked on the Newark Future Forum,” Victoria Foundation Vice President of Strategy, Impact, and Communications Sharnita Johnson, said. “Participants came from near and far to share experiences, knowledge, challenges, and successes that will inform Victoria Foundation’s work. I am inspired and uplifted by the community’s commitment to one another and to Newark.”