Dear Friends,
We are reaching out to update you regarding Foundation for Louisiana’s response to Covid-19, both internally and externally, as we think about how to best support Louisiana’s most vulnerable communities during this time.
As we think about best supporting the health and wellness of our employees and broader communities across the state, Foundation for Louisiana (FFL) has implemented a work from home practice for the duration of the epidemic. This will allow us to maintain our ability to continue working while protecting our staff. Additionally, we will be making adjustments with staff, board and our grantee and community partners in the coming months to accommodate social distancing protocols.
Louisiana is no stranger to disaster – in fact FFL was founded in the aftermath of disaster. FFL’s Equitable Disaster Recovery Framework provides a blueprint for how we can best respond as a regional intermediary to our community’s most urgent needs. This blueprint is executed through pre-positioning grants, rapid response funds, and recovery funds. As Louisianans do their best to prepare for a situation that is evolving daily, FFL is also preparing to respond.
In alignment with this, here are some ways to support FFL, and Louisiana’s communities during this time:
- General operating support for FFL to cover unbudgeted expenses that are surfacing as employees transition to remote work environments, and for additional communications and messaging support during this time.
- Programmatic support for FFL to deploy grants through our Equitable Disaster Recovery Framework to vulnerable families and individuals who are already enduring the deepest impacts including:
- Support to grantee partners across FFL’s portfolios (economic justice, climate justice, criminal justice and racial justice movement work) to distribute to their memberships for emergent needs such as quarantine prep, lost wages, childcare expenses, medical expenses, bail funds, adequate medical care and protections for incarcerated individuals, and other unanticipated expenses.
In alignment with our values, we will target our support towards the most vulnerable communities in our efforts: low wage workers, hourly workers, and healthcare workers; Black, poc, and LGBTQ communities; currently and formerly incarcerated individuals including undocumented individuals; single parents, and those who live at these intersections. Additionally, we will focus on moving justice aligned policy efforts at the state and local levels that respond to coronavirus, as well as addressing the long-term, post-disaster realities that Louisiana communities may face in the aftermath of COVID-19. As always, we will bring people along in these efforts.
Thank you for being a partner to us in our work.
Sincerely,
Flozell Daniels, Jr., President & CEO