Dr. Carmen Rojas is the president and CEO of Marguerite Casey Foundation. Under her leadership, which started in 2020, MCF launched the prestigious Freedom Scholar award and has granted more than $323 million in funding to dozens of organizations doing the hard work of shifting power to those people who have long been excluded from having it. Prior to MCF, Dr. Rojas was the cofounder and CEO of the Workers Lab, an innovation lab that partners with workers to develop new ideas that help them succeed and flourish.
In practice, this means being focused on moving the most money to the organizations, initiatives, and scholars who are best aligned with our mission of shifting the balance of power in society to those who have long been excluded from having it. I see my role in philanthropy as being a supportive advocate for the leaders of racial and economic justice movements who are doing the patient work of community organizing.
We don’t overindex on short-term results because the problems the communities we serve are facing are generations in the making. It would be irresponsible to imagine we could solve them with one grant in a fiscal year. We want our partners to have the resources to try things and sometimes fail—and that’s okay. If we want movements for racial and economic justice that can actually transform society, we have to fund the work of learning, relationship building, and organizing, all of which is generational work.
Mission-aligned investing, full stop. It is unconscionable to me that foundations supporting racial justice have endowments invested in private prisons or that climate funders profit from fossil fuels. We cannot fund movements for justice with one hand while feeding the machine of surveillance, detention, death, and extraction with the other.
The lessons my parents taught me about solidarity have guided all of my work and are a big part of how I measure success. My parents immigrated to the US from Venezuela and Nicaragua, and showed me through their actions that the more I could see “my stuff” as “ours,” the better we all are. Our home was everyone’s home. If we had enough to eat, everyone had a meal. In my work at Marguerite Casey Foundation, this has translated into a knowledge that I don’t need to run the largest foundation or have the biggest endowment, but if we’re giving away as much money as possible to organizations fighting for a better world, then we’re successful.
Toni Morrison—not just the novelist, but Morrison the literary figure. Many folks may not know this, but Morrison edited Angela Davis’ autobiography; she was the organizer of one of the most prolific books on Black history called The Black Book; and she was a member of the Sisterhood, which transformed a generation of writers and readers alike. Her understanding that supporting other writers and artists was a core part of her work was the embodiment of solidarity. She also had an amazing laugh, and when you watch old videos of her, she was joyous rebellion.
Books. They are an incredibly valuable tool for helping us understand and connect with each other’s dreams and experiences. I have the pleasure and honor of getting to share some of my favorite books—and give away thousands of free copies—through the Marguerite Casey Foundation Book Club.
There is a growing commitment among foundations to invest with diverse asset managers. When MCF first started to explore investing with diverse managers, we heard from peers that we wouldn’t even find enough diverse managers to invest with. Well, we’ve proved that to be incorrect. Industrywide, less than 2% of endowment assets are invested with diverse managers, but at MCF, I’m proud to say that nearly 60% of our investments are with firms where 51% of decision-makers are managers of color or women. This is a key part of our mission-aligned investment strategy, and we see it as the future of investing.
Freedom Is a Constant Struggle by Angela Davis because she shows us how we must organize to defend every win, expand every victory, and recommit to making our freedom dreams real every single day.
