Innovia Foundation Grants Released for Racial Equity

• Author: Jeffrey Simmons
• Posted: 2024-04-21

With everything that has happened thus far in 2020, one of the biggest issues in the United States was a call to end systemic racism in the nation. The issue with this, however, is that no one really seems to understand how to approach it. Most if not all of left-wing academia agrees that it exists. For many years now, generations even, they have fought against it and funded certain areas and made changes, yet they claim the issue still persists. People in universities and on media love describing the problems to the public, though it's usually in vague fashion and seems to use "systemic racism" as an explanatory model for any problem someone has if they're a person of color (POC). Though millions of people are out there attempting to fight systemic racism, including the Innovia Foundation, who recently announced they would be providing grants for racial equity.

Equity and equality often get confused in mainstream lexicon. To be clear, "equality" is something that promotes opportunity. Everyone having the opportunity to open the same type of business, to get into the same type of school, etc. "Equity," on the other hand, is more about outcome. Foundations like Innovia believe that because some people don't have outcomes equal to that of America's most successful, it's therefore proof of systemic racism's existence and thus it must be fought against.

Inland Northwest, or Spokane, Washington, will be receiving grant money to promote racial equity in their communities. It's part of the Racial Equity Grantmaking Fund for the organization, and its aim is to "support the vital work of organizations addressing racial injustice," claims a spokesperson.

The Innovia Foundation is like a middle-man in this process. Other organizations who want to help fight racial inequity will donate money to Innovia, and Innovia thus doles it out where it sees fit to do so. The Ballmer Group has given the fund its initial $100,000 boost, and the goal was to help lessen the impact of Covid-19 on marginalized communities.

Part of the money will also be going toward paying a salary to the Spokane-Review, so that they can hire a reporter for their "racial equity" stories that they're planning on to start running.

So far, the fund is just getting started. People in Innovaia and other advocates for racial equity and justice around the greater Inland community are calling on the area's biggest businesses and wealthiest citizens to pitch in to really provide more funding, so that more issues can be addressed. Many people in this area believe that communities of color are not only suffering during these times, but that their suffering is intentional, as it's part of a systemically racist plot to disenfranchise communities of color and to specifically harm them while uplifting only white people.

The fund isn't picking up much steam to date, and so advocates for racial equity in the area are trying hard to get this story pushed into the mainstream so that more potential donors are made away of the fund's existence and importance.

Why These Funds are Slow to Grow

All throughout America, there are hundreds if not thousands of these funds, and they all aim to end racial inequity and to tackle systemic racism. Insofar as systemic racism is affecting people's lives negatively for no other reason than they're POC, then objectively speaking this must be addressed. However, it's also important to note that the parity among these funds is losing stream as a matter of trend. In other words, these funds continue to pop up, but they make less and less money.

There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the fundraisers and the general public. As some people have already started doing with the Innovia fund, they're claiming that the lack of funding to date is a clear indication of systemic racism, saying things to suggest that if only white people weren't so racist, they would be able to get more funding. Though they do not seem to understand that taking this sort of tone is why they cannot get as much funding as they want. Perhaps if they were gentler in their assessment, some claim, they may lure in more flies with the honey instead of the vinegar.

Though one also has to factor in the fact that so many of these funds exist, and so many of them prove to be corrupt. With Innovia in particular, they're using most of this money already to create a reporter position out of thin air, while trying to fund-raise under the guise of ending racial inequity.

The more honest and calm these funds are, the more money they raise.