As saltwater seeps into our aquifers and waterways, essential lifelines are in jeopardy. This invasion not only pollutes our drinking supply, endangering public health, but also upsets the fragile ecosystems that support our local farming, seafood industry, and natural wildlife. This disaster lives in the intersection of climate change and environmental racism; as with other disasters that Louisiana faces, it is natural yet super-charged by profit over people. Response efforts must be guided by principles of racial justice, economic justice, and gender justice. We will prioritize communities that have not had traditional access to philanthropic resources: people of the global majority, immigrant communities, low wealth communities, and LGBTQ communities.
As a Black-woman-led, social justice philanthropy founded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Foundation for Louisiana (FFL) realizes that disasters have outsized effects on marginalized communities. With nearly 18 years of devoted experience, we stand ready to support Louisiana communities facing the impacts of this saltwater intrusion Your support helps us to deliver on the promise of a more just and equitable response while responding to both immediate and long-term recovery efforts in Louisiana.
- Our short-term strategy will center the coastal parishes (Lafourche, Plaquemines, Terrebonne), river parishes (St. John the Baptist, St. James, St. Charles, Ascension), and the greater New Orleans area. FFL will focus on supporting efforts that help community members access their needs and ability to stay, evacuation resources, and water testing.
- Our mid-term response will focus on insurance, damage to homes, predatory policing at water sites, continued water testing, and healing justice.
- Our long-term response will focus on policy efforts, action, mobilization, and fighting for protection. We will build greater awareness of and capacity to access climate and environmental justice federal funding opportunities.
Our disaster grantmaking strategy - built on 18 years of experience and intentional learning - is designed to be flexible, responsive, and readily adaptable to changing conditions in impacted communities and within disaster response efforts. Unlike most disaster response frameworks, our phases do not articulate specific timelines but are designed to be layered dynamically based on our capacity and the capacity of our many partners to move work. The phases are designed to be outcomes-oriented, allowing us to prioritize the needs of people and communities who are navigating crisis conditions while supporting the needs of people and communities who, while not in crisis, are at extreme risk for discrimination and ongoing disproportionately devastating impacts from disaster events.
This approach also allows us to leverage Louisiana’s greatest resource: our generations of community leaders, freedom fighters, and justice workers who have been leading the fight for a more fair, just, and liberated Louisiana for decades and in the legacy of centuries of resistance and transformation.
About FFL: Foundation for Louisiana (FFL) unites philanthropists, committed organizations, and caring residents to address the most critical needs facing Louisiana and our entire country. FFL is a social justice philanthropic intermediary founded in 2005 to invest in the immediate recovery of Louisiana’s communities after Hurricane Katrina. While FFL was founded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, our founders recognized the need to address the longstanding inequities that have shaped life outcomes for the most marginalized of Louisianans. FFL grew in response to these needs, and today, we focus on racial justice, climate justice, criminal justice reform, economic justice, gender justice, and support for Louisiana's vibrant arts and culture via re-granting, leadership development programs, coalition building, and systems change work. FFL’s programmatic and policy work has demonstrated broad regional impact through dismantling the structural barriers that impact the lives of Louisianans. As a trusted partner in philanthropy, FFL facilitates the change necessary to build a more just Louisiana.