--- title: How Trump's Attacks on DEI Are Hurting His Voters description: Many of the programs targeted by the new Administration’s staff cuts and funding freezes helped conservative communities canonical: https://time.com/7261440/trump-dei-environmental-justice/ author: Alana Semuels article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2025-02-25T18:25:35.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:10.562Z article:section: Politics og:title: How Trump's Attacks on DEI Are Hurting His Voters og:description: The Aministration's focus on DEI and environmental justice is stripping funding from areas that voted for him og:url: https://time.com/7261440/trump-dei-environmental-justice/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt688fc5271b5fad21/6998c46047fe5134c155b779/clarksburg.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: West Virginia Continues To Battle Endemic Poverty og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Trump's Attacks on DEI Are Hurting His Voters twitter:description: The Aministration's focus on DEI and environmental justice is stripping funding from areas that voted for him twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt688fc5271b5fad21/6998c46047fe5134c155b779/clarksburg.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # How Trump's Attacks on DEI Are Hurting Communities That Voted for Him > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=3af5d683-4cc4-4f3f-bf19-63da92c2d03b&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Closers 2025 Panel: Bridging The Divide-Strategies For Achieving Racial Equity [Watch (HLS stream): The Closers 2025 Panel: Bridging The Divide-Strategies For Achieving Racial Equity](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/x8f44ilw.m3u8) (26:56)  _Published 2025-02-14. The panel and dinner took place just weeks after President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order calling for the end of what he called “DEI diversity, equity, and inclusion discrimination in the federal workplace.” The directive impacted all corners of the federal government: prompting the Environmental Protection Agency to shut down its DEI office, and leading Secretary of State Marco Rubio to bar U.S. embassies and consulate offices from flying Pride or Black Lives Matter flags, which were previously permitted by the Biden Administration. A number of private corporations have also followed suit in shutting down DEI initiatives to align with the new administration’s policy._  by [Alana Semuels](https://time.com/author/alana-semuels/)  ## Alana Semuels Senior Correspondent Feb 25, 2025 6:25 PM UTC  A truck drives through downtown Clarksburg, West Virginia. A truck drives through downtown Clarksburg, West Virginia. Spencer Platt / Getty Images  by [Alana Semuels](https://time.com/author/alana-semuels/)  ## Alana Semuels Senior Correspondent Feb 25, 2025 6:25 PM UTC Clarksburg, West Virginia has [lead service lines](https://dhhr.wv.gov/News/2021/Pages/DHHR-and-EPA-Partnering-to-Assist-Clarksburg-Water-System--to-Test-Older-Homes-with-Lead-Service-Lines.aspx) scattered throughout the city, which has caused elevated levels of lead in some children’s blood, resulting in [health issues](https://www.wvnews.com/news/wvnews/class-action-complaint-filed-against-clarksburg-west-virginia-water-board-over-lead-in-pipes/article%5F83f96232-9c26-11ed-87fd-7b0b72854aee.html) like developmental delays. In 2023, the environmental-justice division of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) introduced a new program designed to increase lead testing for local children and families so that officials could catch elevated lead levels early and prevent long-term health complications. Partnering with [cash-strapped state agencies](https://www.monchd.org/newsroom/harrison-county-wic-offers-free-lead-testing-to-participants), the EPA bought kits that could measure lead levels in children with just a finger prick, gave out gift cards to incentivize testing, and offered testing opportunities in offices where families picked up benefits and received breast-feeding support. The program invested $150,000 in lead-testing kits for Harrison County, where Clarksburg is located, which raised testing rates in children from about 8% to 41%, says Camilla McMillen-Haught, director of Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) Nutrition in six West Virginia counties, including Harrison. Children with high levels of lead were then targeted for health interventions like dietary changes that would reduce their risk of long-term problems. The future of the program is now uncertain, due to the Trump Administration’s focus on rooting out efforts to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental-justice initiatives. A proposed expansion of the lead-testing program to states like Ohio is threatened as well. An EPA staffer connected to the initiative was put on administrative leave in early February as part of the Trump Administration’s purge of federal government workers. The person told TIME they were pulled into a meeting and told they had 15 minutes to log out of their work email and settle their affairs. (The staffer asked not to be named for fear of being fired permanently.) An additional 167 members of the EPA’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights were put on administrative leave, according to the agency, many after receiving emails that said they were identified as spending more than half their time on environmental-justice initiatives. These moves were part of President Trump’s executive order, titled “[Ending Radical and Waste Government DEI Programs and Preferencing](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/),” which he issued on his first day in office to target DEI and environmental-justice programs. (A Maryland judge on Feb. 21 [largely blocked](https://apnews.com/article/dei-diversity-equity-inclusion-trump-federal-judge-5b04fbc742bd32adf98ca108b4b12b37) the Administration from carrying out much of the DEI executive order, though staff members and recipients of grants have not yet seen changes since then.) The Administration’s goal, it said, was to slash spending and end initiatives that single out minorities for help. In the directive, Trump criticized his predecessor’s own executive order seeking to advance racial equity and support for underserved communities as “illegal and immoral discrimination.” New EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a [video posted on X](https://x.com/epaleezeldin/status/1889840040622321778) Feb. 12 that “the days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of environmental justice and climate equity are over.” [He added](https://x.com/epaleezeldin/status/1893377875220332772), on Feb. 22, "UPDATE: I just cancelled another 21 wasteful DEI and Environmental Justice grants, with the help of our amazing @DOGE team, racking up $67m more in savings!" But many of the environmental-justice programs targeted by the new Administration’s staff cuts and funding freezes do not benefit minorities or left-leaning environmental groups, according to Adam Ortiz, who until January served as the EPA’s Regional Administrator for Region 3, which includes Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Often they help poor, white communities in conservative areas—places that overwhelmingly voted for Trump. **Read More**:[ _Inside Elon Musk's War on Washington_](https://time.com/7213409/elon-musk-us-government-trump/). Clarksburg, a beneficiary of the West Virginia lead-testing program, is a former manufacturing hub that is 90% white and has a poverty rate of 23.2%, about double the national average. Harrison County, where it is located, voted for Trump by a margin of 40 percentage points in 2024\. “These are communities that had the most hope in this Administration and are now feeling the most suffering,” says Jacob Israel Hannah, the CEO of Coalfield Development Corp., a nonprofit that does workforce development in 21 counties in West Virginia. Coalfield Development had won nearly $700 million in federal funding for projects across the state. Over half of its budget has come from federal grants in the past few years as the Biden Administration funneled “unprecedented” amounts of funding to Appalachia, Hannah says. But nearly all that money has been frozen by federal spending pauses targeting DEI, environmental justice, and clean-energy initiatives. When asked about the idea that ending DEI and environmental justice activities hurts communities that supported Trump, an EPA spokesperson said in a statement to TIME that it is “working diligently” to implement President Trump’s executive orders. It placed the 168 Office of Environmental Justice employees on administrative leave after EPA career staffers determined that their functions “did not relate to the agency’s statutory duties,” the statement said. The agency is “in the process of evaluating new structure and organization to ensure we are meeting our mission of protecting human health and the environment for all Americans,” according to the statement. Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, wrote in an email to TIME that “protecting the civil rights and expanding opportunities for all Americans is a key priority of the Trump Administration, which is why he took decisive actions to terminate unlawful DEI preferences.” **Read More:** [_What Cuts to the CFPB Could Mean For Consumers._](https://time.com/7222139/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-cuts/) Funding freezes are another way that the Trump Administration has tried to weed out programs promoting DEI and environmental justice. One of the grants Coalfield Development Corp. won—worth around $130 million—would have created 1,000 new jobs by training unemployed coal workers to become solar installers and then to install 250 megawatts of solar on closed coal mines, says Hannah. But now, he says, when Coalfield staffers log into funding portals for the Department of Energy, the EPA, and the Department of Labor, they receive a message that their grants are “under review” and that they are not able to access the money they were promised. The grant applications included the term _environmental justice_ because they would have helped underserved communities access jobs and clean power, Hannah says. If the grant goes away, “you will see the loss of what would have been over 1,000 new jobs in Appalachia,” Hannah says. **Read More**: [_The Major U.S. Companies Scaling Back DEI Efforts as Trump Targets Initiatives_](https://time.com/7260689/us-companies-scaling-back-dei-efforts-trump-targets-initiatives/) While some of the beneficiaries of environmental-justice projects have been low-income communities of color in cities, others are struggling white communities in Appalachia. The Biden Administration mandated that 40% of many of its climate and [clean energy funds flow to](https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/environmentaljustice/justice40/) “disadvantaged communities that are marginalized by underinvestment and overburdened by pollution.” It also set aside $500 million for Appalachian Community Capital to launch a Green Bank for Rural America that would have [prioritized investments](https://www.epa.gov/greenhouse-gas-reduction-fund/clean-communities-investment-accelerator) in 582 counties across the region. “The important thing to understand about all the grants at the EPA is that they prioritized reaching the communities most overburdened by pollution,” says Zealan Hoover, who was until recently the Director of Implementation at the agency, overseeing $100 billion in funding. “In every state, there was a wide range of communities receiving funding.” That includes Alaska Native communities, rural communities in the Southeast and Gulf Coast, and places across the country that have disproportionately high energy costs, Hoover says. Another nonprofit that saw its federal funding frozen is LiKEN (Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network), which works in Kentucky and West Virginia to help people in rural areas join global markets for sustainable agriculture and carbon capture. LiKEN received $3.1 million from the U.S. Forest Service’s Forest Landowners Support Program from the Inflation Reduction Act. It hired 10 staff to open satellite offices in eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia that were set to become local hubs where the community could gather, says Betsy Taylor, the group’s executive director. On Feb. 5, the organization received a form email from the U.S. Forest Service informing the group that its federal funds “are on hold until further notice.” LiKEN had to borrow money from private donors and furlough five staff. Taylor says she has a suspicion of why the money was frozen: “Diversity, equity, and inclusion. It was about serving underserved communities.” The vast majority of these communities were white, Taylor says. **Read More:** [_For Many of America's Aging Workers, 'Retirement Is a Distant Dream.'_](https://time.com/7260357/aging-workforce/) The Administration’s funding freeze hits communities that would have benefited at a time of urgent need. Swaths of Appalachia suffered[ devastating floods on Feb. 15](https://disasterphilanthropy.org/disasters/2025-appalachian-floods/). “One of the things that has been surreal is the contrast between the shock that the government would not be honoring contracts that were congressionally approved, and the heroism of people on the ground who lost income rushing to communities affected by the floods,” Taylor says. Many of the programs whose funding was paused or whose federal staff were placed on administrative leave focused on providing access to clean drinking water and functioning wastewater treatment plants, says Ortiz, the former EPA regional administrator. One project, spearheaded by a staffer now on administrative leave, according to Ortiz, sought to relocate a wastewater treatment plant in Richwood, W.V., that has been basically inoperable since a 2016 flood. “Our environmental-justice work was really focused on places that historically didn’t have the ability to match funds or pay loans back,” Ortiz says. “For the first time since the 1930s and 1940s, these communities were receiving serious investments to rebuild critical infrastructure.” In Pennington Gap, Virginia, which is located in a county where 86% of voters supported Trump in 2024, the future of a grant to demolish an asbestos-filled grocery store, issued through the EPA’s Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem-Solving Cooperative Agreement Program, is now in question. The nonprofit environmental group Appalachian Voices, which received the grant, can’t get in touch with its EPA program lead and can’t send out any more information to community members without EPA approval, says Emma Kelly, New Economy program coordinator for Appalachian Voices. Other federal funding to Appalachian Voices that has been frozen includes money to support communities battered by flooding and monitor air quality, says Kelly. “These freezes, even if they are eventually overturned, are already having incredibly detrimental impacts,” she adds. Many of the EPA environmental-justice staffers put on leave are eager to get back to work—even in an Administration that seems hostile to the very idea of the work that they do. “No economy is going to be restored,” says one staffer on administrative leave, who asked not to be named because they hope to be reinstated, "if you don’t have sanitation or clean drinking water." ## Transcript So first of all, I just want to thank Sam and I want to thank time for doing what I'm just going to I'm just going to say it standing ten toes down. Yeah. On celebrating the achievements of the leaders in this room who are doing the work to advance racial equity at a time when so many institutions are retreating and backing away from the commitments that they have made to this community. Um, this is an important time for us to gather. This is this is how we heal. This is how we strategize. This is how we fight back. And I will say I am about 12 weeks or so postpartum. This is my first time in the world in heels. And there's nowhere else I would rather be tonight because we need this now more than ever. We need to be in community. We need to stand in solidarity with one another. So it is such an honor to have this opportunity to be in conversation with each of you. And I just want to before we dive into our conversation, I want to take a moment to just applaud every single person on this list and everybody in the room this evening. So can we just give a warm applause? I think that I think that we need all the good energy and joy that we can get. So this is going to be an uplifting panel. Um, but it's also I'm sitting with some truth tellers. So I invite you to bring your truth with your full chest. And we will also end on a hopeful note, I assure you of that. Okay. All right. Those are our ground rules. So let's dive in with the topic that is on the top of all of our minds today, which is the attacks on Dei. Um, right. Let's just go there. Right. We're going to dance around it. It's going to go. Let's go right in. So each of you are doing extraordinary work, have been doing extraordinary work around racial equity, um, from very different vantage points. So I want to give each of you the stage and the opportunity to talk about. Your work in this moment and how how you're pivoting. How how you are thinking about. Approaching your work differently or are you leaning in to some of the same strategies? We are looking for inspiration in this room, so we want to tap this brain trust for strategies, mindsets. Um, and I, I will just say David Johns, he is one of the preeminent civil rights leaders of our generation. And I look to you and the clarity of your voice for inspiration in times of chaos. So I want to just start with you, give you the floor. No pressure. Uh, thank you for that. Um, it's an honor for me to be on the stage with black women. So thank you all for all that. You all do. Um, also, I'm honored to be in the arena with each of you. Um, for those who don't know, I'm the quarterback of the National Black Justice Collective. We are a 21 year old civil rights organization. We understand the lessons of black feminists like Fannie Lou Hamer, who taught us that none of us are free unless and until all of us are free. We understand that we have to celebrate the legacy of folks like Brother Bayard Rustin Coleman. Thank you for introducing him to so many more, because we know if we don't get into good trouble, then fascists will win. Um, and what I also know is what sociologist Asa Hilliard taught me, which is that I've never met a child, in particular, a black child who is not a genius. There's no secret to how we support them. We first acknowledge them as human, and we second support them with love. So the question part of your question, Elaina, is, what are we doing differently? What are we leaning into? I'm standing ten toes down. Or the business of making sure that all of our babies are supported. I've never met a child who has to be born. As he said, if y'all have, let me know, I want to meet them. And each of our babies deserve the support required so that they can thrive. Three quick things one is we focus a lot on mental health and wellbeing. We know that even before the most recent pandemic, inspired by the novel coronavirus, the suicide rate for black babies has doubled. I imagine that that is increased, given all of what we know has happened since then, and there's not a whole lot of data collected that accounts for the wholeness of all of us. But what we do know is that for kids who identify as LGBTQ, plus you'll hear me say same gender loving. I don't use gay because gay is a white male political identifier. If I say gay, you don't imagine somebody who is as fine as I am. So language. Language is important, right? Language is important, right? Um, but we have a partnership with Boris Lawrence Henson Foundation, run by Taraji P Henson, where we have provided more than 300 of our babies with high quality, culturally competent mental health support. We all have to find ways to do that. The second thing is we have to use language that's inclusive. I know some of y'all have language fatigue. Some of y'all who never cared about grammar got issues with they and them. But we have to find ways to use language to create space for all of us to show up. Toni Morrison taught us that the last thing in this moment that I think is so important for me, is that we need to cling closer to each other. So much of what's happened since November is that we've been retreating. It's the I don't I want to know who did who didn't vote for our best interest. I want you to out yourselves. I don't want to. I don't want to talk to you. I think that it's important for us to be in proximity with people who have contributed to our pain, if for no other reason that they know it. And so I'm asking you to do the tough work of staying in relationship with people who need to come closer to us and to show up in love. And when that don't work, Hugh, the great poet Kendrick Lamar and squabble up. Yes. Oh, he came to preach tonight. Where is the pulpit? Come on. All right. Well, David Giving us the gems we need, I told you. Lejeune, let's move to you next. Because one of the things that you just queued up, David, is the importance of staying in communication, staying in community with those that we disagree with deeply. And and that is the work that you've been doing for many years. Um, you've been at the Kellogg Foundation since 1987, and you are the president and CEO later. Um, and the first black woman to be in this role. Um, and I'd like to say we met years ago, pre-pandemic, um, empty promises from companies and institutions around racial equity. Um, at a at a full day seminar workshop around racial healing, which was one of the most impactful experiences of my career. So I want to thank you for that. And there were so many tools that we talked through that day that we're healing. Can you share some of those healing strategies with this room? Um, how do we talk to people that we deeply disagree with when we are angry? Yeah. Well, you know, anger. Is a feeling. And when we speak, we tell our truth, we tell our feelings. And so it's part of the dialogue, actually, but it's done in a way that invites conversation that leads to a greater level of empathy, a greater level of shared understanding. And at the end of the day, a connection that we can use to work together to create a better future for our communities, our children and our families. But to answer your first question on where we are, we are so steadfast in this work. And when you were talking about pre pandemic, we were Pre-george Floyd. We were pre, pre, pre. Our organization is almost 100 years old and we have been doing this work and creating opportunities and equity for children regardless of race, creed, gender, etc., for our existence. And so in this moment, we are so steadfast in what we are doing and in fact, why wouldn't we be? We are winning. The backlash is because of the success. So why wouldn't we do anything but continue to push? What is true for all of us? That our humanity is about all of us. And we do use language that is about being expansive because even inclusive and invokes some level of power of who can include and who can't. We are expansive. We believe in expanding the space and opportunities for everyone so that every child can thrive. And our healing work is what we believe is the pathway to getting to this place of racial equity. And the healing work is about how we truly connect with one another through our common humanity, and build the empathy that allows the changes to be sustainable. We're where we are now because you can't mandate this. The laws that were put in place, people didn't believe in those laws. There was no love and humanity behind those laws, and that's why they're being pulled back. What we really need to do is work with people across our differences, and learn to understand one another, to find where we have commonality, and to figure out how we can create a nation and a world where all of us can thrive and reach our Reach our highest aspirations. So that is what our work is all about. And it's not all easy, right? And a lot of people think that healing work is kind of soft, right? But it's not. And in fact, if people were really leaning into this space, a lot of the issues that we have in society would have been resolved already. So we know this is the difficult work, but it's the truth telling. It's the story telling is how we really affirm and create the value for ourselves and others and allow us through that affirmation, to work closely together. So, you know, we you were saying, give an example. And, um, I in my book that I wrote, How We Heal, which was launched earlier this year, I share stories about how healing actually works and looks and feels like. And one story that I shared is a relationship that I now have with the police chief of the city of Battle Creek. Um, a white male who, uh, was, you know, very proud of the work he was doing in the police force and leading that police force. But we met because one of his officers followed me home one day because my husband and I were new to the neighborhood, and we were the only black family in this neighborhood. And as we were driving there, this police decided to just follow us and find out why we were in this neighborhood. And the next day I went to my office and when I shared it, they sent the police chief to my office to have a conversation with me about, you know, this incident. And what he said to me was, well, you should have just told him to stop following you. And that's lack of empathy. It's a setup. For what it is. It's a setup. It's ignorance. And so, you know, we needed to have a conversation. We needed a healing process. Where do you begin when answering that question? I'm just curious. You know what I said? Did you start with a breath? No. Actually, no. She said I was unbothered. Okay. I was so prepared for this. How many times have we had to have this conversation? I've had it with my children. We've had it in our family. What I said was, do you think my husband, a black man, is going to get out of his car and try to address your officer, which we know is biased, or he wouldn't have followed us in the first place. So and that's where we started. It was a very honest conversation and we left the conversation, um, not agreeing. We agreed to disagree because I just said we have some work to do, because if this is how you think, all of our residents can feel safe in this community and we forged a relationship, we're actually good colleagues now. He invited me to present to Perf, which is one of the national police officer enforcement organizations, and he thought he was setting me up. But I went into this room of thousands of police officers who were all very wanted to lock me up that day, and I shared with all of them that, you know, this is not going to work. This is not how we build communities. And we've continued to work together in that way. That's a fantastic story. I didn't know how that one was going to end. Um, but, Elise, first of all, it's so great to see you on this stage. You are maybe one of the youngest people on this list, and so impressive. Um, you are building innovative technology that is helping make the workplace more equal, more fair. Talk about your work in this moment and what you're doing every day to make sure that Dei survives this backlash. Yeah, absolutely. So we at Praxis Labs, we're an AI learning company. So we use AI agents to help build human centered, inclusive leadership skills that enable workplaces to work better for everyone, to create products and services that better serve everyone. And a lot of our clients chief diversity officers, talent officers, chief people officers are navigating this moment. I was talking with a mentor today who said, we are resigned, but we are resolved. And that's where Praxis Labs is sitting in this moment. Um, I've been talking to a lot of the executives, and we work with companies like Amazon and ConAgra and Fannie Mae and Uber. Um, about how to navigate this moment. And I been referencing this HBR article with research from Stanford's Women's Innovation Lab. Doctor Thomas Hunt, Doctor Soul and two other collaborators have talked about the social moment that we're in through the lens of social movements. And it's called this closed door period, where the ability to push change the channels are not easily accessible, and they recommend strategies to navigate. The first is being in community, keeping the community of people who care about racial justice, about diversity, equity and inclusion, keeping it close. One of their second strategies is to preserve the collective memory, and I think that is so powerful. The third is actually around language. It's around reframing and renaming. And that's where we spend a lot of our work at Praxis Labs. So whether you were the were the chief diversity officer and now you lead engagement. Great. If you get to still do the work, let's keep pushing on. I think the bigger piece is around this reframing. We're in a moment where we are systematically under attack. And how do we reframe the narrative around what it means to care and do the work of DNI? How do we make leadership inclusive leadership inherently? And that's what we do. We help build these skills, these attitudes and mindsets, using measurement and assessment and coaching to help people actually have changed behaviors where you a lot of our workforces see lack of promotion and advancement for black and Latino women, specifically because their managers do not coach them, they do not develop them, they do not see them. And partially, they're afraid to give critical feedback, to say the wrong thing, to get, you know, how do we build the skill where you can actually make a connection that's deep, that's not just transactional trust across difference. That's what we're doing at workplaces, and that's the outcome we're trying to drive. Because at the end of the day, this work is better for business outcomes for all of us. Absolutely. Absolutely. I want to show you some of your accomplishments out for this room. Um, Elise happens to be one of the most funded black women in the United States. Um, and she is one of 20 to raise over $10 million. Um, you have raised more than $23 million, to be exact, through venture capital funding to date. I do want to talk about the role of resources and how we make sure that resources are not redirected out of our communities and out of our individual fights. Um, I don't know if you want to answer that first, and then I'd love to talk about the role that philanthropy plays as well. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's such a privileged one to be in this room among all of these incredible leaders, I think. Uh, I'm humbled to be on this list, to be in this community. I think it is similarly humbling to be often called one of only. So that stat around 10 million. Of course we've raised more, but that the amount of funding going to black female to black female founders, to black founders in general is actually decreasing significantly. Um, it was already under 0.02%. And that you can see the charts kind of since 2023. That number has consistently gone down. Um, we are in a time where ideas and solutions and products that are needed now more than ever are less likely to get the capital and needed to have the outcomes. And that means that right now, when AI is continually self perpetuating systems of inequity, we are not having the people who look like us, who come from our backgrounds and our communities building the solutions of tomorrow. And that is very scary and very dangerous. And I think what we need to do now more than ever is continue to Continue to support these programs that have gotten so many into technology that so many into leadership positions that are now really, really at risk of being lost. And so I think a lot of the work is a part of that reframing of how important these programs are when they are supporting black, young and up and coming entrepreneurs and technology talent. Absolutely. Now, when the yes, you can give a round of applause. Now, when the venture capital money and other investments are are are dwindling. Talk to me about the role that philanthropy can play to help bridge the gap. Absolutely. And, you know, there are multiple things that we can do. Of course, we give from our endowment. But when we think about that, we know that we're one foundation. You know, we may have, you know, a $9 billion endowment, but at the end of the day, our resources are a drop in the bucket. So what we think about is how do we leverage and use our influence to leverage other resources. So for example, when Covid hit and we saw that all of our grantees weren't having access to the loans, they didn't have the relationships, they couldn't access those resources. We went and issued a social bond and borrowed basically $300 million that we immediately gave back to our grantees in grants because they couldn't access the capital that we could access, and we knew they needed that capital. So that's one way that we leverage our position for and toward the mission of our foundation. Another example is we know that the capital markets are very insular. We know that less than 1% of the market of the sector is women and people of color. So again, we went to our money managers who have our billions and said, you should partner with us and you should help us expand this sector. We think it's good for you. We think it's good for us. They said yes, and that's leverage and that's influence. And what we were able to do was build a cohort of people within the financial services sector to think with us about how to expand the sector and how to start with their own organizations. And we continue to do that work around being holding them up and holding them accountable, to be able to think more specifically about the barriers in the sector for people and for our grantees. So, you know, my point is, a philanthropy can can use many tools. We have a social impact body of work where we can look at our portfolio and address the gaps in access, and begin to think and work within the field to close those gaps. And I think that's what in this moment today, we're watching again, spaces where our grantees are losing funding are being challenged. And there are ways that we can create resource pools so that they have access because their work is our work. We wouldn't exist without the people on the ground doing this work every day. So we have to make sure that we can build that safety net around all of the social movements that are happening right now. Absolutely. Well, I know we have one minute on the clock left, and I promise that we were not going to take this on time. So, um, I will, I will I will allow each of you to you to answer this, this last question about what brings you hope. There are plenty of reasons for us to feel hopeless and overwhelmed right now, and I will. I will just quickly begin by answering this. At least I think our experience together at the Female Founders Fund summer camp, um, was a place that I. I felt a lot of hope. I saw the faces of so many female founders working in different spaces and being roomed with you. We shared a room, a very small room with two very small twin beds. Um, but getting but getting to. Yeah, I'm not over it. But look at us now. Um, yes, absolutely. Um, you clean up nice and just learning more about you, seeing what you've accomplished at your age. That gave me hope. So there's that. So now passing the mic, I'll pass the mic to you. We'll go down the line. You know, our foundation was Is founded to ensure the well-being of children and children and young people. Give me hope right now. Their energy, their passion, uh, their resilience, the way that they just take the mountain without fear. That's the spirit that I think we need to continue to do this work. So children. Absolutely. I second. That. Yeah. We might end up saying the same thing. Anybody who knows me knows that I'm passionate about teaching the babies. Um, Joe Tinker got me. Um, and I, I taught kindergarten in third grade. Um, that's in part why my nails are this fabulous. Because I had a student, a male student who wanted to get his nails painted, but he talked himself out of it because he didn't want to be bullied. And I said to him, well, if you do it, I'll do it too. And if somebody gives you ****, send them my way. Um, so I think about that often in this moment where there are so many bullies, um, failed history teacher turned governor of Florida being one of them who are leveraging their pulpits to cause harm to our babies. And so I encourage you all who don't have children in your lives to find one to mentor. Spend time with Latham and the Doula Center. Just be in community with people who love on our babies. And I didn't get to answer the previous question, but I want to ask each of you if you have a political home where you're organizing. What's not lost on me is that Bayard Rustin for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom didn't write an RFP for philanthropy to fund it. He went to the community to get the funding. And so I want to encourage everybody to practice political tithing. If you don't have a place where you're tithing, consider the National Black Justice Collective, where it don't have to be us, but find someplace to invest in. We fund our freedom. We keep our ourselves safe. We. It's always been that case. The Panthers in Oakland have taught us that. So find a baby to love on, be disruptive and tithe so that we can continue to fight for our freedom so we can all get free. Amen. Elaine, you make me speechless because you are such an inspirational leader. Everyone in this room is such an inspirational leader. But what you've been doing with the birth fund, everything you write, it's just moves and tell stories that need to be told. So thank you. I think what gives me hope truthfully is and it's been said already, but I think when preparing for this event, I was talking to the the team at time and I was like, so we're still doing the event for racial justice, right? Let me just get this right. You all are still it's are you changing the name of the panel? Is it going to be for all of us? Fair question. And and I think what gave me hope was no. Yeah. That's the name of the panel. And I think it's that type of standing ten like ten toes down that is so hopeful. Absolutely. And that's how you drop the mic on a panel tonight. Thank you so much to all of you for being here tonight. 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