From: Sr. Carol <rgscarol@hotmail.com>

Sent: Sunday, September 13, 2015 9:56 PM

To: Mary Carol McClenon; Lee, McClenon; Chuck at home McClenon; Robin Alm

Subject: Fund: Identification of Causes

"The committee on identification of causes will be chaired by Carol and will include Lee, Chuck, and Robin.  "

Nothing like starting at the 11th hour.  We have a week before the Fund meeting to talk about ways to determine what Causes we want to focus on.  I note that this discussion is about Causes qua general topics; it's not about specific organizations.

Fortunately, we have all already been copied on the thread started by Lee for the Long-Term Purpose of the Fund Committee.  Thanks, Lee -- well-organized writing raising major considerations!  Although Lee was writing for the other committee, I think much of what she said provides a good jumping-off point for ours.

Lee identified four "Causes" of particular interest to her:

-Wealth Inequality

-Environmental Degradation

-Racism

-Over incarceration

and also noted that Education seems to be an interest of many trustees.

Lee went on to begin to distinguish local versus broader advocacy, and domestic versus international arenas.   

It seems to me that we could (if we wanted to) include certain qualifiers in the list of our preferred causes.  Thus, for example, we might designate "Early Childhood Education in the United States" as a Fund Cause.  Or even additional qualifiers,  for instance "Early Childhood Education in Urban Areas with Large Immigrant Populations in the United States".  I am not particularly suggesting that as one of my preferred Causes, but I am raising the question of how much specificity we want to define.  There would still be quite a number of organizations which would be working under even such a specific Cause area.

I think it would be beneficial to continue to discuss the domestic versus international choice.

I agree that Over-Incarceration is an important topic which is well-worthy of the Fund's attention.  I think I would broaden it a bit to include Prison Reform in general, and re-integration of ex-offenders into mainstream society.  In the United States.

Well, that's my feeble attempt at starting/continuing discussion about identification of Causes.

Carol McC