Sharon Gary-Smith

This month’s member profile focuses on Sharon Gary-Smith. Sharon is the Chair of the People of Color Caucus of the National Network of Grantmakers. NNG is a membership organization that provides a place for inquiry, leadership development, and best practices to individuals working to achieve more progressive philanthropy. The People of Color Caucus provides a supportive network for people of color in philanthropy to share their knowledge of best practices, to develop informed leadership, and to bring a clear voice for racial justice and equity to philanthropic decision-making in order to achieve a more equitable distribution of foundation resources to organizations working for change in communities of color.

Sharon is a former Vice President of the Urban League in Austin, Texas, was the Executive Director of the Carolyn Downs Community Health Center in Seattle’s central district, served as the first national programs director of the National Black Women’s Health Project, and has been a long-term activist for reproductive choice, beginning her work with Planned Parenthood while in high school, and serving two terms on the national board of NARAL. She is board chair of the Western States Center, a Social Justice Fund NW grantee.

Born and raised in Portland, Sharon has a long history of activism. Her father was a “Tuskegee” man. Of her mother she says, “She was active in every cause from education equity, to healthcare access, to senior citizen dignity, and is most proud of the number of times she was arrested protesting at the South African consulate in Portland! I believe, if my Mom had been born later, she would probably have been a Panther!” She was a true agitator for justice!”Through her parents community involvement, she and her 3 sisters learned at a young age that social justice work and activism is something you do for a larger agenda, not just yours.

Sharon is a long time supporter of Social Justice Fund (formerly A Territory Resource) and was introduced to the organization many years ago through mentors Andrea and Alan Rabinowitz. She easily committed to a foundation whose mission was to specifically fund social justice. Serving as interim grants program manager in the 90’s, she staffed granting committees, conducted site visits throughout the region, and appreciates how Social Justice Fund “reduces the isolation for people working for justice and social change because the work is hard”.

Sharon remembers being a part of the early discussions on how to diversify (ATR’s) membership, and how to extend membership to those who could not meet the standard for membership at that time. She says, “Conversations were tense, but changed the face of the organization.”

Sharon became a Social Justice Fund member “on the spot” when she attended a meeting in Portland last year and experienced the work of Social Justice Fund grantee Salem-Keizer Coalition for Equality. The Salem-Keizer Coalition uses both bottom-up and top-down organizing to address educational discrimination against Latino, African-American, low-income and poor children. It has a powerful parent training component that uses the federal No Child Left Behind Act to ensure that mandated education supports their children.

“I became a member at that moment! This organization was providing empowerment training and critical education to African American and Latino families. These families were working together, training together, to solve common problems that needed to be addressed.”

Social Justice Fund’s unique, member governed, funding approach, inspires Sharon. “Everybody shouldn’t have to come and learn about you [foundations], you need to learn about the community groups. Foundations have the time…they have the money.”

When asked about the debate over immigration reform she states, “It is a time – a moment in time where we have an opportunity to do some serious educating, to build coalitions and to come together and achieve our common dreams. Immigrants are not the cause of black unemployment. They are not the reason why we [Blacks] are a disproportionate number in the criminal justice system. I understand the struggle in our communities; but I know that immigrants are as demonized as we are. That’s not the fight…that’s the set-up.”

She continues, “We have got to figure out a way to create popular education that uses our common stories to move the agenda for the betterment of our communities. We are allies in the struggle for justice.”
A self-proclaimed night owl, Sharon loves to read until the wee hours of the morning. She’s currently reading several novels, including Some Love, Some Pain, Sometime by J. California Cooper, Babylon Sisters by Pearl Cleage, and Not A Day Goes By by E. Lynn Harris.

Sharon’s life is rooted in community service. Her work on the ground has been rewarded by many victories in the social justice movement. Her progressive spirit ignites as she shares an anecdote from a recent Western States Center board meeting. “Ramon Ramirez of PCUN brought strawberries from newly unionized farms. There were PCUN Union stickers all over the flats of strawberries! No pesticides. No chemicals. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me but I can swear they were the sweetest strawberries ever.”