In 1998, family members held a discussion about the long-term structure of the foundation, with the goals of increasing family engagement in grantmaking, improving members’ knowledge on issues, and remaining willing to take risks and fund a wide range of…
Founded in 1992 in Hempstead, NY, as one of the first worker centers in the country, the Workplace Project (Norman grantee 1994–2003) was established to help end the exploitation of Latino immigrant workers — mostly Salvadoran refugees who had fled…
This appointment demonstrated the foundation’s commitment to intergenerational leadership and engaging the next generation in decision-making.
Founded in 1978, Communities for a Better Environment (CBE, Norman grantee 1995–2001, 2007) combines community organizing, scientific research, and legal advocacy to fight industrial pollution in low-income communities of color across California. CBE and concerned residents of Southeast Los Angeles…
The farm crisis of the 1980s drove tens of thousands of American farms out of business and pushed rural suicide rates to their highest levels since the Great Depression. In the 1990s, a new threat emerged: the systematic corporate takeover…
In the 1990s, the Norman Foundation grew increasingly interested in innovative strategies that opened new pathways to economic opportunity. Worker ownership was one promising frontier — an approach that went beyond fighting for better wages and conditions within existing structures…
Founded in 1985 to defend Native Hawaiian rights, the Pele Defense Fund (PDF, Norman grantee 1990, 1992) fought to stop geothermal energy development in Wao Kele O Puna — a sacred rainforest on the Big Island of Hawaii associated with…
The assault of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers in 1991 — captured on video and broadcast around the world — and the uprising that followed the acquittal of those officers in 1992, forced a long-overdue national conversation about…
Southern Echo (Norman grantee 1992–2001, 2007) was co-founded in 1989 by Leroy Johnson, Mike Sayer, and Hollis Watkins — a civil rights leader who organized some of the first Woolworth sit-ins in Mississippi in 1961 and registered Black voters during…