Nonprofit Consortium of St. Croix (USVI)

February 27 – June 25, 2021

In our last quarterly report, we told you about St. Croix Foundation’s work through the Nonprofit Consortium to create pathways toward greater engagement in the civic sector. In the several months since, and just as the 2021 Hurricane Season began and the world’s attention on climate focuses, the Nonprofit Consortium’s values of equity, collaboration, and community have never been more critical.

As we approach the Nonprofit Consortium’s 5th Anniversary this August 2021, St. Croix Foundation’s pledge to hold space for community action, to keep sacred the civic sector, and to empower local nonprofits has been put to the test and the importance of collective voice proven. In this last quarter alone, the Nonprofit Consortium has convened 19 times, with all four sectors represented: arts and culture, health and human welfare, youth and education, and the natural and built environs. In all, 20+ organizations sat at the table to continue vital case development while conducting community organization and advocacy around environmental justice.

The stakes have never been higher for our People. With no federal voting power, the voices of our civic organizations offer a voice and vision that encompasses sustainable, equitable systems--- of food, energy, education, and economics. To our family at GlobalGiving, we extend our deepest appreciation for sharing our vision!

Nonprofit Consortium Hosts Town Halls Around Environmental Justice
While many might not be able to pick St. Croix out on a world map, the U.S. Virgin Islands certainly has national relevance. In addition to being the only predominantly black jurisdiction (under the U.S. Flag) without any federal voting rights, this 84 square mile island was once home to the largest oil refinery in the world, based on throughput. It also has the distinction of enduring one of the largest (and quietest) oil spills in American history, to the tune of 43 million gallons that slowly leaked into the island’s largest freshwater aquifer. Because of the U.S. Virgin Islands’ vulnerability relative to climate change, striking a balance between environmental justice and sustainable development was a top priority to the Nonprofit Consortium from its inception. In fact, we began exploring new models of sustainability and excavating our past exploitive environmental injustices at our Environmental Forum in 2019.

In February of 2021, the 50-year-old refinery, which had shuttered in 2012, reopened under new ownership and within the first two months of operation, two chemical exigences occurred that rained oil onto people’s homes, cars, and into their cisterns (rain catchment systems located under most homes which serve as the primary water source for island residents). Having witnessed residents being left breathless for months from highly noxious gases wafting through downwind neighborhoods after the restart, St. Croix Foundation and members of the Nonprofit Consortium stepped forward. With little to no acknowledgment from the private and public sector and in the face of peoples’ pleas for help, we recognized that philanthropy had a moral imperative to lead courageously.

Empowering Community with Data and Resources
On Thursday, May 13th at 6pm St. Croix Foundation and Nonprofit Consortium Members from the Environmental Sectors - St. Croix Environmental Association, Crucian Heritage And Nature Tourism CHANT, & Virgin Islands Good Food Coalition - hosted its first Engage VI Environmental Virtual Town Hall to discuss recent environmental and health impacts from Limetree Bay Refinery.

Invitations were extended to Limetree Bay Terminals, LLC, US Environmental Protection Agency, the Virgin Islands Department of Planning and Natural Resources, the Virgin Islands Department of Health, the Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency, and the Legislature to provide information on EPA regulations, and individual agency scope and responsibility relative to health and safety. While refinery representatives were not present, legal experts and both local and federal agency heads confirmed and spoke at the Town Hall. The chat was full of questions about the scope of damages and their impact on individual and environmental health. In total, the NPC’s First Town Hall in this three-part series hosted over 300 participants in the live session, 860 views of the Town Hall recording, and nearly 200 engagements, amplifications, and reactions.

The following day, the EPA announced that the refinery would close for 60 days, citing an imminent health threat, invoking powers under the Clean Air Act which had only exercised eleven times before.

As shared in prior reports to our GlobalGiving family, one of the Nonprofit Consortium’s outcomes has been the development of an official website, EngageVI.org., which now houses vital community resources, including emergency contacts for community health reporting.

A live recording of the first Virtual Town Hall can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6u52T08p8FU

Making Space for Marginalized Voices
One month later, on June 10, St. Croix Environmental Association, C.H.A.N.T., the Virgin Islands Good Food Coalition and St. Croix Foundation hosted the second Virtual Town Hall, entitled, “Heavy Industry and the Food We Eat: Impacts on Agriculture and Fishers on St. Croix.”

This special Town Hall included speakers Dr. David Bond, of Bennington College & Mr. Olasee Davis, from the University of the Virgin Islands who provided a history of heavy industry on St. Croix and (ask Jonathan if he can summarize this in a compelling way with NPC at the center).

Once again, pre-prepared questions were addressed to the Department of Agriculture and the 80+ attendees  asked various questions, including:

• Why was the island of St. Croix, as agricultural land, chosen to be a place to create such heavy environmental polluting and destructive industries?
• How can we qualify for Superfund status to achieve levels of remediation?
• I just purchased well water, with the comment generated today should I be concerned about possible hidden health concerns from possible contamination, is well contamination St. Croix wide?

With nearly 1000 views and over 113 engagements, the convening was well-received:

• “Thank you all for organizing and bringing us together.”
• “Thank you to all the presenters and to those who organized this forum to provide information. I am looking forward to hearing of a solution to this health issue.”

Creating a Sustainable Vision
The third and final session of the three-part Engage VI Environmental Town Hall series is scheduled for July 15, 2021. The discussion will center around articulating a community vision for a prosperous and sustainable future given the external environments, community values, health, all of the priorities represented by the Nonprofit Consortium’s four sectors. Making this convening that much more crucial was the announcement on June 21, 2021 that due to financial difficulties, the refinery may close operations permanently in September 2021. This development has been at the center of our dialogue around reimagining a future independent of heavy industry. We have also considered how dramatically this scenario mirrors the economic fallout of the initial closure of the refinery in 2012. What this demands of our community and, our sector, is a progressive and justice-focused reimaging that balances economic promise and environmental stewardship. As a result, the prospective theme of the final session is Reimagining A Sustainable Future: Balancing Economic Promise & Environmental Stewardship.

Holding the Vision
The work described here didn’t begin in response to the oil refinery nor Hurricanes Maria and Irma or even Covid-19. It began as a result of a deep understanding of what resilience in isolated communities can look like. Framed by the realities of political status, climate change, economics, geography, and rooted deeply in cultural heritage, the Nonprofit Consortium is coalescing civic power, empowering the disenfranchised, and giving Voice to the vulnerable. Our GlobalGiving family has made it all possible. THANK YOU!

In 2016, one year before Hurricanes Irma and Maria, the Nonprofit Consortium was conceived to strategically build capacity within St. Croix’s Civic Sector in response to economic and political shifts that were decimating an already small donor pool while social needs exploded. Due to its territorial status, the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) have a stifled voice, no vote at the federal level, and sits in a blind spot for national funders. St. Croix Foundation knew that to keep vital resources flowing to our most vulnerable residents, we had to strengthen our Territory’s nonprofit sector.

Our Nonprofit Consortium was officially launched through a series of table conversations amongst over 50 local nonprofits in the fall of 2016- nearly one year to the date prior to the 2017 storms. Today, the Consortium is a membership collective of roughly 30 civic entities serving St. Croix, USVI that has been nurturing and enhancing meaningful, community-based collaboration with the overarching goal of supporting greater social impact investments to benefit the people of the Virgin Islands. Over the span of almost 5 years and through rich programming, nonprofits in the Consortium have participated in three Art of Hosting trainings; 5 philanthropic retreats and forums; and innumerable workshops and board development exercises. Altogether, the organizations have built collaborations that have increased funding opportunities and allowed programmatic work to move forward with greater reach. We simply could not have done it without GlobalGiving!

Over the last several years, you’ve been with us on the journey – and thanks to you, our GlobalGiving family, the Nonprofit Consortium continues to grow and evolve. In a disruption to the paradigm, the Consortium rallied not just for a funding opportunity but to develop a space for nonprofits to share their visions, their missions, and their stories. It provides access for conversations that unveiled new collaborations, new networks, new systems, and yes, funding! You’ve read in our reports about the staff and board development, technical grantwriting, and Art of Hosting training that is, today, facilitating strategic conversations, maximizing collective impact, and nurturing a culture of collaboration and alliance building. In this report, we will discuss the structure that is making the Consortium poised for even greater collaborative work, how nonprofits continued to excel even under COVID conditions, and how we are making the case for even greater investment in 2021.

Institutionalizing Structure for the Nonprofit Consortium
The Foundation’s ultimate goal is to help nonprofit organizations and initiatives on St. Croix grow successful at uplifting social equity, embracing civic leadership, and collaborating around high-impact programs and systems-building all the while stabilizing operations. To that end, in the last quarter, the Nonprofit Consortium has been busy formalizing the structure of the Nonprofit Consortium to strengthen its capacity to serve nonprofits.

Just this past January, the Nonprofit Consortium Advisory Committee finalized an updated Memorandum of Understanding which will govern member organizations through February 2022!

Representing all four sectors (arts, culture, and Crucian heritage; health and human services; education and youth development; and the natural and built environs), new members are subject to review by the Advisory Committee, which meets quarterly and must submit a letter of interest and must have attended two open non-sector NPC meetings. General meetings happen 6x per year and sector meetings occur as needed dependent upon case-writing and other needs. Any organization may join dependent upon being a registered state nonprofit in the US Virgin Islands.

As part of the Consortium’s strategy to evolve membership for holistic and innovative perspective, Veronica Hemmingway of Coastal Communities Foundation of South Carolina was invited and accepted a role on the Advisory Committee. The Nonprofit Consortium reached out to Veronica based on her work collaborating with nonprofits in South Carolina, the lessons that can be learned and shared across communities regardless of their proximity and, ways in which they have protected and preserved what remains of their indigenous culture. Veronica has seen the Consortium grow as she was present for the formative first meetings of the consortium in 2016 and participated in the 2020 Philanthropy Retreat and Forum.

Case Building for the Arts: Healing with the Humanities
In the absence of in-person convenings due to Covid-19, the Consortium is using this virtual opportunity to focus on compelling case-writing for national and international foundation support.

Over the course of the past quarter, our members have been busy! Our grassroots and formal nonprofits have convened 6 times, including advisory meetings, sector meetings, and as an entire body. While the Advisory Committee continues to guide the evolution of the structure of the Nonprofit Consortium, the Environs Sector has begun to design its case for funding that will support a holistic discovery process around imagining a U.S. Virgin Islands in the absence of heavy industry.

We are also excited to share that the Arts, Culture, and Crucian Heritage Sector is also in the midst of developing a cohesive case for support and reparations. In testimony to the Nonprofit Consortium’s positioning statement, and unlike any previous endeavor undertaken in the USVI, the case for support focuses specifically on racial equity and the healing from a history of colonialism and enslavement. By aligning the sectors’ most important needs with community collaboration the Consortium will help to sustain one of the largest arts communities in the Caribbean region.

Building Capacity… in Motion!
As a cohesive, cross-sector coalition that shares a unified position and vision of St. Croix, in November of 2020, St. Croix Foundation opened a grant opportunity through our CARE Fund to members of the Nonprofit Consortium. Funded by United PhilanthropyForum’s Momentum Fund, the Foundation awarded $65,000 in mini-grants to 13 members of the Consortium.

Awards were provided to applicants that were on the frontlines of the Covid-19 Pandemic and working to continue or expand services. Priorities included: (1) Nonprofit operating support (Open Doors), (2) Programming support for frontline responders, (3) Data collection and reporting, and (4) Direct programming to build resilience and new systems.

One recipient, Music in Motion Dance Academy, a fiscal sponsored project of the Foundation and a Nonprofit Consortium member, was awarded a $5,000 Open Door Mini Grant to allow the organization to move the dance studio’s equipment (sets, costumes, etc.) from a storage unit into a permanent location saving Music in Motion overhead costs of $3,300 in storage fees per year and providing capacity to store more equipment and have access to the contents as students needed. As an organization that serves low-income youth of color, Music in Motion is more than a dance company: it saves lives.  A January blog on Unstoppable Yes You sheds light on the healing that the arts provide and is evidence of the need for passionate nonprofits to establish a resilience that is personal, cultural, and relevant.  With exacerbated global crises and local uncertainty, the need for organizations like Music in Motion to receive the support they need to serve our community is even greater.

Today, the stark reality for our community is that in the face of unprecedented economic collapse, back-to-back hurricanes, and now Covid-19, it is our local nonprofits who are being called upon to shoulder greater responsibilities. With the support of our GlobalGiving family, through the Nonprofit Consortium we will continue to provide holistic support – from technical assistance to continuing to nurture a spirit of collaboration - to ensure deeper impact and financial and operational sustainability.

To our GlobalGiving family we say THANK YOU for all you do to make this work possible!