A year after a sharp increase in hate crimes targeting Asian Americans — including an Atlanta-area shooting that left six Asian American women dead — a new foundation that prompted donors to pledge more than $1 billion has distributed nearly $10 million. Those grants have helped develop an Asian American history curriculum, support training to teach bystanders how to help when they see violence erupt, and improve reporting and investigations of hate crimes.
Racially motivated verbal harassment and physical attacks of Asian Americans that rose early in the Covid pandemic have continued as efforts by the Asian American Foundation and other nonprofits work to make a difference. A report by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism revealed that anti-Asian hate crime increased by 339 percent last year over the year before.
Many organizations that serve Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders struggle to attract large amounts of foundation money. Just 20 cents of every $100 awarded by U.S. foundations is designated for organizations that work with Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, according to a 2020 report. But donations and pledges to Asian American groups spiked in the aftermath of the Atlanta shooting last year.
Because of the historic paucity of giving, “anywhere you start is a good place,” says Patricia Eng, CEO of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy. “There’s just so much to be done.”
Gathering Data on Hate
The Asian American Foundation and its AAPI Giving Challenge, which launched in May, drew $1.1 billion in pledges, donations, and other support from companies, foundations, and individuals. Some of those pledges went directly to AAPI projects or nonprofits, and some went to the foundation to support its programs and grant making.
The foundation has made grants to 26 local and national organizations that serve or advocate for Asian Americans. Its priorities are education, data and research, and combating anti-Asian hate. Nineteen of the initial grantees received support for anti-hate work.
Asian Americans Advancing Justice/AAJC, a civil- and human-rights advocacy group, is a grantee of the foundation and part of its Anti-Hate National Network, which helps coordinate data-tracking efforts and identify promising solutions.
While many organizations have been collecting such data for years, gaps remain, says John Yang, executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice/AAJC. “Data on anti-Asian hate and what is happening in the Asian community is just so underreported. We have seen this tremendous spike in anti-Asian hate over the last two years, but unless we really have data to quantify that, it’s hard to tell the full story.”
From March 2020 to September 2021 the nonprofit project Stop AAPI Hate collected about 10,370 reports of hate incidents — including nonviolent forms of discrimination such as verbal harassment. Stop AAPI Hate commissioned a nationally representative survey in October that found nearly one in five Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders experienced a hate incident in the past year. Nearly three in four AAPI women reported they faced racism or discrimination over the previous 12 months, according to a new survey from the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, which the Asian American Foundation helped fund.
With support from the foundation, Asian Americans Advancing Justice/AAJC has been able to increase the number of bystander training sessions to combat anti-AAPI hate, which it leads with the nonprofit Hollaback! In 2021, the groups led online training for about 100,000 people, up from the 25,000 in 2020.
During the hourlong sessions, participants learn approaches they can use to respond if they see someone encountering verbal or physical harassment. That might include shouting, “Hey, that’s racist. Stop that!” or offering to walk the victim to a safer place or even dropping keys between the aggressor and the victim to create a distraction and de-escalate the situation.
“In this moment when people were looking for things to do, ways to reduce the level of violence and tension,” the training empowers people with ways to respond, says Yang.
The Chinese American Service League, a 43-year-old group that has provided support to families in the heart of Chicago’s Chinatown and beyond, began to offer training last year. The group is one of three community-based nonprofits the Asian American Foundation designated as an AAPI Action Center, granting each $500,000 to curb anti-Asian hate, increase safety, and help create a sense of belonging.
The Chicago group provides other programs, including bilingual child care, low-cost housing for older people, and training for culinary jobs. It has a $25 million budget and 600 staff members.
The grant allowed the group to hire two new staff members focused on anti-hate crime and to bolster its services to support hate-crime victims, including mental-health support, legal aid, and translation services. The group is establishing a local hate-crime hotline and an online reporting system. And it is in regular contact with the other action centers — the Asian American Federation, in New York, and Asian Health Services, in Oakland, Calif. — to share resources and learn from each other.
“Sharing our experiences, struggles, and opportunities with each other has helped us to feel like we are not alone in the work,” says Paul Luu, the Chicago group’s CEO.
The Sikh Coalition, founded in the wake of September 11, 2001, when there was a rise in violence and discrimination aimed at members of the religious group, is also part of the Anti-Hate National Network. The coalition has shared what it’s learned over the years about responding to hate incidents.
“It’s really unfortunate that history continues to repeat itself,"says Satjeet Kaur, executive director of the Sikh Coalition.
While each situation is unique, the goal is to provide a framework for how to respond, Kaur says. For example, it’s important to gather information quickly and make sure that those who were directly harmed get the support and resources they need. Any public response should focus on the resolutions that those individuals want.
“We’re learning from one another and building on one another instead of working in isolation,” Kaur says. “There’s always a lot more to do, and many of our plans are much larger than the resources that we internally have.”
Norman Chen, who joined Asian American Foundation as CEO late last year, hopes the foundation can continue to help other organizations and advocates. Chen replaced nonprofit and policy veteran Sonal Shah, the foundation’s founding president, who was recently appointed chief commissioner of the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders.
“We really want to uplift the great work that many AAPI organizations have been doing for decades,” Chen says.
Education as an Antidote
The foundation started after a group of prominent business and nonprofit executives had been discussing issues facing Asian Americans. Board members — including Alibaba Group co-founder Joe Tsai, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang, and Care.com founder Sheila Lirio Marcelo — personally pledged a total of $125 million over the next five years to get the foundation started.
As the foundation moves toward its first full year of operation, it is planning to work with organizations that participated in its AAPI Giving pledge to help them direct their commitments to groups providing direct aid.
The foundation declined to answer questions about its operating budget and fundraising, as it is in the process of putting together financial reporting on its expenditures. Aside from the $1.5 million that went to the three AAPI Action Centers, the foundation declined to disclose the size of its other grants. A spokeswoman said the foundation will share more details on individual grants in the future.
The organization is increasing the size of its staff to as many as 35 people in the next six months. And Chen says it will devote more of its grant dollars to call attention to the roles Asian Americans play in American life and culture.
Already it has supported organizations and projects that develop educational curricula that includes Asian American experiences. For example, the foundation supported Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Chicago to carry out an Illinois law that mandates teaching Asian American history in public schools starting in the fall.
New Jersey passed a similar law in January, and Chen says the foundation plans to help the state there as well.
“We think the greatest antidote against hate is education,” Chen says.
The Asian American Foundation is not the only donor that has increased support for AAPI-led nonprofits in the past year. Several established grant makers have announced large commitments.
In April, the California Endowment pledged $100 million over 10 years to nonprofits led by Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, doubling its previous commitment. And in February, the Open Society Foundations announced a five-year, $40 million commitment to AAPI-led organizations.
Whether that support will continue to grow is an open question, says Eng, of Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy, who serves on the foundation’s advisory council. “When public attention then fades, then the outpouring of financial support also fades.”
But in less than a year, the foundation has created more visibility for the needs of Asian Americans, leaders say.
“The kind of attention that they’re garnering, the community has never had before,” Eng says. “That is a very powerful accomplishment and achievement in this short amount of time.”
Reporting for this article was underwritten by a Lilly Endowment grant to enhance public understanding of philanthropy. See more about the grant and our gift-acceptance policy.
