Allyn Brooks-LaSure

If Venus Williams, a world-renowned athlete with an incredible career, is worried about health insurance, imagine how all the people struggling to make ends meet feel, especially after the administration gutted Medicaid.

www.newsweek.com/venus-willia...

RWJF has long stood with other individual and institutional funders in supporting public broadcasting. That support will not change. In addition to our resources, we all must also raise our voices to denounce these punitive cuts and proclaim the value of public broadcasting to our society.

These same communities, particularly in rural areas that rely heavily on CPB-supported stations, will feel the brunt of this loss. In some cases, these areas disproportionately represent the very regions that this administration claims to champion.

In the process, they are also pulling the plug on valued community news sources that broadcast critically important evacuation orders, offer ground-breaking educational programs, and produce impartial news that showcases how American communities are thriving together.

This action follows recent Administration cuts to everything from food security to Medicaid to our public health and research institutions. With this track record, it’s clear what the Administration is doing to America’s highest ideals and trusted institutions: stripping them for parts.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting says it's shutting down The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funnels federal money to public media stations, says it's winding down operations after President Trump signed a law rescinding all funding.

Congress and the Trump administration have once again abandoned the American people. Their decision to slash CPB’s funding will leave American communities less informed, less engaged, less connected, and less safe. It definitely won’t make us great.

www.npr.org/2025/08/01/n...

Black Reproductive Justice Policy Agenda - In Our Own Voice

Data on the dire state of maternal health in the U.S. is not enough. People need solutions.

Thankfully, in Our Own Voice put together a policy agenda for Black Reproductive Justice that points to a path forward.

Please share this with your circle.

blackrj.org/blackrjpolic...

This is a fascinating look into how far SNAP dollars get people depending on where they live in the U.S.

Spoiler alert - they don’t get people far enough, and this gap will only get worse with the looming SNAP cuts.

Americans are hitting our limit watching profit be prioritized over people. Our health system hasn’t worked well for a long time, and now we’ve watched it be stripped for parts to pad the one percent’s pockets.

Healthcare is not a luxury; it should be a right. Our system needs to recognize that.

My take on Public Media and Public Health. @contrariannews.org

Thank you to The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and The Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State for your support that enabled two of us from The Jersey Vindicator team to attend the annual Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in New Orleans. We learned so much this week!

KFF bar chart titled “Across partisanship, half or fewer are confident in government health agencies to carry out key responsibilities.” The chart shows the percent of total adults, Democrats, Independents and Republicans who say they currently have a lot or some confidence in federal government health agencies like the CDC and FDA to ensure the safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs sold in the U.S.; ensure the safety and effectiveness of vaccines approved for use in the U.S.; respond to outbreaks of infectious diseases like measles and bird flu; act independently, without interference from outside interests.

Less than half the public has confidence in federal health agencies to carry out some of their core functions, such as ensuring the safety of drugs and vaccines and responding to infectious disease outbreaks.

Our new poll has the details: on.kff.org/3Z2MaRG

Kasey Cordell is featured as a ComNet25 Denver Host Committee member. The image includes her smiling outdoor portrait, the LOR Foundation logo, and ComNet25 branding with leafy, nature-inspired accents at the bottom.

Thank you to @kcnmi.bsky.social, Communications Officer at LOR Foundation, for helping guide the program and making ComNet25 Denver extra special! We are grateful for your partnership and collaboration.

Learn more and register for #ComNet25 here: www.comnet25.org/what-to-expe...

#Philanthropy

While today may be their day, every person and institution has an assigned seat on this bus trip to dictatorship. If we don’t speak out now – if we don’t speak out together – who knows where we’ll be 100 days from now.

As you wait, our neighbors are being outed, outlawed, and even outcast. All while you wait.

As you wait, keys that once unlocked the doors of opportunity in America are not working anymore – because the Administration is furiously changing the locks. As you wait, in the pursuit of reliving a past that never was, officials are putting the nation on a course for a future that should never be

There is no salvation in silence, no honor in hiding, no redemption in running, and no nobility in numbing ourselves to the pain all around us.

To institutions that are keeping a “low profile” to see how the “dust settles,” do not wait too long to be outraged by what you see….

While today may be their day, every person and institution has an assigned seat on this bus trip to dictatorship. If we don’t speak out now – if we don’t speak out together – who knows where we’ll be 100 days from now.

These are our family members, friends, customers, students, business partners, employees, and other people we care for. All in peril. All while you wait.

As you wait, in the pursuit of reliving a past that never was, officials are putting the nation on a course for a future that should never be. As you wait, our neighbors are being outed, outlawed, and even outcast.

To institutions that are keeping a “low profile” to see how the “dust settles,” do not wait too long to be outraged by what you see. As you wait, keys that once unlocked the doors of opportunity in America are not working anymore – because the Administration is furiously changing the locks.

Know this: There is no salvation in silence, no honor in hiding, no redemption in running, and no nobility in numbing ourselves to the pain all around us.

Yet, in this Census of Courage, the count is exceptionally low. As ripe as this moment is, there is so much silence. Especially from esteemed leaders and institutions with power and resources.

It is especially time for institutions with wealth, prestige, power, and stability to speak out. We must all be counted in this census. The time is now.

There is a census underway right now, but not the official ten-year census. It is a Census of Courage. It is a time when we must all speak the truth – repeatedly, frequently, and particularly when it is not welcomed.

This is just the first 100 days. This list will grow much longer unless we speak out now -- together.

(It also makes one wonder why someone must deny my people’s history and achievements for them to feel “great?”)

And the Great Racial Erasure of 2025 persists, with focused and comprehensive efforts to bleach the Black history out of America. A craven act that, for Black Americans, has the intended effect of clouding our past, muddying our present, and darkening our future.

And here we are… Websites: scrubbed. Civil Rights laws: perverted. Leaders with impeccable credentials: sidelined. Policies to ensure all communities enjoy generational health: scuttled. Honest reflections on history: torched.

These same actors have set us on a course to where the grittier facts of America’s epic and enduring struggle to live up to its highest ideals, will not be candidly recognized or even respectfully eulogized, but will be callously anesthetized then quietly euthanized.