What’s Inspiring Our Team for 2024
As we look to the coming year, we are committed to celebrating progress and inspiring hope, especially during complex and challenging times.
This was our intention as we returned from the winter holidays and asked our team to reflect on 2023 and share the breakthroughs that are putting wind in their sails for 2024. As expected, the responses were uplifting.
Here are just some of the momentous wins this past year that our social impact and philanthropy partners contributed to:
- Indigenous groups are winning land back efforts. Returning ancestral lands to Indigenous stewardship is becoming more common and successful. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Indigenous-led organizations secured 43 acres in the East Bay hills for the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust to help revitalize and rebuild Ohlone culture.
- All California students in public district and charter schools will receive arts education. In 2023, California began rolling out funding for Proposition 28: The Arts and Music in Schools–Funding Guarantee and Accountability Act. This historic legislation will provide $800M-$1B a year in annual funding for state arts education programs.
- Momentum for a safer future with less gun violence. Americans’ ongoing support for stricter gun safety laws and years of dedicated effort are working, as the extremist National Rifle Association has lost members, revenue, power, and influence, creating optimism for a future with less violence.
- Instigators of the “Big Lie” are being held accountable for threats to our democracy. There has been significant progress towards upholding the rule of law through criminal and civil proceedings against those who assisted efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
- Record progress to address our climate crisis. Despite being the hottest year on record, 2023 also saw historic levels of solar and electric vehicle purchases, significant reductions in Amazon deforestation, and victories in U.S. courts and international policy that indicate a promising shift toward sustainability.
These were more than small wins in a tumultuous year. They represent critical steps on the path to a more just and equitable world. 2024 will bring its own difficulties as American democracy faces its greatest hurdles yet. But last year’s successes give us confidence that civil society can again play a key role in advancing the causes so many of us care about.
At Hirsch Philanthropy Partners and Third Plateau, we are also drawing motivation as we begin our first full year as a merged firm, offering philanthropists, nonprofits, and the public sector even more robust services and expertise to accelerate lasting solutions to our most complex challenges.
Here’s to more hopeful and inspiring milestones in 2024.