Statement on moving the Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Enterprise Summit from North Carolina

As part of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s (WKKF) Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation enterprise, we recently invited partners and organizations to a Summit to be held in Asheville, North Carolina in August 2016.

Since then, with the state’s recent passage of an anti-LGBT law, we issued a statement emphasizing our disappointment with North Carolina’s failure to protect all human rights. As a result, we are cancelling this four-day conference which would have brought over 500 people to North Carolina and generated millions of dollars in economic activity for the state’s local economy. The event will now be held in December and in a different state. We will provide additional details about the Summit at a later date. 

Furthermore, in accordance to our institutional policies and practices, future WKKF-hosted conferences will only be held in communities where policies and practices are inclusive and protections against discrimination are upheld for all people. That said, as it relates to our named places (Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico and New Orleans), we will continue our work on behalf of children and families in these locations, but will follow that aforementioned policy and practice as it relates to the hosting of external (non-named place related) meetings.

Policies that deny any member of a community equal rights under the law do not reflect the values of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. These actions are counter to our belief that all children deserve to live in families where they and their parents have equal rights and opportunities to thrive.