​​ advancing progressive ideas and actions

• 2017 – 2019 - Kyam Livingston Memorial Scholarship Fund For Social Justice
  An LRF Supported Program to honor the memory of Kyam Livingston who died in police custody in Brooklyn while pleading for hours for medical assistance. The scholarship is awarded each year to aid graduates of the Brooklyn Middle School that Kyam attended.
  

Leaders

Len Ragozin, 92, died peacefully in Ver­mont the evening of May 13, 2021. The eldest child of Sarra and Harry Ragozin, Len lived most of his life in Manhattan. He was frugal and devoted much of his efforts and the profits of the business he founded, The Ragozin Sheets, to anti-racist, pro-worker causes. Len attended City & Country, a ground-breaking, progressive elementary school in Manhattan's Green­wich Village, and provided a life-saving mortgage in the 1970s when it faced financial difficulties. He also attended The Horace Mann Lincoln School and Harvard Universi­ty. In the pre-computer era, Len developed the algor­ithms that became The Ra­gozin Sheets, the outstanding individual thoroughbred horse performance records used by racing's major own­ers, trainers and handicap­pers. He described that ex­perience and his methods of handicapping in a book: "The Odds Must Be Crazy.” When the now computerized com­pany producing The Ragozin Sheets was sold, Len donated most of the sale proceeds to found the Len Ragozin Foun­dation, which provides sup­port to groups and individuals working on innovative ways to put progressive ideas into practice.
Donations from friends and comrades who remember Len and share his ideals are welcome at the Len Ragozin Foundation. Click here to donate. 

SOME OF OUR PROGRAMS:

The current national, and international, explosion of anger and protest against the continual murder of Black men and women by the police is a reflection of corporate need to use racism to control, exploit and divide people. The same corporations that closed hospital beds because they are not profitable leading to the crisis in care during this pandemic rely on the police to protect their property, not workers or communities
Remember George Floyd – Brionna Taylor – Ahmaud Arbery!!
Before that –Eric Garner – Michael Brown – Shantel Davis!!
The names too many to list, the pain and fight back intense.
The Len Ragozin Foundation proudly stands with this movement.
The Foundation has focused its mission from its inception on the battle against racism and
the commitment to build a truly multi-racial world.

• 2014 - Justice for Michael Brown
  We provided a Grant sending dozens of college students and professors to Ferguson, MO in solidarity with the protests there against the racist shooting of Michael Brown.
  

• 2014 – 2020 – Hoops For Justice
  An LRF Supported Program in memory of Shantel Davis and Kimani Grey, two young Black people murdered by the NYPD in Brooklyn in two separate shootings. We support an annual basketball tournament in the Brooklyn community where they died aimed at building solidarity and resistance among young people.
  

Culture

The struggle is far from finished and neither are we.
We urge you to donate now as we continue to support the fight against racism and police brutality.

• 2016 Justice For Dykim Brown Project
  An LRF Supported Program that raised money for the defense of Dykim Brown, a young black man in Virginia falsely charged with first-degree murder. With the efforts of many, the charges were dismissed.
  

Progressive Ideas in Practice

We seek to provide support for groups working on new, innovative ways to put progressive ideas into practice. Groups working on topics from education to immigration are challenged to create thoughtful, practical ways to bring about meaningful change in a measurable way in the real world.

   We are fully aware that any single attempt to put ideas into practice may not result in measurable change on a large scale. We are interested in the organized attempt and the originality of the approach. We are committed to the process of experimentation while being patient with the measurement of outcomes. The interaction of ideas with efforts at implementation is a protracted one that we believe will enrich the experience of the groups involved.

Educate

As our office is still closed and we are working remotely, we are unable to pick up checks. Please use bank to bank transfers via Zelle. It is free. Nearly all banks link to Zelle.Click here for some hints on using Zelle and more information.