Before RG launched its Giving Pledge and Guidelines in the fall of 2018, we had never made a bold, concrete ask to our members about how much to be giving to social justice movements. And, apart from our every-few-years resource survey, we didn’t have an accurate way of tracking how much our base was moving…
Content warning (CW): Anti-Asian American violence, racism, sexism Yong A. Yue Suncha Kim Hyun Jung Grant Soon C. Park Delaina Ashley Yaun Paul Andre Michels Xiaojie Tan Daoyou Feng I look into their names and faces and see echoes of my own, and of my mom, aunts, cousins, grandmother, friends, and beloveds. It has been…
By: Emily Duma (RG Board Member) and Taij Kumarie Moteelall (Media Sutra) At a Resource Generation National Membership Council meeting in 2018, we found ourselves in the midst of a generative conflict that planted the seeds for our cross-class and cross-race partnership. Council members and staff formed a human barometer in response to the question:…
A note from RG’s Board Co-Chairs, Allison Johnson Heist and Emily Duma: 2021 brings both uncertainty and possibility for our movements, our politics, and our world. What we are certain of is that the work of Resource Generation remains relevant and necessary: to mobilize young people with access to wealth and class privilege to become…
Now is the time to get involved with and fund poor and working-class led organizations doing year-round social justice work and focus on building power with communities who hold our elected officials accountable. Strong poor and working-class led organizations and communities are critical not just to beat back the worst threats but to challenge the…
A note from RG’s board co-chairs: We are writing to inform you that, following an exceptional tenure, Iimay Ho will be leaving the role of Executive Director of Resource Generation in summer of 2021. We are grateful for Iimay’s thoughtfulness in giving the organization plenty of time to plan and implement the hiring process for…
I spent most of last weekend in a puddle of sadness and overwhelm. Nothing was okay. Nothing I did mattered. Ominous Election Day countdown emails crowded my inbox (26 days until the apocalypse!). I had a meltdown about accidentally buying chicken sausage instead of pork sausage (true story). Does this sound familiar to you? Perhaps…
Last month, we received a call to action from four Black-led southern organizations that have anchored powerful freedom work for decades: The Highlander Center, Southerners on New Ground, Project South, and Alternate Roots. They asked foundations, donor networks, and funders across the country to move $10 million to a new Southern Power Fund by August…
*This blog post’s title is from Mary Hooks and the Mandate for Black People in This Time Hello, everyone! I’d like to extend a warm welcome to everyone who has subscribed to this newsletter or joined Resource Generation as a new member in the last couple of weeks. Not only have we’ve noticed an influx of…
As people with class privilege, who were born into, adopted into, hired into, or partnered into class privilege, we are in the uncomfortable position of knowing that our access to wealth is part of what this racist, police violence is trying to protect. Resource Generation condemns the anti-Black violence embedded throughout police forces and white supremacy…
We hold the liberation of Black and Indigenous people as central to the liberation of all people. We know that attempted genocide and chattel slavery created the initial foundation for massive wealth disparity in the U.S. and that the continued exploitation and criminalization of those communities upholds the racial wealth divide. We believe that well-resourced Black and Native Left organizing is a critical part of how we all get more free.
We believe social justice movements need to be led by communities most directly impacted by injustice. As young people with access to wealth, we choose to undermine the pattern of funders dictating the work and instead choose to follow the leadership of transformative social justice movements and communities, led by people who are: poor, working-class, Black, Indigenous, of color, women, disabled, queer and trans.
We work towards eradicating classism and towards wholeness. We believe that all classes and communities are interconnected and interdependent and that classism has been used to wedge and divide us. We know that much is lost communally in the name of wealth accumulation and that people with wealth have a lot to gain from returning wealth to the collective and transforming our economy. We know that the current economic system is untenable, and we work to build a solidarity economy.
We believe that people ages 18–35, with wealth and class privilege, are at a pivotal stage in life to make a lifelong commitment to social movements. Youth movements and organizing are, and have been bold and visionary. We are building on the legacy of those who came before us, and we are working for a better world for those who will come after. Young people with access to wealth and class privilege need to be organized as protagonists—actively engaging in and seeking out ways that leverage and redistribute our access to power and resources within our control, and redirect resources and power within the networks and institutions we are connected to. We are committed to resisting ageist norms of people acquiring power and holding on to it and constantly doing leadership development to bring about new leadership.
We believe personal and structural change are deeply connected, and every person has the ability to heal and grow. We are committed to working towards transforming ourselves, our organizations, our communities, and society as a whole through our work. We bring our full selves, our experiences, our stake, and our strategic thinking to build cross-class relationships in working for a just and livable world.
We believe in collective and individual growth, groundedness and interdependence. We know that tensions will arise, and we will approach these with curiosity on behalf of our personal and collective wants. We will work to see tensions as generative rather than destructive and finite. We welcome principled disagreement and will strive to keep conflict generative in service of our broader goals and mission.
We believe in the power of collaboration across class, race, and movements. We know that our vision depends on our relationships with communities, organizations and people across our movement ecosystem, with whom we share similarities and differences. Through our organizing work we also seek ways to invite our families, communities, and other people with access to wealth to this work.
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